MidWest, TMON
Volume Number: 2
Issue Number: 7
Column Tag: MidWest Report
Chicago Visited & TMON Re-Visited! 
By Paul Snively, Columbus, Indiana, MacTutor Contributing Editor
Darrin Adler's User Area for TMON
Some of you may remember my review of TMON from ICOM Simulations, Inc. in
the September, 1985 issue of MacTutor. If you do, you should be aware that I said two
things which were incorrect, for which I apologize to ICOM and MacTutor's readers.
First, I said that TMON was the name of the first machine language monitor that I
ever used. In fact, the name of the monitor was T-BUG, which was a terrible little
tape-based monitor for the Model I TRS-80. My apologies to ICOM for associating their
product with this primitive piece of code.
Secondly, and more importantly, I said that I thought that it would be a while
before anyone came up with a way to improve upon TMON's pre-defined user area
routines. The folks at ICOM have done their level best to make a liar out of me.
If the name Darin Adler rings a bell, it's probably because he's a co-author of
Déjà Vu, the innovative Macintosh adventure game, and is the author of the SkipFinder
desk accessory, which is one of the more elegant Finder bypassing tools around.
SkipFinder is in the public domain, as is the Extended User Area that Darin wrote,
which is the subject of this article. [The Extended User Area is available on the source
code disk for this issue. Latest Version is 665. -Ed.]
Now its probably as good a time as any to write this disclaimer: the TMON
Extended User Area was written by Darin Adler in a capacity not directly related to
ICOM Simulations. The Extended User Area is not a product of ICOM Simulations, is not
sold by ICOM Simulations, and most importantly, is not supported by ICOM Simulations.
If you want a copy of the Extended User Area, you can get it from MacTutor, me, Darin
Adler, and the Delphi and CompuServe information systems. If you need help with the
Extended User Area, your best bet is to write to Darin Adler at the address given in the
source file. Failing that, you can ask me. Incidentally, the Extended User Area is not
completely documented anywhere other than here, so if there's something that I don't
cover well enough, you'll have to talk to Darin or myself [Write Paul care of MacTutor.
-Ed.]
The Extended User Area came to me on a disk which includes three files: PackIt
II, EUA 662.pit, and EUA 662 Source.pit. PackIt II is the second version of the de facto
standard Macintosh file packer program. The program is shareware, so please send the
requested contribution. EUA 662.pit is a combination of User Area, EUA ∂, and
PatchTMON. User Area is the ready-to-load user area file for TMON; EUA ∂ is some
skimpy (very skimpy) documentation, and PatchTMON is a little program that fixes
TMON so that it will allow user areas as large as EUA version 662. EUA 662 Source.pit
contains a lot of files which collectively make up the EUA 662 MDS source code ("for
the curious and ambitious ones," says Jay Zipnick of ICOM).
Features of this new User Area
The Extended User Area (hereafter called EUA for the sake of my fingers) goes
quite a bit above and beyond the call of duty for a TMON user area. It's so big that TMON
must be patched to accomodate it. Among other things, it patches TMON itself to do things
like show the application's screen behind TMON's windows and eliminate the
schizophrenic cursor (there are no longer two separate cursor positions, one for the
application and one for the monitor; the cursor is an entity distinct from any
operational mode).
The EUA also adds some nice little features like implementing the _Debugger trap
(the lack of which in the standard TMON Darin called an "oversight" when I talked to
him), embedding the System.MAP globals in the user area (no more reserving space for
the label table and loading the .MAP file), and making the distinction between what the
system global TopMem says and what it really is (this appears to be crucial for proper
operation under Switcher).
Referenced by (2):