Hi Folks,
I guess I have to clarify the situation about the LOOK program.
It's intent is to help in system-level code development, and as such,
I'd probably say that it shouldn't be installed in any place where there
might be a problem of an "unauthorized" person "snooping" at what's in
storage. However, the LOOK program has been on the CBT Tape since
around 1980, and its capabilities have always been similar. Nobody
seems to have worried about its capabilities or non-capabilites. It has
been sitting on the CBT Tape all along. All we wanted to do, was allow
it to see storage above the bar, and we have been very grateful that we
have been able to accomplish that. That's what we wanted to announce.
I must emphasize that LOOK cannot change any storage.
Everybody has their own tools which they use "to help them do the
job". I use LOOK to look around in storage. Since LOOK also has
control block formatting capability, it makes life much easier when you
need to repeatedly follow a control block chain. Even when the storage
is unformatted, since the screen is displaying 256 bytes of storage in
the general area where you're looking, and you can go forward or
backward 256 bytes at a time, you get to discover a lot of information
about the general area of storage, nearby. This makes it much easier to
"scope out" control blocks, to see what they're doing. Obviously the
tool is very useful for system-level code development.
I just wanted to point out that now, you can use it to see storage
above the bar, as well. And you now have a way to do indirect
addressing above the bar, using the G command instead of the J command.
I'll explain. Suppose you're looking in a control block, and you
see something that looks like a 4-byte address at, say +14 from where
you are. You can command J+14 and go there. If it isn't a valid
address, you just press F9 (history backward) and go back to where you
were. Now (the new thing is) if you see something that looks like an
8-byte address at +10 from where you are, you can say G+10 and go
there. If it isn't a valid address, you press F9 and you're (hopefully)
back where you were. This kind of thing is very handy when you're
trying to figure out how to program something.
Again, I must emphasize that this program "has always been
around". It's just that we have been able to improve it, and Joe was
able to build in better recovery capability in case you hit some storage
that you can't get to.
The announcement was merely to let people know that the new LOOK
can see storage above the bar. Same as anything on the CBT Tape, it's
(thank God) there if you need it.
All the best of everything to all of you.
Sincerely, Sam
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