Debug Console 2.1

                 (c) 1995 Martin Mares, MJSoft System Software

================================================================================


Preface
=======

   DeCon 2.1 and its documentation are Copyright (c) Martin Mares, MJSoft System
Software, Prague, Czech Republic.

   This  archive  can  be  freely  redistributed as long as all of its files are
included   in   their   original   form  without  any  additions,  deletions  or
modifications  (excluding addition of other README-style files and icons) and no
more  than a nominal fee is charged for its distribution.  All copyright notices
in  the  programs and accompanying documentation files must remain intact.  It's
especially  forbidden  to add various '.displayme' files and BBS advertisements.
This style of distribution is generally known as FREEWARE.

   Source  text of this program is included in the distribution.  You can freely
improve  it.   If  you  want  to  distribute your improved version, there're two
possibilities:   (1)  Send  your  improvements  to  me  (the best form is a diff
output)  and  I'll include them in the next release.  (2) Distribute them alone.
In  this  case, you must mention the name of original author, change the name of
the  product  (not  only  by  increasing  the  version),  and  obey  all  of the
distribution rules mentioned above.

   Special  permission is given to Fred Fish to distribute this program on his
"Fish Disks".

   This  software  is  provided  "AS  IS"  without  warranty of any kind, either
expressed  or  implied.   The author is not responsible for any damage caused by
it.


Introduction
============

   Many debugging utilities send their output to serial port using simple
communication mechanism embedded in the exec.library -- the RawPutChar function.
This simple utility patches that function, opens a window screen and redirects
whole debugging output to this window.

   Warning:  DeCon uses simple line buffering mechanism to increase speed which
causes incomplete lines not to be displayed before a newline character (or any
other character with code less than 32) is received.  NULs are not stored in the
buffer, but they cause flushing, too (you can use NUL to empty the buffer).

   If  you're  debugging  a resident module, you can install DeCon as a resident
module  by the AddModule utility (also included in this archive).  In this case,
priority  of  DeCon module is set to 4 by default, therefore it gets initialized
directly after the console device.

   DeCon is NOT pure and cannot be made resident (sorry, but if it were pure, it
would be much larger and slower).  The resident module can be used multiple
times, but it's self-modifying and some other tools allowing module installation
could inform you about non-mathing checksums -- these warnings are usually false
alarms and can be ignored.


Requirements
============

   - Kickstart 2.04 or higher

   - ss.library 5.0 or higher (included in this archive)

   - 68000 or higher


Command-line invocation
=======================

   If started from CLI (that means not as a resident module), additional
parameters can be specified according to this template:

   LEFT/N,TOP/N,WIDTH/N,HEIGHT/N,TITLE,SCREEN

   First four parameters define window position, the next one allows to specify
custom window title, the last one forces DeCon to use given public screen for
its output.


Other controls
==============

   (1) - Program termination - by clicking the close gadget of DeCon window
or by sending a CTRL-C signal to it.

   (2) - Saving console buffer to T:Debug - press CTRL-W (OK will appear and
last 16K of debug output will be saved).

   (3) - Stopping/restarting of console output - press CTRL-S to stop console
output, use CTRL-Q to restart it.

   (4) - Clearing of console window and all information in the buffer - CTRL-L.


History
=======

1.0 - Original debug console (release date unknown)

2.0 (22.1.95) - Completely rewritten version (changes too numerous...)

2.1 (7.2.95) - The console got a bit confused when it received a NUL character.


Notes
=====

   Send comments, suggestions and bug reports to mjsoft@k332.feld.cvut.cz