Usage

In addition to those considerations mentioned above, directly accessing hardware registers can cause damage to hardware if not done correctly. In particular, improper use of the Falcon030 video registers could damage an attached monitor. Likewise, use of the floppy and hard drive registers can cause data loss and drive damage. For these reasons, it is strongly recommended that you avoid using hardware registers when possible, and when otherwise unavoidable, they should be used with extreme care.

Memory Map Conventions

For each Atari computer that a specific hardware location is valid for, the appropriate box will be shaded. Following is a key to several abbreviations and concepts used in this guide:

BYTE	Occupies one byte (8 bits).
WORD	Occupies one WORD (16 bits).
LONG	Occupies one longword (32 bits).
OW	Occupies the odd WORD of a LONG.
EW	Occupies the even WORD of a LONG.
OB	Occupies the odd BYTE of a WORD.
EB	Occupies the even BYTE of the WORD.
ROM	Location is Read-Only Memory
RAM	Location is Read-Write Memory
I/O	Location is hardware-mapped
VME	Location addresses VME address space
N/A	Not applicable
RO	Read-only location
WO	Write-only location
RW	Read-write location
RSVD	Reserved
Unassigned	Either not assigned or undocumented (hardware developers should always consult Atari before mapping a third-party device to a hardware location).