NAME
SumKickData -- compute the checksum for the Kickstart delta list
SYNOPSIS
checksum = SumKickData()
D0
ULONG SumKickData(void);
FUNCTION
The Amiga system has some ROM (or Kickstart) resident code that
provides the basic functions for the machine. This code is
unchangeable by the system software. This function is part of a
support system to modify parts of the ROM.
The ROM code is linked together at run time via ROMTags (also known
as Resident structures, defined in exec/resident.h). These tags tell
Exec's low level boot code what subsystems exist in which regions of
memory. The current list of ROMTags is contained in the ResModules
field of ExecBase. By default this list contains any ROMTags found
in the address ranges $F80000-$FFFFFF and $F00000-$F7FFFF.
There is also a facility to selectively add or replace modules to the
ROMTag list. These modules can exist in RAM, and the memory they
occupy will be deleted from the memory free list during the boot
process. SumKickData() plays an important role in this run-time
modification of the ROMTag array.
Three variables in ExecBase are used in changing the ROMTag array:
KickMemPtr, KickTagPtr, and KickCheckSum. KickMemPtr points to a
linked list of MemEntry structures. The memory that these MemEntry
structures reference will be allocated (via AllocAbs) at boot time.
The MemEntry structure itself must also be in the list.
KickTagPtr points to a long-word array of the same format as the
ResModules array. The array has a series of pointers to ROMTag
structures. The array is either NULL terminated, or will have an
entry with the most significant bit (bit 31) set. The most
significant bit being set says that this is a link to another
long-word array of ROMTag entries. This new array's address can be
found by clearing bit 31.
KickCheckSum has the result of SumKickData(). It is the checksum of
both the KickMemPtr structure and the KickTagPtr arrays. If the
checksum does not compute correctly then both KickMemPtr and
KickTagPtr will be ignored.
If all the memory referenced by KickMemPtr can't be allocated then
KickTagPtr will be ignored.
There is one more important caveat about adding ROMTags. All this
ROMTag magic is run very early on in the system -- before expansion
memory is added to the system. Therefore any memory in this
additional ROMTag area must be addressable at this time. This means
that your ROMTag code, MemEntry structures, and resident arrays
cannot be in expansion memory. There are two regions of memory that
are acceptable: one is chip memory, and the other is "Ranger" memory
(memory in the range between $C00000-$D80000).
Remember that changing an existing ROMTag entry falls into the
"heavy magic" category -- be very careful when doing it. The odd are
that you will blow yourself out of the water.
NOTE
SumKickData was introduced in the 1.2 release
RESULT
Value to be stuffed into ExecBase->KickCheckSum.
WARNING
After writing to KickCheckSum, you should push the data cache.
This prevents potential problems with large copyback style caches.
A call to CacheClearU will do fine.
SEE ALSO
InitResident, FindResident