CoreView(tm)

A Window Into Your PC Memory


Version 1.01

Copyright (c) 1989-1991 RolySoft, Denmark

This product is donated to the public domain




What is CoreView?
-----------------

CoreView is a small but fast memory viewer. With help of CoreView you
may look through the memory of your computer. CoreView also has
facilities for searching memory for specific strings or BIOS
extensions.

CoreView is particular a great tool if you are going to install new
hardware into your computer. Often you have to set jumbers on the
add-on card to install its BIOS into the right address space. But WHAT
is the right address space? With CoreView you may browse through ROM at
C000h through F000h and look for empty slots.

CoreView is also capable of viewing memory in real time. You may
enable a function called "timed display". While this function is on,
CoreView continously updates the screen with data from memory. If any
bits change, you will see it immediately on the screen.


What's new in version 1.01?
---------------------------

Version 1.01 is only a minor update. No new functions have been added.
The only new facility is the better co-existence with DESQview.
CoreView now recognizes DESQview and enables you to work with it in a
window. CoreView has also been recompiled using the new Borland C++,
which produced a slightly faster code.


A quick tour through the CoreView functions
-------------------------------------------

CoreView has many functions. As all functions are easy to use, I will
only use little space to explain them. You may call the help screen
inside CoreView by hitting [Alt+H] from the main screen. This help
screen summarises the functions.

First of all you may scroll through memory. To do this, you use [],
[], [Home], [End] etc. All PCs are capable of addressing at least 1
Mb of memory. With CoreView you may inspect this 1 Mb address space.
By using the [], [], [PgUp], [PgDn], [Home], [End] and many control
keys, you may browse through this 1 Mb address space. At the bottom of
the PC memory there is always RAM installed. When you go to higher
addresses, the PC has ROMs installed. RAM is memory which may be
changed by the CPU. ROM is Read Only memory, which means it may NOT be
changed. If CoreView encounters a ROM area, you will see a stars (*)
right after the addresses. This star tells you, that you are currently
looking at ROM locations.

If you are using a colour monitor, you may have noticed that some bytes
are high-lighted while others aren't. All standard figures and letters
are shown in a bright colour by CoreView to make it easier for you to
recognize human-readable strings.

If you want to search for a specific string, you may do that. Hit
[Alt+S] to enter the search input screen. Enter the string you want to
search for. In the upper input window you may enter all characters
between 20h and FFh. If you also need to search any of the control
characters, you should press [Tab] once, and enter the characters as
two-digit hex numbers. Hit [Enter] to begin the search or hit [Esc] to
abort. [F10] will clear the input fields.

You may choose to search for an exact match, or you may search for a
match, which is case-insensitive, eg. uppercase and lowercase letters
are equal. Use [Alt+C] in the main screen to change the search case.

If CoreView finds your search string, and you want to repeat the search
for the next copy, then press [Alt+R] to repeat.

CoreView displays a search message in the lower right corner of the
screen, while it is searching. The search is NOT interruptable. On
386s a 1 Mb search takes approximately 2 seconds. On XTs and other
relatively slow computers, the search may take 15 seconds or more to
finish.

If you want to jump to a total different address, you may enter it into
the address window. When you press [Enter], CoreView is set to this
new address. You may also pick up the current address you are looking
at, and put it into the input box. Hit [Ctrl+Enter] to read the
address from the current window position. If you want to normalize
this address, just hit [Alt+N]. A normalized address, is an address
with an offset part always in the range 0000h through 000Fh.

CoreView provides you with two functions to specify how data are shown.
If you press [Alt+W] memory is displayed in wide format. This allows
you to see more data on a single screen. To switch back to the
standard hex display, hit [Alt+W] once more. [Alt+A] acts as a filter.
If you press [Alt+A], only ASCII characters are displayed. This filter
is useful when you are looking into text strings and don't want the
code displayed. Most code contains opcodes outside the ASCII range.


A final word...
---------------

The CoreView program and its documentation have been donated the public
domain.

Please report any problems to ROLAND LYNGVIG at the Josti-BBS, phone
+45 47 38 05 24 (DANE TECH 2:230/31 or SDNet/Work: #551.13).


Thank you for using CoreView...

RolySoft, Denmark