gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (opcode ranger) (04/30/91)
Now that some of you HAVE TMON Pro, what do you think of it? Worth the $100 upgrade from TMON? What exactly can you do with it? (I finally got ICOM to send me the literature on it, but it wasn't too detailed). Robert -- ============================================================================ = gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu * generic disclaimer: * "Good tea. = = * all my opinions are * Nice house." = = * mine * -Worf = ============================================================================
pratt@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Jonathan Pratt) (05/01/91)
I haven't even come close to exercising all the new features in TMON Pro, but some of the things I like are: - FPU support. Nice to to have the Fxxx instructions disassembled and be able to see what's in the FPn registers. - Copy, paste, etc. support. Nice for moving data around quickly. - Lots of nice shortcuts. Eg. command-click on address to open dump/disassembly window at address, or my favorite, control-option dbl-click to set a one-shot breakpoint and exit TMON. - Displays files so you can simultaneously examine your source code and the disassembly. - It knows more symbols and is smarter about recognizing them. The only negative comment I have is that, at least on a IIci with 8 bit color, TMON Pro feels a bit sluggish compared with TMON 2.8.4. There's enough of a lag now in single stepping that I wouldn't want to step through very many instructions. Such may be the price of power, and there is compensation with the above-mentioned shortcuts. In summary, the upgrade was worth it to me, and chances are good that TMON Pro supplies more power than you're ever likely to use. Jonathan /* Jonathan Pratt Internet: pratt@boulder.colorado.edu * * UCHSC, Box A034 uucp: ..!ncar!boulder!pratt * * 4200 E. Ninth Ave. * * Denver, CO 80262 Phone: (303) 270-7801 */
MacUserLabs@cup.portal.com (Stephan - Somogyi) (05/01/91)
gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (opcode ranger) writes: >Now that some of you HAVE TMON Pro, what do you think of it? It's TREMENDOUSLY powerful. It also has quite a learning curve. I found the tech ref to be organized poorly - finding what you're after is initially quite a task. Once you've figured out the organization scheme, things become slightly more easy to locate. TMON Pro also has a rather large memory footprint. Feature-wise it's quite amazing. The conditional breakpoint and traps stuff is really neat and should make hunting weird bugs much easier. I doubt that I'll ever use all the capabilities in the product, but it's good knowing that they're there, just in case. There are still, of course, things that I would love it to do that it doesn't... >Worth the $100 upgrade from TMON? That's your call. TMON 2.8.x will not be revised any more (or so they say), so you're out of luck when new CPUs happen. If you find old TMON and Macsbug 6.2 anemic in their abilities, you will probably like TMON Pro. I know I'm not switching back. Stephan ______________________________________________________________________ Stephan Somogyi No. No. No. I'm NOT with MIS. MacUser
Jerry_D_Whitnell@cup.portal.com (05/05/91)
Jonathan Pratt writes... |The only negative comment I have is that, at least on a IIci with 8 |bit color, TMON Pro feels a bit sluggish compared with TMON 2.8.4. |There's enough of a lag now in single stepping that I wouldn't want |to step through very many instructions. Such may be the price of |power, and there is compensation with the above-mentioned shortcuts. While I agree with this comment in general (it is slower), it will respond to keyboard events (mouse-downs I havn't tried) while it is drawing. So if you hit cmd-s twice very quickly, you'll see that it doesn't complete drawing the screen for the first cmd-s, but will execute the second cmd-s immediatly then redraw the screen. Jerry Whitnell SuperMac Technology
kenh@eclectic.COM (Ken Hancock) (05/06/91)
In article <1991May1.042414.10909@colorado.edu> pratt@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Jonathan Pratt) writes: >The only negative comment I have is that, at least on a IIci with 8 >bit color, TMON Pro feels a bit sluggish compared with TMON 2.8.4. Urgh! I have the same system configuration and couldn't stand it. My recommendation -- set maxdepth in your startup to 1bit. Makes it much more usable. Ken -- Ken Hancock | INTERNET: kenh@eclectic.com Isle Systems | Compuserve: >INTERNET: kenh@eclectic.com Macintosh Consulting | AOL: KHancock | Disclaimer: My opinions are mine, | your opinions are yours. Simple, isn't it?
chewy@apple.com (Paul Snively) (05/06/91)
In article <42005@cup.portal.com> Jerry_D_Whitnell@cup.portal.com writes: >Jonathan Pratt writes... >|The only negative comment I have is that, at least on a IIci with 8 >|bit color, TMON Pro feels a bit sluggish compared with TMON 2.8.4. >|There's enough of a lag now in single stepping that I wouldn't want >|to step through very many instructions. Such may be the price of >|power, and there is compensation with the above-mentioned shortcuts. > >While I agree with this comment in general (it is slower), it will respond >to keyboard events (mouse-downs I havn't tried) while it is drawing. So >if you hit cmd-s twice very quickly, you'll see that it doesn't complete >drawing the screen for the first cmd-s, but will execute the second cmd-s >immediatly then redraw the screen. > >Jerry Whitnell >SuperMac Technology > And if that's not good enough, you can trivially step n times, step until some condition is met, step until the flow of control changes, etc. etc. etc. TMON Pro is most certainly slower than TMON; its being written predominantly in a high-level language more-or-less assures that. But most of TMON Pro's operations are more incremental even than TMON's, as has already been pointed out. And power? Whooooeeeee!
jmunkki@hila.hut.fi (Juri Munkki) (05/07/91)
In article <42005@cup.portal.com> Jerry_D_Whitnell@cup.portal.com writes: >Jonathan Pratt writes... >|The only negative comment I have is that, at least on a IIci with 8 >|bit color, TMON Pro feels a bit sluggish compared with TMON 2.8.4. >|There's enough of a lag now in single stepping that I wouldn't want >|to step through very many instructions. Such may be the price of >|power, and there is compensation with the above-mentioned shortcuts. > >While I agree with this comment in general (it is slower), it will respond >to keyboard events (mouse-downs I havn't tried) while it is drawing. So >if you hit cmd-s twice very quickly, you'll see that it doesn't complete >drawing the screen for the first cmd-s, but will execute the second cmd-s >immediatly then redraw the screen. I'm still reading the tutorial manual, but I find that it's not the slowness that's annoying with TMON Pro, but the things that they have changed. There are plenty of nice ASCII symbols they could have used for special operators, but they had to use delta and dagger. They might be easy to remember and use as long as you were typing on a US keyboard, but you need option-shift-d on the Finnish keyboard for the Delta. I already changed my KCHR so that it's in an easier place, but I wonder what was wrong with plain old ASCII characters. BTW: This is also one of the ways why I very rarely use MPW. If I debug an INIT, I have to use the US keycaps. It was already quite confusing when some normal keys changed from the Finnish position to the US version, but now I have to start learning two sets of option- keycaps. Believe me, they are quite different. ____________________________________________________________________________ / Juri Munkki / Helsinki University of Technology / Wind / Project / / jmunkki@hut.fi / Computing Center Macintosh Support / Surf / STORM / ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~