Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!apple!well!farren From: farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Subject: Re: Hardware addresses! Message-ID: <18409@well.sf.ca.us> Date: 8 Jun 90 09:28:02 GMT References: <1990May29.202024.20170@nada.kth.se> Lines: 45 mt87692@tut.fi (Mikko Tsokkinen) writes: >In article <18344@well.sf.ca.us> farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) writes: >> nv89-rbi@nada.kth.se (Ron Birk) writes: >> I and a friend are working on a big project and NEED all NEW >> >addresses and the bits in there. [Smartass (but correct!) reply by me deleted] >So you think commodore makes RKM manuals with wrong information. >You think OwnBlitter is in ROM just for fun? A. The RKM has exactly ONE hardware address - 4. ExecBase. The Hardware Reference Manual DOES have absolute addresses, but it also has quite explicit warnings all over the place that these addresses are NOT permanent, MAY change, and you shouldn't rely on them. As a very specific example, the one that was originally given (the register to switch between PAL and NTSC programmably) is GUARANTEED not to work on any stock Amiga 1000 system, or any 2000 or 500 that is not upgraded to the 1M Agnus. B. The easiest way to deal with absolute hardware addresses is not to. Use the include files, and deal with the hardware by symbolic reference - this way, if things change, at least you won't have to go through all of your source code - although you might have to make new binaries. Better yet, avoid writing to the hardware directly at all, if you can. I've been programming this puppy for five years now, professionally, and the only two things I've ever had to go to the hardware to use were the blitter and the audio hardware, and most of the time, I don't need to go to the hardware even for those. And please note that he did NOT ask for blitter addresses - he asked for ALL addresses! C. The decision to take over the hardware and write directly to the hardware registers is not one which should be made lightly. In particular, it is not one which anyone who does not have the basic programming references to the Amiga, namely the RKM and hardware manuals, should be making. If this person does not already know the information he's asking for, he doesn't have the level of competence in Amiga programming he needs to use them wisely. Asking for the addresses is tantamount to admitting that one doesn't know what to do with them. It's equivalent to the question "How do you make nitroglycerin?" - if you have to ask, I'm not going to tell you! -- Mike Farren farren@well.sf.ca.us