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Mesa Executive

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Mesa Executive

4. Mesa Executive

The Mesa Executive serves as an optional user interface for the standard Mesa system. It provides interactive facilities for loading and starting Mesa programs; it is also an interface between your program and the Mesa debugger. It is entered by loading MesaExec.bcd from the command line. The Mesa Executive has five commands, each identified by its first character: New, Start, Debug, Quit, and --(comment). The commands are discussed in detail below.

New [filename]

Performs a NEW on the configuration (or module) filename, loading it into the system. If no extension is supplied, ".bcd" is assumed. The global frame of the control module of the configuration is returned, but it is not started. If the configuration contains no control module, zero is returned.

Start [frame]

Performs a START on frame (specified in octal). Note that module parameters can not be supplied. Typing ESC in place of frame starts the frame returned by the last New command. If the module has already been started, this commands performs a RESTART.

Debug [confirm]

Invokes the Mesa Debugger. Typing ↑SWAT at any point during execution of a Mesa program also invokes the Debugger. In addition, ↑SHIFT-SWAT attempts to invoke Swat.

Quit [confirm]

Exits the Mesa environment, cleaning up its state, and returns to the Alto Executive. Typing SHIFT-SWAT at any point during execution also attempts to abort the computation and return to the Alto Executive.

--

Simply echoes characters typed until a CR. Up to 200 characters may be typed.

The Mesa Executive keeps a typescript of these commands (and all data sent to the standard output stream) on the file Mesa.typescript; it can be used as a log of your Mesa session.

Most of the above commands can be specified on the command line used to invoke Mesa. See the Mesa User’s Handbook for further details.