ins_adjb@jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Daniel Jay Barrett) (02/19/89)
I have been doing extensive testing of the problem of crashing back to Kickstart. The results: I can now successfully crash my A1000 back to Kickstart under both KS1.3 and KS1.2! (Yippie! :-)) Can anyone reproduce my findings? My present configuration is A1000 with 512K, external drive, 1080 monitor, StarboardII with 2meg, C.Ltd. SCSI controller with 50meg hard drive, C.Ltd. Timesaver. For my tests below, I used the vanilla KS1.2, KS1.3 (34.5) and WB1.3 (34.20) that came with the 1.2 and 1.3 Enhancers. I did not mount the hard drive. To reproduce my tests, you will also need a copy of "Hack" from the Software Distillery, version 1.0.3D (the last version to appear on a Fish Disk). Make a copy of this disk because you might trash it. The name of the Hack disk is HACK_GAME. Now, follow this procedure under both KS1.2 and KS1.3, using the vanilla WB1.3: (0) Reboot. (1) [Crucial!!] Delete all icons on HACK_GAME. (2) Make sure your directory "HACK_GAME:Saved Games" is empty. (You will need to empty it every time you run this test.) (3) Start Hack from the Shell or CLI by typing "Hack". (4) See the opening credits, and press return. You are now in the dungeon. (5) Press "S" to save the game. UNDER KS1.3, THE FOLLOWING HAPPENS: ----------------------------------- (6) Hack crashes the machine because, I think, it needs to copy one of the icons (that we deleted) for the save file. (7) We see no guru. Machine sits with a totally black (blank) screen. (8) Bored, we press CTRL-AMIGA-AMIGA. The screen turns dark grey/green. [This is one of the screen colors that occurs during a cold boot, after Kickstart disk activity has finished, I am fairly sure.] (9) We get the Kickstart music and prompt. UNDER KS1.2, THE FOLLOWING HAPPENS: ----------------------------------- (6) Hack starts writing the save file to disk. It keeps writing and writing and writing and... the disk becomes full. The system requestor comes up. (7) If you click CANCEL, the machine crashes back to Kickstart the same as steps (7)-(9) above. If you click RETRY, Hack keeps gronking the disk forever, even though the disk is full. Press CTRL-AMIGA-AMIGA and you get a NORMAL reboot. NOTE: In the situations where you crash all the way to Kickstart, the HACK_GAME disk gets a visit from the disk validator. (This was particularly noticeable when I ran HACK_GAME from my hard drive. I think it happened to the floppy too.) -------- OK... so we undoubtedly agree that something was written poorly in "Hack." But should any program even be *able* to crash you all the way back to Kickstart? I dunno... this stuff is too low-level for me! I have sent the preceeding information to Bryce Nesbitt at CBM, who was considerate enough to write to me for more information. Thanks, Bryce! -- Dan Barrett ins_adjb@jhunix.UUCP UUCP barrett@cs.jhu.edu (128.220.13.4) ARPA Dept. of Computer Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218