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Resident - Issue 2 (19xx)(Angelica - SHI).adf
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1993-04-02
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¶3 VIRUS HUNTING IN PRACTICE
¶1Unfortunately all Amiga owners have
gradually noted a diminishing of their
original pleasure , once they have had
the Amiga a while . They bought a
computer, brought it home, turned it
on and realised pretty quickly that a
computer isn't all brightness and
light. We have often heard about
viruses that have caused terrible
damage to public data installations on
the TV and read about them in the
papers, e.g the PC virus Michelangelo;
but new * Amiga owners often forget
that we are a smaller data
installation, and just as vulnerable
as the big data installations. Please
attention ..., it is just not enough
to have a couple of good virus killers
, and imagine that they will cure all
your problems.
¶3COMPUTER VIRUS A GROWING PROBLEM
¶2--------------------------------
¶1I have followed the virus problem for
the past four years and it has
gradually become my hobby to
'research' into various
viruses...believe it or not. I must
be one of the few people in the world
who is pleased to meet a new virus.
(Think at me next time you meet
one....!)
Yes, lots of you will say: "I can
probably manage to 'wave' a new boot
virus, if I find one;" but alas!
today the situation is quite
different. Now.......a new Amiga
virus comes up every week and, even
worse, a lot of them are non-boot
viruses. Thus June 1992 was marked by
no less than 6 of these, together with
7 new boot viruses. In other words,
more viruses in a single month than we
had in the whole three first years the
Amiga came onto the market!
In my view, this development will
become pretty serious if we don't all
do something to stop the spread, that
is to say....it means YOU TOO!
¶3SOME SIMPLE RULES
¶2-----------------
¶1So what can one do? Yes, this time I
won't go into more technical de-
tails, but will just lay down some
ground rules:
¶31¶1. Always keep your disks write
protected. If you need to write on
the discs then turn off the Amiga for
60 seconds so that any possible
viruses which could have sneaked into
the memory will have gone.
¶32¶2. An embarrassing topic, pirate
copies, never swap games and the like
with someone you don't know. Viruses
flourish typically in school yards and
the like amongst children and the
young who only consider the Amiga as a
fun games machine. Learn....... to
say no thank you!
¶33¶1. Once the accident has happened,
don't despair but try to get hold of
one of the newest virus killers which
can often be found on our excellent
Amiga BBS modem bases. I will mention
another possibility later in this
article. Remember NEWER TO USE ...a
virus killer more than 3 months old.
Of cause do old killers not find new
virus!
¶34¶2. If you download programmes by
modem, ask the 'SYS OP' which virus
kil- ler program it uses to ensure
that the files on the base are virus
free and, last but not least, which
version. Not infrequently has the
'SYS OP' been asleep for the past
hour. Avoid bases like that,
especially if you have a hard disk.
¶35¶1. If it so happens that it is a
'friend' who has made the virus, then
go straight to the police, or to me.
Kids like that aren't clever, good
fri- ends but rather something
else....Think of Robert Morris here in
USA, the man behind the RTM virus in
the PC's. The police caught few days
after * he spread his virus and the
court fined him to pay $10.000. I
don't have * any sympathy for him, do
you? * Do you realise that there is a
worldwide reward here in Denmark
$1000? for the names. Please contact
me for more informations!
¶3HARDWARE PROBLEMS
¶2-----------------
¶1Many Amiga Owners, as much the new as
the old Amiga enthusiasts, have a
tendency to 'explain' everything
peculiar that happens to their Amiga
as a virus attack . Viruses can of
course have several underhand effects:
like the disk drive going berserk ,
the picture suddenly appearing upside
down, or your clock suddenly running
backwards. However, the Amiga have
general faults, which is often
confused with virus attack , and it is
therefore understandable , that even
the best virus killers have to give up
on this. The most common fault in
Amiga 500 and 2000 models comes from
the two port circuit 8520 , which is
positioned behind the main printed
circuit where all the sockets are. It
is my view that up to 75% of all
hardware failures lead back to this
touchy circuit which , in certain
cases, can create 'weird' permanent or
intermittent failures , when you use
the printer, mouse, floppy drive or
other external hardware. Both the
internal and external drive can behave
oddly due to a defective 8520 circuit
and the Amiga can, for example, ask
you to insert disk xxx in drive df0,
even if it's already there, or you can
get the message (now and then) : "Not
a dos disk" on a disk which is
otherwise completely fault free .
(Remember it is always a software
failure, when the fault happens every
time on a specific disk.) Not long ago
I was phoned by a desperate Amiga
owner who had "got a new virus" ,
which meant that the mouse froze on
the screen, but the buttons still
worked. A new 8520 circuit soon
cleared up the problem. A good rule
to limit these problems is to screw
all plugs well home and never.....swap
plugs when the Amiga is turned on.
Yesterday I was phoned by a new Amiga
owner, who had buyed a used Amiga, and
400 disks full with pirate games,
everyone infected with viruses. He
told me that "installed" write
protected disk got new viruses very
short time after using. I asked him
to try to copy to a write....protected
disk! The problem was the tiny pin in
his disk drive, which is controlling
the disk protection. A pincers solved
the problem in few seconds.
¶3WHAT THE OPERATIVE SYSTEM IS ALL ABOUT
¶2--------------------------------------
¶1Many people have discovered that, just
below the very userfriendly surface,
the Amiga is not so absolutely simple.
So maybe it is both right, and at the
same time wrong, to call the Amiga a
beginner's computer.
Not less than 256 BB or 512 KB (on OS
2.0) of the operative system is in the
ROM circuit in the machine and a large
part of it is test and control
routines which the user hardly knows
anything about, except in the form of
Guru messages. After thinking it
over, it must be said that Commodore
probably has a good sense of humour,
but anyway I personally could well do
without the Gurus in my machine. One
can quickly feel powerless and,
although salvation is near if you get
hold of the programmes Guru (Fred Fish
no 239) or SnoopDos (Fred Fish 451).
These programmes are widely different
from each other: Guru explains your
guru messages, while SnoopDos
continually gives messages on
everything that is happening in your
machine's operative system. Can this
be better?
¶3THE AMIGA'S SELF TESTING
¶2------------------------
¶1Many people who have just got
themselves an Amiga often have various
problems. If everything on your
computer is shades of grey, then your
Amiga is OK. Why so?
If the machine shows anything other
than a dark grey screen, a paler grey
screen and then a white screen and
afterwards the workbench hand, it has
a fault. So the only thing you can do
is to send it in to be repaired, even
if it has shown other colours for only
for a short period, maybe a second.
Here is a little tip for the dexterous
Amiga user: if your screen stays
green for a shorter or longer period
during start-up it is often due to a
bad connection in the Agnus circuit
socket.
TEST PROCEDURE IS AS FOLLOWS:
¶2- Clear Chips, "forget everything"
¶1- Disable DMA and Interrupts; "stop
everything else"
¶2- Clear the Screen; "white screen"
¶1- Check the Hardware; "is the whole
machine alright?"
¶2- Pass or fail the Hardware to the
Screen; "if yes, show a dark grey
screen"
¶1- Checksum the ROMs; "are the
Kickstart and keyboard circuits
alright?"
¶2- Pass or fail the ROMs to the Screen;
"if no, show a red screen"
¶1- System setup; "configure the machine"
¶2- Check for RAM at $C00000; "is the
chipram in place?"
¶1- Move SYS-BASE to $C00000 if it
exists; "if yes, use it!"
¶2- RAM Test; "if the ram circuit is OK
and correctly connected, the Fat
Agnus is OK" Pass or fail the RAM to
the screen; "If no, show a green
screen"
¶1- Check the software; "it looks as
though the Kickstart's software makes
sense"
¶2- Pass or fail th e Software to the
Screen; "if yes, show a light grey
screen"
¶1- Set up the RAM; "configure the screen"
¶2- Link the Libraries; "find the ROM
based functions"
¶1- Find External RMA and link it to the
list; "find all memory expansions"
¶2- Set up Interrupts and DMA; "use the
road signs and the traffic lights on
the bus"
¶1- Start Default Task; "look for
boot-disk"
¶2- Check for 68010, 68020 and 68881;
"is it a standard CPU or what?"
¶1- Check for an Exception; "are there
other faults? If yes, show a yellow
screen, if there is a help circuit
which is at fault, show a blue
screen".
NB, certain forms of virus can be
the reason for a yellow screen here.
¶2- System Reset; "You are allowed to
show a white screen and ask for
Workbench now"
¶3CAPS LOCK TEST
¶2--------------
¶1If the keyboard functions are not
alright it will flash - all according
to the fault in various rhythms - with
the "Caps Lock" LED. In rare cases
this fault can occur after serious
system crashes of the type where it
also forgets time and place and the
clock has to be set up again. I have
myself experienced such asystem crash
where the machine wasn't up and ready
until two hours later, this long is a
rarity but it can often take around 20
minutes on a particular occasion like
this.
Here is yet another little tip for the
dexterous Amiga 500 owner: If your
Caps Lock lights up constantly, it is
almost always the big IC 6570 circuit
underneath the keyboard which is
faulty. This fault is unknown on the
Amiga 2000.
A good rule to restrict these problems
is to tighten all screws well home and
never plug or unplug anything while
the Amiga is on.
¶3RAM EXTENSIONS
¶2--------------
¶1The price of RAM extensions has fallen
dramatically recently but so,
unfortunately, has the quality. One
big problem with the RAM card, and all
other circuit printing which is used
in the Amiga , is this card's
requirement for an extremely small
contact resistance between the plug in
your Amiga and the circuit board's
edge connector. Many problems can be
avoided by rubbing the edgeconnector's
gold coating vigorously about 40-60
times with apaper tissue and then
afterwards put on a thin layer of
acid-free vaseline or silicone grease
. After 3-4 minutes dry all the
visible remnants of grease CAREFULLY
off the surface. A sure sign of
either a defective RAM card, or a poor
connection to it, is a yellow screen
at the start up, instead of the normal
kickstart picture.
A regular source of anguish is
Commodore's poorly constructed
internal clock, where a software fault
can put the clock out completely so
that you get the message: "Battery
backed up clock not found", or <unset>
<unset> <unset> . If you try to put
the clock in again it will run again
("Setclock opt save"), but the next
time the Amiga is turned on it will
often be apparent, that the clock has
gone completely nuts, and can show any
time imaginable. Here are a couple of
little "cheats" which can rescue you:
¶31¶2. When you have to set up the clock,
start by writing "Setclock opt reset".
¶32¶1. Or use your Amiga Basic on the
Extras Disk", and write "Poke
14417980",and you will get a logical 0
on "hold" in your clock, and the clock
will start normally.
¶33¶2. The newest setclock commands on
4972 bytes should be improved so that
the faults mentioned above don't
occur.