============================================================================== MKick 1.9 (c) 1992-1995 MJSoft System Software Martin Mares ============================================================================== Introduction and Copyright: --------------------------- See README. It contains a lot of things worth of being known. MKick usage: ------------ MKick may be called either from the CLI or from the Workbench. Invocation from the CLI ----------------------- Syntax: MKick [] [] [] [] Kickstart specification: These parameters specify which Kickstart do you want to use: - install Kickstart specified by its name GUI - show GUI allowing to select the Kickstart and some basic options by the mouse (or the rat if you have one :-) ROM - go back to ROM Kickstart Memory options: These options control the place you want to store the Kickstart on: NOREL - load Kickstart to its original memory location. Used automati- cally when you have no relocation table for the Kickstart. But only few Kickstarts are on such locations where you have some RAM. (Many Kickstarts are stored in standard ROM memory (at F80000 and higher). Only the beta-ROMs are located at 200000 (standard expansion memory) sometimes.) ADR
- load Kickstart at specified address. It's used mostly for debugging or when kicking to RAM placed on unusual location. The address is specified in hexadecimal (base-16) notation. All addresses of type 00xx0000 (xx is any number) can be written in short form: xx (this is the notation introduced in SKick). The Kickstart address must be a multiple of 64K (the last four digits _MUST_ be 0) and mustn't be less than 40000. CHIP,FAST,EXP,NAC - load Kickstart to CHIP/FAST/EXPANSION/NON-AUTOCONFIG MEMORY. These options may be combined (you can say MKick kick34005.a500 CHIP FAST) and MKick will automatically select the best possible location. (The standard order is NAC/EXP/FAST/CHIP, from top to bottom. It is based on standard priority scheme used by Exec. See also ADDMEM.) These options affect memory types offered by the GUI. - When you specify no memory control options, MKick will assume that CHIP, FAST, EXP and NAC options are set. ADDMEM ,[,] - add a region of NON-AUTOCONFIG RAM to the system. The non-autoconfig (NAC) RAM can be found on many accelerated systems. The basic property of this type of memory is that it's present when the machine is rebooted, but no part of the operating system is able to find it and give it to all application programs. The manufacturers usually supply some utility which is able to do the memory adding for you, but these utilities have significant problems with the most of kickers. In this case, you can simply say MKick where is your memory located, how large is it (specified in bytes; both the address and the size are hexadecimal numbers; the shortened form used by ADR can be used here, too). The priority is a decimal number in range <-128;127>. All regions of available memory are sorted by their priority (expansion memory has 10, fast RAM 0, chip RAM -10, default for ADDMEM is 20). When a program tries to allocate some memory, the Exec will use available memory chunk with the highest priority it founds and because the NAC RAM is often the fastest one in the system, it's very good to use it first. SUBMEM , - remove given memory region. Used rarely on some special configurations. A typical example is GVP A530 Turbo with 5MB of RAM (one 4M SIMM and one 1M with switches set to 4M+4M). In this case, 8M address space is created contining the 4M SIMM followed by the 1M SIMM mirrored four times. For correct opera- tion in such a case you need to SUBMEM three of the mirrors to prevent the system from using them (by SUBMEM 700000,300000). If you specify both ADDMEM and SUBMEM, ADDMEM is processed first. Other options: AUTO - exit if already kicked. The operation you have selected won't be done if there is already some Kickstart in RAM or if you sele- cted (by the ROM option or by the GUI) that you want to use ROM Kickstart. For example: if you have MKick in your startup-sequence and you want to start KS 3.0 when you boot first time, you can say 'MKick DEVS:Kickstarts/Kick39106.A1200 AUTO' in this case. It will prevent MKick from trying to re-kick whenever you boot and will allow you to stay in ROM KS without changing anything. you can also say 'MKick AUTO GUI' - it displays GUI only when you didn't select any Kickstart before. NOTAGS - remove all resident modules before kicking. MKick tries to use smart algorithm of removing of modules, which could cause system crash, but there could be an exception that isn't capable of being handled by this way. If MKick doesn't work on your system, try to use this option. NOPATCH - don't use the patches. The patch tables are usually built to fix known Kickstart bugs. Some of these bugs can cause wrong operation of kickers. Don't use this option when you don't know what are you really doing. KICKDIR - search for Kickstarts in specified directory. The default is "DEVS:Kickstarts". It affects only the GUI. CACHE - turn on CPU caches as soon as it's possible. The machines equipped with 68020 or higher CPU have a CACHE MEMORY. When it's used, it speeds up a bit all operations, but not all programs are compatible with this CPU enhancement. The caches are normally switched on by CPU, SETCPU or other similar command, which can be started from the startup-sequence. If you want to enable the caches automatically, you should specify this option. EBREL - relocate ExecBase to expansion or non-autoconfig memory. It can slightly increase system performance. This feature is somewhat tricky and works only with some Kickstarts (Kickstarts older than 2.04 and most of A600 versions don't allow it). As Kickstarts 1.X require ExecBase to be present when the system starts, systems with ExecBase in expansion memory cannot survive standard reboot (with ExecBase in non-autoconfig memory it's usually possible). MKick's own resets (when switching to another Kickstart) create fake ExecBase in chip RAM allowing it to survive. Also the ColdReboot system call is patched, so you can use it for rebooting without losing the Kickstart. There exists a FastEBPatch utility (distributed in this archive), which patches some other system calls and creates a Ctrl-Alt-Alt-Del sequence for resetting the machine in a clean way. RELVEC - relocate CPU vectors (normally placed on addresses 8-$3FF) to fast RAM (applicable only with 68010 or newer CPU installed). Can slightly increase system performance and reduce amount of deadly system crashes (the probability that unwanted memory access caused by a crash hits the vectors is a bit lower). In this mode, space for new vector table is allocated, the vectors are moved into it and the VBR register is set to the new address. The original vector area is cleared, only the longword at address $8 points to the new vectors (this rule has been introduced by SinSoft to be used in some products which require exact knowledge of vector base without switching to supervisor mode (e.g., if the ExecBase is inaccessible). The deadend alerts don't work in this mode unless the FastEBPatch is installed. Debug options: WAIT - wait for RETURN key before resetting the machine. If you enter 'q', MKick will stop the action and exit immediately without deallocating any memory, therefore you can look at MKick's resident module and similar things. If you see that something is wrong, you can press CTRL-C (MKick checks CTRL-C before it installs the resident tags and before each reboot). In this case, MKick deallocates all used memory and terminates. The checking of CTRL-C doesn't depend on WAITing. DEBUG - turn on debugging information. It consists of two sequences of colourful stripes displayed during reboot with RAM KS. The first set of stripes (all colours) is displayed before the RAM KS is started. The second (black & white) one is displayed when MKick fixes RAM, adds autoconfig devices and does many other things. During the second phase, if you hold the left mouse button and you have KS V36 or higher, the startup-sequence will be disabled (the mouse button is tested immediately after the black & white stripes appear). Please include effect of this option if you are preparing a bug report for me. Warning: pressing of LMB during the first phase has different effect - removing of all resident modules. NOTEST - don't test Kickstart image before using it. Don't use, because invalid Kickstart images don't work properly. FORCE - don't fail if Kickstart memory can't be allocated. Used rarely, but if you have some non-autoconfig memory at $600000 and you don't want to use ADDMEM and the memory is not added to the system, you should enter 'MKick ADR 60 FORCE'. Invocation from Workbench: -------------------------- Simply double-click on MKick's icon and MKick will be started. Using 'Info' or 'Information' (WB 2.0 or higher), you may specify all previously mentioned options using the tool types. The boolean (ON/OFF) switches can be enabled using their name followed by '=' or '=ON'. If the Kickstart name (FILE=) is not specified, the GUI is started automatically. Graphic User Interface: ----------------------- When MKick is started in the GUI mode, a screen with a list of available Kickstarts will appear. You may select the Kickstart you want to use or hit 'Cancel'. Then you may select the type of RAM you want to store the Kickstart to (ORIGINAL location, CHIP RAM, FAST RAM, EXP RAM, NAC RAM or ANY RAM if you want to choose the optimal location automatically). It's also possible to disable the patches. Then hit the 'OK' gadget to start the whole loading process. Types of operation: ------------------- - Normal loading - used when you load the Kickstart to memory which is free - Loading to temporary buffer - used when you want to load the Kickstart to memory which is not free, but if there is some room to load the image to. - Hard loading - used if the FORCE option has been specified. In this case, the RAM block containing the Kickstart image will be allocated only if it's possible. Unsuccessful allocation will not be reported. - Disconnecting of C0-RAM - used if you have only 0.5M of CHIP RAM and 0.5M of FAST RAM. MKick will perform a reset to disconnect the FAST RAM from the system memory list. Then (if started again) it will load the Kickstart to the disconnected C0-RAM. - Loading from Kickstart disk - MKick allows to load the Kickstart from the floppy. It supports original SuperKickstart disks for the A3000 and the specially formatted disks created by MakeKickDisk. - Removing of RAM Kickstart - uses reset - Replacing RAM Kickstart by another RAM Kickstart - uses reset to remove the old one and then (if started again, normally from the Startup-sequence) tries to load the Kickstart using one of previously mentioned methods. Common problems: ---------------- - MKick has no effect - normal reboot happens: Some resident modules collide with MKick. MKick normally tries to remove such modules, but ... you can fix it by using of the NOTAGS option or by removing the module manually. - Colourful stripes move on the screen and the machine seems to be crashed: It occurs when MKick isn't able to allocate the Kickstart block memory. Try the operation again after a cold reboot. - Black and white stripes and the machine seems to be crashed: Kickstart image checksum error during AUTOSUM test. Some program has destroyed the Kickstart. Use MKick again. - Black and white stripes, which disappear if you press the left mouse button: MKick is unable to allocate space for some resident module. This should not happen, but when it happens, it can be fixed if you select the NOTAGS switch. - Quickly blinking power led with red color of screen background: Kickstart image checksum doesn't match. Some program has destroyed the Kickstart. Use MKick again. - "Incorrect or suspicious Kickstart file" message: the Kickstart file you have supplied is corrupted or encrypted. The only thing you can do with corrupted Kickstart files is to throw them out. The encrypted files can be decrypted using the MakeKick utility (see the KICKTO option of MakeKick). - "Incorrect Kickstart address in header file","Invalid Kickstart original address","Corrupted Kickstart file","Kickstart file doesn't match the header", "Error reading Kickstart file" and other similar messages: The Kickstart file you have supplied doesn't match the Kickstart header. Your Kickstart can be corrupted or patched, but there's also a possibility that you have choosed wrong name of the Kickstart. - MKick can crash if you use some ROM remapping utility. Removing of resident modules: ----------------------------- In several situations, you might want to remove all resident modules which survive reset (such as RAD, NewAlertHook etc. - especially useful if debugging such a thing). MKick can help you: If you hold the left mouse button during system reboot (after initialization of ROM Kickstart, but before start of the one in RAM), the resident modules except MKick's own module are removed. Warning: If you want to invoke bootmenu, you must press the buttons after the RAM Kickstart is started to avoid the actions described above.