loadwb -debug

[TroyWilkins]

I'm sure at least some of you know about this, if instead of the loadwb command at the end of your s:startup-sequence, you change it to the following:

loadwb -debug

Your workbench menus will gain another menu title, with a couple of menu items that may be useful if you know how to use them.

I knew of this back in the day, so to speak, and had only ever seen it with Kickstart 3.0 (v39.29) and Workbench 3.0, as that's what I had on my A1200HD/40. This is under Kickstart 3.1 and Workbench 3.0, but I doubt it's any different:



I was curious as to how far back this feature existed, and so tried it with Kickstart 1.3 (v34.5) and Workbench 1.3.3 (v34.34), and it worked. So I thought I'd go further back in time, all the way back to Kickstart 1.0 and Workbench 1.0, and see if it worked there, and sure enough, it did. However, this was the most interesting find, well, I thought anyway:


It has some items that didn't appear when I tried this under 1.3 or later, as shown below.



I believe all these items are for debug purposes over a serial port (9600bps 8n1), as recently noted in the "Amiga questions you've always been too embarrassed to ask" topic here.

Anyway, I thought this was an interesting find that people may not know about...

[idrougge]

Yes, that's how you start RomWack without waiting for a guru.

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Yes, that's how you start RomWack without waiting for a guru.

Indeed, but the extra items under the initial versions of kickstart and workbench I found to be interesting.

[idrougge]

Especially the 1.0/1.1 items. What does "show variables" do?

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Especially the 1.0/1.1 items. What does "show variables" do?

No idea. I want to work out if there is a way I can connect a terminal to WinUAE or another emulator in order to explore this more.

[Locutus]

WinUAE has a serial port emulation that binds to a tcp socket, this is very handy.

Essentially you start WinUAE and it will wait till you telnet to port 1234, after that all serial in/output goes over that port.

Its really handy to get debug outputs, such as these.

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by Locutus

WinUAE has a serial port emulation that binds to a tcp socket, this is very handy.

Essentially you start WinUAE and it will wait till you telnet to port 1234, after that all serial in/output goes over that port.

Its really handy to get debug outputs, such as these.

Oh wow, perfect, thank you! *Starts up WinUAE*

[Jope]

flushlibs is actually handy, it frees you a bit of mem by deallocating ram resident libraries, which have an open count of 0.

You can also say avail flush in a cli to perform the same task.

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Especially the 1.0/1.1 items. What does "show variables" do?

"Debug" gives this:


"variables" gives this:


"wblist" gives this:


"vollist" gives this:

[matthey]

Originally Posted by Jope

flushlibs is actually handy, it frees you a bit of mem by deallocating ram resident libraries, which have an open count of 0.

You can also say avail flush in a cli to perform the same task.

The libs with an open count of 0 will be flushed automatically during a low memory situation so there is usually no need to do it manually. Some flushed libs will have to be loaded again which will make the system slower and fragment memory. There are a few times when flushing the libs is useful like when changing to a new library version, checking if all memory is returned by a program, perhaps flushing libs before a program (or game) turns off multitasking, etc.

@TroyWilkins
Neat but nothing unexpected .

[Jope]

Originally Posted by matthey

The libs with an open count of 0 will be flushed automatically during a low memory situation so there is usually no need to do it manually.

Ok, I was remembering that sometimes you can't load object modules from the shell before flushing. I'll try it some day, I believe you. :-)

[meynaf]

IIRC option -debug of loadwb may also change the "About" popup on some versions (3.1 ?).

Originally Posted by matthey

The libs with an open count of 0 will be flushed automatically during a low memory situation so there is usually no need to do it manually.

Not so easy : it may be that one lib has opened another, so after the flush you end up with libs that have open count of zero but have not been flushed (a likely situation with MUI, for example).

[matthey]

Originally Posted by meynaf

Not so easy : it may be that one lib has opened another, so after the flush you end up with libs that have open count of zero but have not been flushed (a likely situation with MUI, for example).

Isn't that what the LIBF_DELEXP bit is for? My vague memory is that it is set when expunging a library with an open count greater than 0 and then the library should expunge itself when the open count reaches 0.

[Amiga1992]

You learn a new thing every day, over 2 decades with an Amiga, and I never knew this! Thanks!

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by matthey

Isn't that what the LIBF_DELEXP bit is for? My vague memory is that it is set when expunging a library with an open count greater than 0 and then the library should expunge itself when the open count reaches 0.

The only thing i can tell is that i've seen libraries go away only after several flushes.

[LocalH]

Anybody ever try this with prototype versions of AmigaDOS (like 1.4a15 or 1.4b1, or others that may be out there in private hands)? Just wondering if it behaved any differently, especially in the oddball 1.4a15.

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by LocalH

Anybody ever try this with prototype versions of AmigaDOS (like 1.4a15 or 1.4b1, or others that may be out there in private hands)? Just wondering if it behaved any differently, especially in the oddball 1.4a15.

No, but good idea, I'll try it with the less common versions I have and report back here.

[SuperPlay]

I have just noticed this thread after browsing Grapevine disk mag issue 12.

Article 264 titled 'The Rom-Whack' is worth a peek.

[emufan]

Originally Posted by SuperPlay

I have just noticed this thread after browsing Grapevine disk mag issue 12.

Article 264 titled 'The Rom-Whack' is worth a peek.

here it is:

       T H E   R O M - W A C K


              By Dr Syn


What, I here you asking is the ROM-
Wack when it is at home?  Well the
ROM-Wack is your Amigas built in
debugger.

Well you must have two Amigas or an
Amiga and another computer running
comms software on a Null Modem link.
I use an Amiga to Amiga link up
myself.  I have JR-Comm running on one
machine at 9600 8n1.  On the machine
that has not got the comms software
running type (in the CLI) loadwb
-debug.  This will bring up a new menu
on the Workbench screen.  On the 1.3
this is hidden but on 2.0 it is not.
---------------------------------------
There are 2 options on this screen.
The first one is DEBUG.  This will do
the ROM-Wack for you.  The second is
Flush-Libs which will clear out any
unused libraries lurking in the
system.


You have probably noticed that the
machine that you have selected DEBUG
from has frozen, this IS normal, as
control has been passed to the second
machine.  If you now look at the
machine running the comms software you
should see a list of registers.  Now
here is a list of commands that can be
used.  I found them out by trial and
error as there is no documentation of
this that I have found.  I you find
more commands then why not send them
into Grapevine.

---------------------------------------
 TAB       - Lists registers
 Return key- Display current address
             and registers values
 >         - Forward 16 bytes
 <         - Back 16 bytes
 Backspace - Back 2 bytes
 CTRL D    - Quit Rom Wack
 CTRL I    - Step through commands at
             current address
 CTRL +    - Change value at current
             address and display them

         Type these commands!

 REGS      - List registers
 ALTER     - Alters current location

If you enter a number it will think it
is an address at set that as the
current address.

Hope that is of some use to you all.
----------------------------------------
I think that you can enter ROM-Wack on
a guru but I am not sure.

end.
--------------------------------------------

[nogginthenog]

Anyone ever made a Windows GUI for ROM-Wack or SAD? Could be quite handy.