Short: Amiga Monitor from 1989 (w/ PatchTrace) Author: Timo Rossi (RIP) Uploader: aminet aminet net Type: dev/moni Version: 1.07 Architecture: m68k-amigaos Amiga Monitor 1.07 instructions =============================== The monitor can be started both from CLI and from workbench. If you want to start the monitor from workbench, you must first make an icon for it. (starting the monitor from workbench is not recommended, because the programs that are run under the control of the monitor may require the CLI environment or else they may wait for workbench startup message forever...) Input line editing and command line history: -------------------------------------------- You can edit the input lines by using the left/right cursor keys to move left and right, backspace to delete the character before the cursor and del to delete the character under the cursor. You can use the up/down cursor keys to get the old command lines (the monitor remembers 10 last command lines). Shift-cursor-up gets the last command and enters it automatically (you need not to press ). In assembler mode you can press Ctrl-E to edit the assembler instruction currently stored in that address. Stopping the output: -------------------- In most cases the output of the monitor can be suspended by pressing SPACE and continued by pressing SPACE again. To permanently stop the output, press Ctrl-C. Numbers: -------- Hexadecimal numbers can include the '$'-prefix but it is not necessary when the numbers are positive (or unsigned). Negative hex numbers must include the '$'-prefix, for example -$12A3. Positive decimal number must have the '+'-sign, for example +17051. Numbers can also be represented as ASCII-strings with max. 4 characters, for example 'HELP' is $48454C50 hex and 'PC' is $00005043 hex. Note: It is necessary to include the '$' prefix to posivive hex numbers beginning with 'A' or 'D' in some assembler instructions, because otherwise they could be interpreted as register names. Strings: -------- Strings are used in the fill command, the hunt command, the modify memory command and the assembler directive dc.b . Strings are series of bytes, represented by numbers or ASCII-characters in single quotes or both together separated by commas. Note: the single quote itself may be included in a quoted string if it is duplicated. examples: 'this is a string' 12,34,56 '''' -- this means one single quote 'both',0A,'text',+10,'and','numbers' New features and bug fixes in version 1.07: ------------------------------------------- - The disassembler and assembler handle exg Dn,An correctly (previously the data and address register numbers were reversed) - The disassembler no more displays any invalid codes as valid instructions (On the 68000 processor, of course. The monitor does currently not support 68010/68020 extra instructions). - The pc-relative indexed addressing mode now works with the assembler. - Some little bugs were fixed in the assembler. + And/or-instructions work with a pc-relative source operand. + cmpm works with all sizes + most(if not all...) of the bugs that caused the assembler to assembler invalid instructions have been fixed. - 'sp' can be used instead of 'a7' in the assembler and the disassmbler displays a7 as 'sp'. - The assembler now unserstands blo/bhs, slo/shs and dblo/sbhs and assembles them as bcs/bcc, scs/scc and dbcs/dbcc - The disassembler displays address-register relative offsets and short absolute addresses as signed numbers. - The monitor works now better with 60-column mode. - Disk read/write commands can be used with non-chip memory - Play digisound command has an optional parameter to specify how many times the sample is played. - A new command has been added to specify a command line for programs executed under the control of the monitor. - Breakpoints work even if you jump into the code at to breakpoint. The breakpoint does not activate until the instruction at the break position is executed, so you don't get immediately interrupted. (internally the monitor uses the trace-exception to skip the breakpoint at the first time...) Special Note: ------------- There is a problem with the walk (trace) command and several instructions that cause processor exceptions. These instructions are chk, trap #n, trapv and divu/divs (with divisions by zero). If you try to trace these instructions, a trace-exception occurs in supervisor-mode, out of the monitors control and you get a guru meditation alert with number 00000009. This problem was with the earlier monitor versions as well. In the new version it can also also occur if you jump to the code at a breakpoint address, as the monitor internally traces over the breakpoint. Included with the monitor is a program called patchtrace that changes directly the processor hardware trace-exception vector to point a new routine that removes the trap-trace problem. The following commands are available in the monitor: ---------------------------------------------------- ? or the HELP key on the keyboard displays a help screen. i -- info displays info-message o -- redirect output usage: o name -- redirects monitor output to file or device 'name' o -- returns to normal, output comes to the monitor window for example, to send the output to printer use 'o PRT:'. m -- display memory in hex and ASCII usage: m -- display 20 lines from current address m -- display 20 lines from m -- display from to : -- modify memory usage: : puts the in memory at this can also be done with the command 'a dc.b ' f -- fill memory with a byte or a string of bytes usage: f ;fills with f ;fills with the string example: f 60000 601FF 4E,71 fills from $60000 to $601FF with NOP-instruction t -- transfer (move) memory usage: t the command works correctly even if the source and destination memory blocks overlap. (if destination is at a higher address than source, the block is moved backwards, starting at the end) h -- hunt (find) string in memory usage: h displays all addresses in the range .. where the is found. c -- compare memory usage: c displays all addresses in the range .. where is corresponding byte in the destination block is different from the source. a -- assemble usage: a : assemble to the current address a : assemble to a : assemble at After assembling an instruction the monitor prompts with the address of the location following the instruction just assembled and waits a new instruction to be entered. To exit this mode, simply press without entering an instruction. To edit an existing instruction, press Ctrl-E when the monitor is waiting an assembler instruction. The assembler understands all the normal 68000 instructions and also the 'pseudo-instructions' dc.b, dc.w and dc.l, which can be used to directly put data in memory. Some notes about using the assembler: ------------------------------------- When entering assembler instructions which have an implicit size, no size specifier is allowed in the monitor assembler. These instructions are for example btst, bchg, bclr, btst, lea, move to/from sr/ccr/usp, andi/ori/eori #data,sr/ccr Scc (set according to condition), abcd/sbcd/nbcd and shifts with memory operands. Instructions that can have different sizes must have the size specifier, there is no 'default size' (normal assemblers use a default size of word. the omission of default size is intentional, because it is so easy to forget the size specifier when you really don't mean the size to be word). Branch instructions with no size specifier or the .l-specifier assemble to normal (16-bit offset) branches, if given the .s-size specifier they assemble to the short form (8-bit offset). The dbxx-(decrement and branch) -instructions allows no size specifier. The assembler converts add/sub/and/or/eor with immediate data source automatically to adda/addi/subi/andi/eori. It does not convert move or add/sub to the quick form nor does it convert branches automatically to the short form. You must specify those yourself (so you must use the moveq/addq/subq- instructions or specify the size .s to branches as noted above). Also cmp-memory instruction must be entered as cmpm, the assembler does not convert cmp (an)+,(an)+ to cmpm. The above conversion rules do not apply to andi/ori/eori with status register or condition code register. In these cases you must enter the instruction as andi/ori/eori (don't leave the 'i' out). Also, you can't enter any size specifier in this case. d -- disassemble usage: d -- disassemble 20 lines from current address d -- disassemble 20 lines from d -- disassemble from to r -- show or change registers usage: r -- displays all registers r = or r -- puts the value into examples: r D0=0 r A5 $60000 b -- set breakpoints usage: b -- sets a breakpoint to Breakpoints are implemented by putting an illegal opcode ($4AFC) in the breakpoint locations when a G or J command is given. After returning to the monitor the original contents of the breakpoints are restored. This means that you can not put breakpoints to ROM (but you can trace ROM code). br -- remove breakpoints usage: br -- removes the breakpoint at br all -- removes all breakpoints bl -- list breakpoints usage: bl -- display a list of all breakpoints g [addr] -- go (execute machine code) j [addr] -- jump to subroutine w [addr] -- walk (single step trace) the g, j and w-commands use the current program counter value (displayed with the r-command) if you don't give them an address. note: there is no easy way to run BCPL programs (CLI commands) or other programs that use the internal BCPL library from the monitor. @ -- enter command line usage: @ [command line]. If you don't specify a command line (enter only @) then the monitor will prompt for command line. the command line will be put in a special memory area and the register a0 will contain pointer to the string and d0 will contain length of the string (with a linefeed appended to end of it). The purpose of this command is to specify a command line for the program that you are running from the monitor. l -- load segment usage: l -- loads the executable file in memory and displays the starting address of the first hunk, also sets PC to this address. only one segment can be loaded at the same time. Before loading a new segment you must unload the old segment with the u-command. To display the starting & ending addresses of all the hunks in the file, use the sl-command. u -- unload segment usage: u -- unload the current segments (frees the memory of that segment) sl -- segment list usage: sl -- displays the starting & ending addresses and length of each hunk of the currently loaded file. n -- number base conversion usage: n -- displays the in hex, decimal, octal and binary. If the number is negative, displays it as signed and unsigned. ( -- allocate memory usage: ( -- allocate bytes any type of memory ( 'CHIP' -- allocate bytes of chip memory Displays the start & end addresses of the allocated memory block. & -- allocate absolute memory location usage: & -- allocate bytes at ) -- free memory usage: ) -- frees the memory block starting at ) all -- frees all the memory allocated with the (- and &-commands sm -- show allocated memory usage: sm -- display all memory blocks allocated with the (- and &-commands [ -- read file usage: [ -- reads the file to memory starting at ] -- write file usage: ] -- creates a file named and writes bytes of memory starting at to the file. < -- read disk sectors usage: < Reads sectors from the disk in unit to memory starting at . is a number between 0..3, corresponding the DOS devices DF0: -- DF3: In this version the read destination address does not need to be in chip memory. > -- write disk sectors usage: > Writes sectors to the disk in unit from memory starting at . is a number between 0..3, corresponding the DOS devices DF0: -- DF3: In this version the write source address does not need to be in chip memory. = -- corrects a disk block checksum usage: = -- if there is a DOS-format disk block read into memory at , calculates the correct checksum for the block and stores it in the block. Displays old and new checksums. This command is useful if use use the monitor as a disk editor. # -- corrects bootblock checksum usage: # -- if there is a disk bootblock (2 disk blocks, 1024 bytes) read into memory at , calculates a new checksum for the bootblock and stores it in the bootblock. Displays old and new checksums. ! -- play digisound usage: ! [] Plays sound bytes starting at and using sampling period . the sound repeats times or until you stop it by pressing Ctrl-C. must be in CHIP memory!. cls -- clears the monitor window del -- deletes a file cd -- sets the current directory dir [] -- displays the directory -- new CLI Opens a new CLI window. This CLI is a separate process, so you can continue to use the monitor when the CLI window is there. Also the CLI window does not close automatically when you exit the monitor. You must close it with the CLI command EndCLI. In fact the monitor uses the NewCLI command to open the new CLI window. x -- exit frees all memory allocated by the monitor, closes redirection file (if open) and exits the monitor. version 1.07 of the monitor (and this document) by Timo Rossi 1989-08-28 * Note from John van Dijk (Who put this in Public Domain) I would like to thank Timo for hearing my critisism and removing the bugs I found in a record time, it proves that feedback to the programmer can be very helpful for both the user and the programmer to make a better product. The reason why I like this monitor so much is it's size, the complete multitasking (by using a seperate window) and the vast number of handy options. Timo asked me to make sure that the PATCHTRACE program was included too. And for installing ROSSIMON V1.07 on your disk is a ZOO file also available. Have 'fun' with your debugging.