Vectronix 2/VECTRONIX2.iso/FILES_01/SMON_1B3.LZH/NEW.TXT

Text File | 1991-02-28 | 12KB | 221 lines

                           MAIN SCREEN
A close box has been provided.  If clicked,  and no file or  disk
buffers  are  in use,  you will be returned to  the  desktop.  If
anything IS in memory, you will be asked to confirm or cancel.
The same is achieved by pressing Alternate/Q.
SHIFT/F10  is  the  "emergency  escape".   If  running   Supermon
normally, it will ignore anything in memory and quit.
If,  however, you have entered Supermon because of a system crash
(a  bomb),  Supermon  will return to the desktop  preserving  all
possible  information  such  as  crash  point,  register  values,
stack  pointers  etc.  This  is provided as  an  "out"  if  after
entering  Supermon you have lost control,  such as no  menu  drop
downs,  no  slider bar etc.  This can  happen,  as  Supermon,  on
intercepting a crash will try and maintain the system as much  as
possible the way it is, for greater fault finding capabilities.

                   ALTERNATE KEY COMBINATIONS.
Supermon  has  always  allowed the  Ascii,  Hex  and  Disassemble
displays  to  be called with CONTROL key  combinations,  but  now
allows quite a few of the more often used functions to be  called
with ALTERNATE/- key presses as well.  Mostly these are the first
letter of the function, for easy remembering.
These are shown beside the entry in the drop down menu, except:
       Alt/5 toggles to 50 Herz screen mode (colour only)
       Alt/6   "      " 60   "    "     "      "      "
       Alt/I inverts the screen display

NEW FEATURE:  When doing a "Search" of memory (Debugger drop down
menu or the Alt/F (for Find) option), a repeat is now available.
It was a real pain,  when trying to find multiple occurrences, to
have to drop down the menu again,  click on Search, get the entry
box,  click on O.K etc.  Now,  pressing RETURN will redisplay the
box,  pressing  RETURN  again  will search  again.  This  can  be
repeated as often as wanted.
PRESSING  ANY  OTHER  KEY OR SELECTING ANY  OTHER  FUNCTION  WILL
CANCEL THIS SEQUENCE.

When in the disassembler display,  the arrow keys may now be used
to scroll up and down a line at a time,  exactly like the  slider
bar arrows do.

The  clock display is in 12 hour mode (by  popular  request).  If
entering a new time, this must still be in 24 hour mode.

                      FUNCTION INTERRUPTS.
The  following  functions  may now be  aborted  by  pressing  the
Alternate and Left Shift keys together:
                           FORMATTING
                       BAD SECTOR MARKING
                           DISK SEARCH
                           TRACE FILE
                      DIRECTORY INFORMATION
                     VERIFYING MEMORY BLOCKS
                   PRINTING OUT FROM SUPERMON
As  you can see,  all functions which might take a long time  (or
"get lost" like Directory info if links are wrong).
NOTE:  If aborting formatting, the drive light may stay on. Don't
worry, the motor is OFF.

                          SCREEN SAVER
In the Accessory editor, there is now an option to set the screen
saver time. This may be from 1 to 99 minutes.
If no key is pressed,  and no mouse movement detected for the set
time, the screen will go into "attract" mode. In monochrome, this
simply  inverts  the screen every few  seconds.  In  colour,  the
colours  will  be  rotated,   producing  some  pretty,  and  some
sickening, screen displays. This very effectively prevents screen
"burn in". The advantages of this type of screen saver are:
    1) No extra memory required.  There are "pretty"  ones,  with
fire works etc.  but these require 32K of memory to be set aside,
and  let's  face it,  the screen saver is only on if  you're  not
there, normally.
    2) Does  not  simply turn the screen  off,  which  may  cause
damage to your monitor, or cause you to flick the switch thinking
the thing was not on. (believe me, I've done it!)

                        MOUSE ACCELERATOR
Another  item  in the editor,  as well as available  through  the
"mouse trap" function both in Supermon and from the accessory.
NORMAL is just that.  FAST is twice the normal speed and SUPER is
4  times  normal.  HOWEVER,  Supermons accelerator is  just  that
touch better than anyone elses (of course).  This function can be
set  in any resolution,  but it assumes movements in the x and  y
direction  are for mono screens.  When running in MEDIUM  resolu-
tion,  Supermon changes back a gear in the vertical movement, and
when in LOW res., in BOTH hor. and vertical. In other words, Fast
becomes normal and Super becomes Fast. This is so that regardless
of resolution, the same mouse travel will produce the same screen
travel, both horizontally and vertically.
If  you normally work in low res,  but wish faster mouse  travel,
set it for Super. This will actually produce double speed in both
horizontal and vertical movements.
Supermon  will accelerate the mouse ONLY if you move MORE then  1
pixel per time interval.  This interval is set on power  up,  but
may  be altered by programs).  This allows for slow and  accurate
work to stay that way, and makes it pseudo proportional.

                       HARD DISK GUARDIAN
Another  pre-set option.  Whenever the hard disk is not  accessed
for 15 seconds,  the head will be moved over the "landing  zone".
This is a track set aside for parking,  which contains no data at
all.  THE DISK IS NOT PARKED OR "SHIPPED",  simply put over  that
position.  If  the power is switched off (or fails),  it  is  now
automatically  parked.  If the disk is bumped,  it is as safe  as
possible.  As the landing zone is usually close to the  beginning
of the disk,  near the directory,  no time is wasted on the  next
disk access, in fact there is an overall (very small) time gain.

                PARTITION INFORMATION AND PARKING
When  in Supermon,  call the 'Read sector' function,  and  simply
enter  root or ROOT.  Regardless of the drive actually  selected,
Supermon will now read the so called root sector,  containing the
partition  information  for the entire hard disk,  which  is  NOT
sector  zero.  If you type PARK or park instead,  the hard  drive
will be parked,  and for most,  will have to be switched off then
on  again before further access.  This saves having to return  to
the desktop and running a parking program.


                          VIRUS CHECK 1
Still remains the checking of the boot sector on power up.
                          VIRUS CHECK 2
This  little  feature (available only as a  preset  option)  will
monitor the disk access vectors at regular intervals.  Should  it
detect   a  change  in  these  vectors,   (other  than   Supermon
originated)  it will invert the screen and rapidly ring the  bell
for several seconds.  This means "hey you, check it out". It will
then REMOVE itself,  having fulfilled its task.  If you were, for
example,  opening  a non Supermon ramdisk at the time (why  would
you?),  you can simply continue,  as this is a legitimate use  of
the  vectors.  If not,  BEWARE!!!!  Find out what may be  messing
around with disk access, as it may be something quite nasty.
                          VIRUS CHECK 3
This  may be called from the Accessory or from under the Odds  'n
ends menu.  It will prompt you to insert a disk in drive  A.  The
virus   checker  will  ALWAYS  default  to  drive  A,   as   will
innoculating  the disk.  It will check this disk  for  bootsector
status, and report one of 8 possible conditions.
       1) Disk is innoculated
       2) Legitimate boot sector
       3) Could be IBM format
       4) Disk is safe, but not innoculated
       5) ACTIVE bootsector, but seems safe
       6) NON-ACTIVE, but seems suspect
       7) ACTIVE boot sector, seems highly suspect
       8) VIRUS FOUND!!!!!
The first 3 possibilities can be left alone,  and numbers 4 and 6
may be safely immunised.
Numbers  5 and 7 could easily be legitimate bootsectors,  and  if
destroyed,  could  make  the  disk  unusable.  HOWEVER,  I  would
recommend that you check these out (see the manual).
Number 8 offers the option to keep the virus intact for study, or
to destroy it.  If Supermon displays number 8,  don't send it  to
me,  as  it  is obviously  already  catalogued.  However,  should
Supermon  report  a suspect disk,  and IT DOES TURN OUT to  be  a
virus, please send it to me!

                          VIRUS CHECK 4
When booting with a disk formatted or quick wiped with  Supermon,
you will see the message "This disk is 'Supermon' safe" displayed
on  the screen.  This is your guarantee that no virus  has  taken
over  this  disk.  Other  virus killers may report  this  as  not
innoculated, BUT IT IS!

                        SYMBOLIC DEBUGGER
A symbolic debugger option has now been added.  For full  details
of this,  refer to the section in the file "CHANGES" relating  to
pages 39-42.

                       EXTENDED FUNCTIONS
This is an option in the accessory,  and is automatically  called
if the accessory is selected from within Supermon.  It gives  the
following options:
DRIVE:  When selected,  time display (if on) is switched off  and
any future disk accesses will be displayed instead as:
        Drive:| Read/Write| start sector| number of sectors
Particularly handy when trying to fix a "bad" disk
MOUSE  X/Y:  Will display the mouse hot spot X and Y position  on
the screen. Very useful in drawing programs etc.
NONE:  Cancels whatever option was previously on,  and, if it was
on, will redisplay the time.
Note:  selecting  Time Display either from accessory or  Supermon
Options  menu will automatically cancel these options  and  start
the time display.

                        DRIVE B STEP RATE
This  may  be set in the editor,  simply by clicking  on  it.  On
powering up,  the stepping time for drive B will be extended to 6
Milliseconds.  This  is  for slower drives and works in  all  TOS
versions correctly.

                        MARK BAD SECTORS
A new option under Odds 'n Ends.  This will read the entire  disk
and mark off any unreadable sectors in the FATs (File  allocation
table).  This  means  that  GemDOS  will  ignore  these  sectors,
allowing you to use the rest of the disk normally.
THIS FUNCTION ONLY APPLIES TO DRIVE "A".  Even if drive B is  the
currently   active   drive,   bad  sector  marking   will   occur
automatically in drive A only!
BUT.........  when  formatting drive B,  IF any bad  sectors  are
present, these WILL be marked off.
Please  note that in the version of TOS 1.4 release date  22-2-89
TOS  does not do this correctly!!!  TOS 1.0 and 1.2 do  not  have
this at all.  When formatting with Supermon,  if one or more  bad
sectors are detected, Supermon will automatically finish by going
through  the bad sector marking routine,  so you do not  have  to
call this seperately at formatting time.

                          VOLUME LABELS
Please check in the CHANGES document under formatter for  details
on this.

That about sums up the totally new features,  in the file  marked
CHANGES  will  be  additional information  which  I  suggest  you
read/print, as some of the changes to existing options are rather
drastic.
                                                      Will Visser