notes.txt
These are working notes to help keep track of changes or things that
should or could be done to MX2.


#@MX2 file and program directorys
There are two new directory that MX2 needs. The first is called \MX2SPOOL
this is created when the spooler program begins for the first time.
The second is called \MX2 these should be where all MX2 executable
programs should be. All script file should now look at \MX2 for MX2
programs that they need.

#@mlimit
Need a way to limit the amount that any one program can see with a
malloc(-1). I could set up a trap handler to control the malloc but I will
first try to allocate small 2 byte memory blocks to break up the memory
block.

#@crashs
When MX2 crashes disk sectors that were being allocated for a file that did
not close can be lost. Use of a program like "TUNEUP" can fix and get back
the "LOST" sectors. Also some auto programs can cause problems with MX2
I use GEMBOOT.PRG and the mitchtron CACHE.PRG. I have found that the
L-CACHE.PRG causes lockup and random aborts.

#@xmodem
Need to take a look to see why the xmodem routines are messing up later
I/O with the te command and CLI redirection to the AUX port.

#@menu
I have started to play with a backgound gem menu bar for the CLI. The
program MENU sets up a menu bar that can be run in backgound with the
"sys bp 1 menu" command. The program 'km' will terminate the MENU 
program. Although it works it also totally screws up gem. It's safer run
as just a regular program but it you don't care about running another gem
program try it.

#@WaitProcess MX2V220
Procedure that waits for a memory location to change it's value.
   WaitProcess(VAR id: INTEGER; VAR location: ADDRESS; VAR value,mask,msec: LONGCARD);
This procedure puts the currentprocess to sleep then compares the contents
at 'location' against 'value AND mask'. If they are the same then the
process wakes up and is put in the scheduler ready list to be run. msec
is the time the process will wait for the value in milliseconds if msec
is set to 0 WaitProcess will never timeout.
** NEED TO ADD TO JSM2 syscall.def

#@submita&submitm
Fixed submita and added submitm to utility programs. I forgot to use the
xbios call to get the IOREC for the RS232 buffer.

@#mx2.acc
If you want to switch out of a GEM program back to the ALT cli with the
ALT m hotkey you MUST turn off the MX2.ACC first. If you don't the AES
will get very mixed up. When back in the GEM program you can turn the
MX2.ACC back on to allow normal background program operation. This guy is
causeing some problems I may have to redesign it again.

@#spint control of spooler, network and xmodem
spint 0 controls the spooler
spint 1 controls both netaux and netmidi
spint 2 controls the xmodem send and receive
xr = xmodem receive  'xr -crc foo.bar' or 'xr -chk foo.bar'
xt = xmodem send     'xt -crc foo.bar' or 'xr -chk foo.bar'
xs = xmodem status   'xs'
xa = xmodem abort    'xa'

@#spints
Spints in MX2 are similar to signals in UNIX. They are procedures that
can be started by issueing a Trigger(x) call. A spint can also carry a
memory location that can be used for shared memory between processes.
The source files spooler.mod, sq.mod, lp.mod and killlp.mod are simple
examples.
spooler.mod uses the EnableSpint call to setup spint 0 to a procedure
sq and a pointer to the variable spintcmd.
sq.mod, lp.mod and killlp.mod use the SpintInfo and Trigger calls to
communicate with the spooler.prg