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1991-02-28
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352 lines
066000003000000132000000006000000
1 0
2 0
F0000000001
R [................................................]0110
9[..........................................................]0110
Ç CHANGES TO THE MANUAL
Version 1.a3 (release date 1/12/1990)
These are arranged per page in the manual that have changes to
them, and may be printed and pasted if so wished.
Additional reminder: If, in the next 8 weeks, you come across a
virus, which Supermon will warn you about, but does not
specifically recognise as such, please DO NOT DESTROY, but send
it to me. I will return your disk. This allows me to continually
upgrade Supermons capabilities in this field.
êPLEASE NOTE: Due to people not reading the manual, some have
destroyed VALID boot sectors on powering up. Therefore, if
Supermon finds an UNKNOWN boot sector on power up, it will give a
warning, but NO LONGER give the option to destroy at that point!
Ç
Page 4 Virus checker
If Supermon does not recognise the boot sector as either
legitimate or a definite virus, it will tell you. Due to people
wiping LEGITIMATE boot sectors without checking at this stage,
you no longer have the option at this point to "kill" the boot
sector. You may now do so only from the Virus checker (see "NEW")
Page 5 Par 3 line 2
Low resolution is now the default if no DESKTOP.INF was saved,
which is the normal state.
Page 6
All references to SUPERMON.ACC and EDITMON.PRG in this and any
other pages should now read:
SUPER103.ACC and EDIT_103.PRG. This will keep versions seperate.
Near bottom
Ramdisk opened within a program will NOT be released if reset
proof!
PLEASE NOTE: Ramdisk can maximum be 1.4 Meg (1400K) as otherwise
the FATs are insufficient. It does not seem so much of a
limitation that special provisions seem warranted.
Page 7
Delete function: WRITE VERIFY
Add in functions: VIRUS CHECK and EXTENDED FUNCTIONS.
VIRUS CHECK monitors disk access vectors and sounds alarm if
changed. (Inverse screen and rapid ringing).
Extended functions are the disk parameter display and the mouse
X/Y position display.
Last par.
Most functions, when selected will return to desktop, NOT access.
Page 8 Ramdisk size
If the ramdisk was made reset proof, it may be closed and re
opened at a different size, losing what is in it, but the size
cannot be changed directly.
ADDITIONAL FEATURES:
Mouse speed. Allows 1 (normal), 2(2*speed) and 3(4*times speed).
Virus checker. See the file "NEW"
Disk Guard: See the file "NEW"
Screen saver: See file "NEW"
Drive B Steprate: see file "NEW"
ÇPrint Spooler:
This can now be preset from the Editor to 16, 32 or 64K. When
cancelled, this memory will most likely NOT be able to be used by
the system. If the spooler is opened from WITHIN a program, it
will also be released when quitting that program, just like the
non reset proof ramdisk. êSPOOLER SHOULD NOT BE USED with Desktop
Publishing programs or such things as First Word Plus, which has
its own spooler.
Ç
Page 9
Delete last paragraph, relating to Write Verify.
Page 10
Under Screen layout and control function: References here and
elsewhere about the program PC are ALWAYS the Atari symbol. The
asterisk (*) now only appears after a crash (bomb) and will be at
the currently running programs start! This is sometimes very
useful, as the start of a program can be hard to find!
Page 12 2nd last section
Supermon DOES allow a low resolution display now, but this is
purely to show how, where and why a program crashed. The best
option at this point is to make a note of important items, press
Shift/F10 or reset, and run Supermon in medium res. Changing
displays etc. in low res will just result in a mess.
Page 18 last par.
Resolution is shown as screen pixels (e.g 640 * 200).
Page 21
Under ADDRESS: once again, there is only 1 Program Counter (PC),
indicated by the Atari symbol. The asterisk (if there) denotes
the START address of the program which crashed.
This applies also to STEP, TRACE and 68020 functions, which
operate from this location!!
Page 23
Delete last lines. There is now a close box, to return to
desktop. If any buffers are open, will ask for confirmation.
Page 24
DRIVE: When entering Supermon, the selected drive will be the
currently active one, except after a crash, when it will be "A".
If no drives exist, it will be "greyed out"
Page 26 half way
Delete the lines BOTH RENAME AND RESTORE ARE FOR THE FLOPPY
DRIVES ONLY!! These functions are now valid for hard drives as
well!!!
Ç HIDE/UNHIDE:
This is now called Attributes and brings up a file selector box,
and, once a file has been selected, displays a box with the
options:
READ ONLY
HIDDEN
SYSTEM
The current Attributes will be high lighted. To change, simply
click on the option. Cancel will simply exit, OK will rewrite the
changes to the directory.
Page 27/28, THE FORMATTER
Radical changes here. The Supermon formatter has now become
the worlds most intelligent and comprehensive formatter.
The "Go IBM menu" box now says "IBM FORMAT", and no longer
selects a seperate menu. Instead, it will give the diskette an
IBM compatible boot sector, and will NOT innoculate it. It will
do the number of tracks specified, but will always default to a
nine sector format.
Additionally, the options "Volume label" and "ONLY" have
appeared.
Volume label allows you to add a name to the disk when formatting
or quick wiping. If you enter a name (max 11 characters) here,
and then select either FORMAT or Quick wipe, the name will be
written to the disk after the function completes.
If you enter a name and then high light (click on) the "ONLY"
option, ONLY a volume label will be given to the disk, nothing
will be destroyed!
Please note that IF there is a volume label already, this may NOT
necessarily be deleted. As Supermon uses a system (GemDOS) call
for this function, it relies on GemDOS to do this correctly,
which is not always true.
NINE or TEN sectors per track is now the choice. BOTH these
options are the fast so called "twister" format, speeding up disk
reads greatly.
When formatting, Supermon will detect unusable sectors and then
mark them off in the disk FAT. This allows the rest of the disk
to be used normally. Alt/Left shift aborts both formatting and/or
bad sector marking.
Supermon ALWAYS does bad sector marking during formatting,as part
of its verify routine. You will notice that the filler bar at the
bottom fills quite rapidly, then the busy bee re appears, while
the drive continues going. At this time Supermon both verifies
the format and marks off any bad sectors in the FATs.
This means that really impatient people can press Alternate/Left
shift at this time, to abort this function and have a very fast
(but un verfied) format.
DO NOT quick wipe an IBM format disk, unless formatted with
Supermon, as Supermon will innoculate it, destroying the IBM
information.
You may note that if you have NOT changed the diskette since last
access, Supermon will provide an extra warning, for you to check
that it IS the right disk you are formatting.
ON TOP OF THAT, Supermon starts formatting from the END of the
disk, which means that if you stll made a boo boo, you can press
Alternate/Left shift to abort, and ONLY the formatted tracks will
be lost, ALL other information is still there.
If the disk is write protected, you will get a message to that
effect TWICE, then Supermon will abort.
And to top it all, Supermon will tell you if you try to format
more tracks than your drive (or the disk) can handle, as well as
indicating that the disk is unusable if any bad sectors occurr
Çwithin the first 20 sectors, which are used by the system for
vital information.
When returning to the formatter for the next disk, defaults
remain as set up.
Page 29
There are now several ways to quit Supermon. All comments about
the drop down menu option "Quit" remain as is, additionally:
Alt/Q will return to desktop, with query if buffers opened.
Closebox will do exactly the same.
Sfift/F10 will quit regardless of buffers or breakpoints etc. If
you entered Supermon normally, that's it. If you "crashed" into
Supermon, Shift/F10 will preserve ALL pointers, registers, status
etc. If you now rerun Supermon, the display will show all these.
Page 30
If, on asking for directory info, the message "Disk in drive ?
etc. appears, or Supermon goes into an endless loop (abort with
Alternate/Left Shift), this is due to hard disk fragmentation and
FAT errors. Use a hard disk repair/scavenge program such as HD
Sentry to correct this.
Page 31
As the last line in Boot information, the boot sectors status
will be displayed, same as in Virus check (see file "NEW")
Page 32
Delete line 7, about floppies only.
In READ SECTOR: type in "root" to read drive C partition sector.
type in "park" to actually park the hard disk.
PLEASE NOTE: You may read the partition sector, but CANNOT write
to it. THIS IS NOT THE SAME SECTOR AS THE "BOOT" SECTOR. If you
write this to sector zero of drive C (or any other) it is GOODBYE
information. If you want to modify the partition sector, get
yourself a hard disk editor! For hard disk owners, there is a
file called HARDDISK.DOC which explains the entries in the
partition sector.
Ç
Page 39-42
PRINTER: When printing out in Hex, an ASCII column will also be
printed. This saves double printing.
Additionally, Supermon will check to see whether: either the
printer is on line, OR: there is a spooler. If not, you will get
an alert box.
RUN PROGRAM: This has been modified extensively, and is now a
very, very useful tool. Firstly, after selecting your program,
you are given the choice to: LOAD + GO or JUST LOAD.
Load and go will do just that, after asking you for intercepts.
Just load will create a basepage, load the program into memory,
and display from the start of the program. Please note that in
the register area on the left side:
D0 POINTS AT THE BASEPAGE OF THE PROGRAM
D1 POINTS AT THE START OF PROGRAM CODE
D2 POINTS AT START OF THE DATA AREA
D3 POINTS AT START OF THE BSS AREA
D4 POINTS AT END OF BSS AREA (usually top of stack when run)
If there is a standard symbol table included with the program, D5
will point to where Supermon has stored this, which is at the top
of the TPA. If a symbol table is present, Supermon will display
all labels. To display without labels, double click "into" and
"out of" the buffer. Labels are substituted for all addresses and
values in the code, and are given in front of the code where this
is correct. This may obscure some of the hex display code.
If you now return to Run program option, you will be asked if you
wish to RUN, CANCEL or WIPE. Run will produce the intercept box,
and become identical to Load and Go from here on. WIPE will
release the memory reserved (the entire largest block of free
memory, usually ALL memory) BUT WILL NOT WIPE THE CODE.
RUN and LOAD AND GO: The intercept box has been changed a bit.
You still have the option to intercept any or all of the system
calls, but additionally the same box allows you to enter the
number of calls to allow through, and asks whether you wish to
terminate normally, or stay resident.
Terminate normally means that when the program finishes running,
it will terminate by releasing memory and return to Supermon.
Stay resident means Supermon prevents the program from releasing
this memory, and, depending on the program, it may be possible to
run it again and again (Be careful here). Also, all variables and
pointers set by the program will still be intact, and can be
examined. AFTER RUNNING A PROGRAM, PLEASE COMPLETELY RESET THE
COMPUTER (COLD START) BEFORE DOING ANYTHING IMPORTANT!!!
Ç
Page 44
SEARCH: This function may now be repeated by pressing RETURN
twice. Please note that when inputting a Hex number ($--------),
if you enter a ODD number of chars. Supermon will ignore the
LEAST significant one (the last one)
Page 50
OPTIONS MENU: Mouse Trap will now first bring up a select box for
actual mousetrap ON or OFF (current setting outlined), then a
select box for the mouse speed. Options are 1,2 or 3 with the
current choice outlined. 1 is normal, 2 is double speed and 3 is
quadruple speed EXCEPT in low res. As mouse movement
(horizontally) in low res is already twice as fast, Supermon
automatically steps down 1 gear. Neat.
The mouse accelerator and mouse trap are totally independent of
each other.
CHANGED: The mousetrap was changed. When pressing the right hand
button, the menu above the mouse will drop down, but the mouse
will return to it's position. This is done so that you need not
change the position of your hand on the desk.
Page 52 Spooler
When selecting the print spooler, you will now have the option to
select either a 16K, 32K or a 64K spooler. This space is reserved
normally, and may or may not be available again when cancelling
the spooler.
Page 53
Set time/alarm: This has been improved, so that, if you make no
change to the time, it will not reset it when clicking on OK.
Previously, while setting the alarm, many seconds would pass, and
the OLD time was passed back to the system.
Page 55
Multi task: All STEPping, TRACEing etc. will be done from the
Atari symbol location.
Page 57
File move buffer now recommends the address at which the file
currently resides, and, if accepted, will "hide" the file as in
Hide disk buffer. If you specify another address, make it high up
in memory, as that space is NOT reserved and may be overwritten.
Both disk and file "Move buffer" remember their seperate
addresses for later compares.
This means you can load a file, move it, load others or disk
buffers as well, and still compare the "top" file with the
"moved" one.
Page 58
Access by track and sector: This function ALWAYS defaults to
drive A, regardless of any currently active or selected drive.
The move buffer and compare buffer functions may be used with
this, the Hide and Show may not!
Ç
Page 59
Save block WILL NOT save ROM directly to disk. Use the MOVE BLOCK
command to move it to Ram, THEN do save block.
SET PROGRAM PC: This no longer exists, and has been replaced by 2
new functions:
MARK BAD SECTORS: This will read the entire disk, any sectors it
finds faulty, will be marked as such in the FAT (File Allocation
Table). The operating system will not try and use these sectors.
It is recommended that you use this only on blank disks.
VIRUS CHECK: Allows rapid scanning of multiple disks. Reports on
the disks status. Please see the file "NEW" for a full
description.
Ç
Page 60 onward
In these examples, please keep all changes in mind, particularly
those relating to RUN PROGRAM. I hope you will find all these
changes worthwhile, and wish you much use from Supermon.
Will Visser
