Jump to content
IGNORED

Amoeba: newly discovered proto software


Savetz

Recommended Posts

The seller told me: "My neighbor was moving and decided he didn't want to take a huge Atari collection with him. I purchased it off of him. He told me that his sister worked for Atari for many years and that he got most of his stuff from her."

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Tempest Basically, IMHO, this is the best debugger I've seen yet for the Atari 8-bit, and then some.

 

-Thom

 

But where on earth did it come from? Is it an internally developed Atari product? Was it ever sold to the public? It's all very mysterious.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On a hunch, I emailed Harry Stewart (Atari PILOT, WSFN, not interviewed yet) asking him if he knew anything about it:

 

He wrote: "Amoeba was a debugger developed internally by Atari. Paul Laughton was manager at the time, and employee Amy Chen was the developer. The name was a play on the words – “Amy’s debugger.” I’ll look to see if I have any additional information, and will scan it and send you the scans if I do."

 

—Kevin

  • Like 13
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On a hunch, I emailed Harry Stewart (Atari PILOT, WSFN, not interviewed yet) asking him if he knew anything about it:

 

He wrote: "Amoeba was a debugger developed internally by Atari. Paul Laughton was manager at the time, and employee Amy Chen was the developer. The name was a play on the words – “Amy’s debugger.” I’ll look to see if I have any additional information, and will scan it and send you the scans if I do."

 

—Kevin

 

Well there you go. Mystery solved!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Thom:

From 'The Doctor': Thom you are doing an excellent explanation of the Amoeba toolkit, I really do enjoy watching this. Please play with Amoeba just a bit more :).

 

Totally agree with, did took a too quick look at it and thought it is just another debugger, because I was already fixed on BUG/65. You are dam right and your movie speaks a clear language, Amoeba really has some nice features. :-) Maybe we should face an ultimate debugger in the future, too?

 

But Thom, please do not forget to finish your outstanding work with the 2KB-educational system master cart... We really are hot for your work, as always. ;-)

 

@Tempest:

But where on earth did it come from? Kevin, who else?

 

Is it an internally developed Atari product? Must be, else I would have known of it. Before I started with the Wiki, I have collected all(!) ads of everything about Atari, then wiped out the program, when it did arrived. The remaining ones are in the Rarity 10 site. Amoeba wasn't listed there....

 

Was it ever sold to the public? No, please see above.

 

It's all very mysterious. No, it is just Kevin is doing his job, as always... :-)

 

Further, there will be big things in the future, too... ;-)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am using Amoeba as my debugger alongside AMAC, to help develop the programmers text editor (called 'Keypunch') that I want to replace MEDIT. It has proven to be incredibly effective. If this were my only debugger, I would be quite happy...even without such hypervisory niceness like seeing the traceback of the last X instructions (only possible either in emulators, or with logic analyzers or ICE systems). Amy did a great job, and it makes me wonder what the final version was like.

 

-Thom

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This looks like a nice debugger. Are there any features that would make me consider using it instead of Omnimon?

 

Well, if you HAVE Omnimon, then..that will be a tough sell, I must admit.

 

It's extremely resilient as it hooks everywhere it can so that one can get back into Amoeba when things crash. Usually a BREAK key is all I need to get back in, or a warm start and restart at wherever I place it.

 

It's also got a facility to patch code in at different points, up to 8 patch points, which can be turned on or off by the debugger. This works well with the built in mini-assembler.

 

You may want to give it a spin and see what you think, and report back.

 

-Thom

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, if you HAVE Omnimon, then..that will be a tough sell, I must admit.

 

It's extremely resilient as it hooks everywhere it can so that one can get back into Amoeba when things crash. Usually a BREAK key is all I need to get back in, or a warm start and restart at wherever I place it.

 

It's also got a facility to patch code in at different points, up to 8 patch points, which can be turned on or off by the debugger. This works well with the built in mini-assembler.

 

You may want to give it a spin and see what you think, and report back.

 

-Thom

I watched your video so I have an idea of what it can do but haven't tried it out yet. I just started playing around with Omnimon since I installed the Antonia4mb and I like its features but it would be nice to have a user interface like Amoeba. I was just wondering if there were other good features. The patching sounds like it could be usefull for tracking down bugs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...