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From: harmon@abvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m6809
Subject: RMA assembler usage
Message-ID: <131@abvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 3-Dec-87 12:25:23 EST
Article-I.D.: abvax.131
Posted: Thu Dec  3 12:25:23 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Dec-87 22:46:57 EST
Organization: Allen-Bradley Company, Inc; Industrial Computer Division, Highland Heights, OH
Lines: 31
Keywords: RMA device descriptor


	I finally got a copy of the OS9 development system the day before
Thanksgiving.  So I spent a bit of time that long weekend trying it out.
In general I was very happy with the package.  For $99 you get a debugger,
an editor, an assembler, a linker, a ram disk driver, and more. A good deal.

	I worked with the RMA a bit trying to write a SASI hard disk driver
and had quite a bit of success.  However one thing I didn't figure out was
how to write a device descriptor module using the RMA.  Has anyone had any
experience with this?  I was able to build a descriptor using debug to
modify another descriptor, but I would really like to be able to build one
from code.

	Another problem I encountered was the lack of an rbfdef.a file and
missing definitions in the os9defs.a file.  Converting the level 1 rbfdefs
file to an rbfdefs.a file was simple.  All orig statements were converted
to csect statements and endsect statements were added at the end of sections.
Also the . operators needed to be changed to *. The os9defs.a required some
additions (which were in os9defs) to allow my rbfdefs.a file to work properly.
All in all the procedure was simple but why should everyone have to do it?
Are there any public defs files in the proper format for the RMA ?

	While I'm rambling I'd like to talk about one last problem, debugging
a device driver.  How does one find the data area assigned to a device driver?
I tried using the debugger's 'e' command, but the data in the areas pointed
to by U and Y didn't look like my data.  I ended up using FCB statements in
my code and writing debug values in these locations (since I knew where the
code was) as a debugging tool.  Does a better method exist?


							Larry Harmon