Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!noao!arizona!dave
From: dave@cs.arizona.edu (David P. Schaumann)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Software develpment tool
Keywords: save me from the guru
Message-ID: <141@caslon.cs.arizona.edu>
Date: 16 Mar 90 23:06:05 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 18

I have this idea for a software development tool, but I'm not familiar
enough with the inner workings of the Amiga.  Basicly, this is the idea:
given a program under development 'dev_prog', create a supervisor like
program which would use the 68000's ability to single-step through a
program, and watch for instructions which would cause a guru.  Naturally,
I realize that even if recognizing such a situation is relatively trivial,
this supervisor program might degrade "dev_prog"'s performance 90% or more.

So my question is this: given the knowledge of the next instruction to be
executed, is it reasonably easy (say by executing no more than 50 ml
instructions) to determine if this instruction would cause a guru?

I think anyone who has used the Amiga as a development tool could see the
advantage of such a program.  Of course, to be completely safe, such a
program would also have to enforce memory protection on 'dev_prog'.

I await your reply at dave@cs.arizona.edu
Dave Schaumann