Guru Meditation

Last updated

Guru Meditation started as an error notice displayed by the Amiga computer when it crashes. It is now also used by Varnish, [1] a software component used by many content-heavy websites. This has led to many internet users seeing a "Guru Meditation" message (or the variant "Guru Mediation") [2] when these websites suffer crashes or other issues. It is analogous to the "Blue Screen of Death" in Microsoft Windows operating systems, or a kernel panic in Unix.

Contents

It has also been used as a message for unrecoverable errors in software packages such as VirtualBox [3] and other operating systems (see Legacy section below).

Origins

The term "Guru Meditation Error" originated as an in-house joke in Amiga's early days. The company had a product called the Joyboard for the Atari 2600 home video game console, a game controller much like a joystick but operated by the feet, similar to the Wii Balance Board. Early in the development of the Amiga computer operating system, the company's developers became so frustrated with the system's frequent crashes that, as a relaxation technique, a game was developed where a person would sit cross-legged on the Joyboard, resembling an Indian guru. [4] The player tried to remain extremely still; the winner of the game stayed still the longest. If the player moved too much, a "guru meditation" error occurred. [5]

Description of "Guru Meditation" errors on the Amiga

The alert occurred when there was a fatal problem with the system. If the system had no means of recovery, it could display the alert, even in systems with numerous critical flaws. In extreme cases, the alert could even be displayed if the system's memory was completely exhausted.

The text of the alert messages was completely baffling to most users. Only highly technically adept Amiga users would know, for example, that exception 3 was an address error, and meant the program was accessing a word on an unaligned boundary. Users without this specialized knowledge would have no recourse but to look for a "Guru" or to simply reboot the machine and hope for the best.

Technical description (Amiga)

When a Guru Meditation is displayed, the options are to reboot by pressing the left mouse button, or to invoke ROMWack by pressing the right mouse button or to manually reboot. ROMWack is a minimalist debugger built into the operating system which is accessible by connecting a 9600 bit/s terminal to the serial port.

Amiga Guru Meditation.gif
Simulation of the Guru Meditation error message
Amiga Recoverable Alert.gif
Simulation of the Recoverable Alert message

The alert itself appears as a black rectangular box located in the upper portion of the screen. Its border and text are red for a normal Guru Meditation, or green/yellow for a Recoverable Alert, another kind of Guru Meditation. The screen may go black, but the power LEDs always alternates between full and half-brightness for a few seconds before the alert appears. In AmigaOS 1.x, programmed in ROMs known as Kickstart 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3, the errors are always red. In AmigaOS 2.x and 3.x, recoverable alerts are yellow, except for some very early versions of 2.x where they were green.

Dead-end alerts are always red and terminal in all OS versions except in a rare series of events, as in when a deprecated Kickstart (example: 1.1) program conditionally boots from disk on a more advanced Kickstart 3.x ROM Amiga running in compatibility mode (therefore eschewing the on-disk OS) and crashes with a red Guru Meditation but subsequently restores itself by pressing the left mouse button, the newer Kickstart recognizing an inadvised low level chipset call for the older ROM directly poking the hardware, and addressing it.

The error is displayed as two fields, separated by a period. The format is #0000000x.yyyyyyyy in case of a CPU error, or #aabbcccc.dddddddd in case of a system software error. The first field is either the Motorola 68000 exception number that occurred (if a CPU error occurs) or an internal error identifier (such as an "Out of Memory" code), in case of a system software error. The second can be the address of a Task structure, or the address of a memory block whose allocation or deallocation failed. It is never the address of the code that caused the error. If the cause of the crash is uncertain, this number is rendered as 48454C50, which stands for "HELP" in hexadecimal ASCII characters (48=H, 45=E, 4C=L, 50=P).

Guru Meditation handler

There was a commercially available error handler for AmigaOS, before version 2.04, called GOMF (Get Outta My Face) made by Hypertek/Silicon Springs Development corp. It was able to deal with many kinds of errors and gave the user a choice to either remove the offending process and associated screen, or allow the machine to show the Guru Meditation. In many cases, removal of the offending process gave one the choice to save one's data and exit running programs before rebooting the system. When the damage was not extensive, one was able to continue using the machine. However, it did not save the user from all errors, as one may have still seen this error occasionally.

Recoverable Alerts

Recoverable Alerts are non-critical crashes in the computer system. In most cases, it is possible to resume work and save files after a Recoverable Alert, while a normal, red Guru Meditation always results in an immediate reboot.

It is, however, still recommended to reboot as soon as possible after encountering a Recoverable Alert, because the system may be in an unpredictable state that can cause data corruption.[ citation needed ]

System software error codes

The first byte specifies the area of the system affected. The top bit will be set if the error is a dead end alert.[ citation needed ]

Area of systemValueSpecific part of system
Libraries 01Exec library
02Graphics library
03Layers library
04 Intuition library
05Math library
06CList library
07 AmigaDOS library
08RAM Handler library
09 Icons library
Devices 10Audio device
11Console device
12Gameport device
13Keyboard device
14Trackdisk device
15Timer device
Resources 20 CIA resource
21Disk resource
22Misc resource
Other areas30 Bootstrap
31 Workbench
32Diskcopy

Legacy

Guru Meditation on a 3DS playing a Homebrew DS game. DS Guru Meditation Error.jpg
Guru Meditation on a 3DS playing a Homebrew DS game.

See also

Related Research Articles

AmigaDOS is the disk operating system of the AmigaOS, which includes file systems, file and directory manipulation, the command-line interface, and file redirection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dialog box</span> User interface element

The dialog box is a graphical control element in the form of a small window that communicates information to the user and prompts them for a response.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kernel panic</span> Fatal error condition associated with Unix-like computer operating systems

A kernel panic is a safety measure taken by an operating system's kernel upon detecting an internal fatal error in which either it is unable to safely recover or continuing to run the system would have a higher risk of major data loss. The term is largely specific to Unix and Unix-like systems. The equivalent on Microsoft Windows operating systems is a stop error, often called a "blue screen of death".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crash (computing)</span> When a computer program stops functioning properly and self-terminates

In computing, a crash, or system crash, occurs when a computer program such as a software application or an operating system stops functioning properly and exits. On some operating systems or individual applications, a crash reporting service will report the crash and any details relating to it, usually to the developer(s) of the application. If the program is a critical part of the operating system, the entire system may crash or hang, often resulting in a kernel panic or fatal system error.

On the x86 computer architecture, a triple fault is a special kind of exception generated by the CPU when an exception occurs while the CPU is trying to invoke the double fault exception handler, which itself handles exceptions occurring while trying to invoke a regular exception handler.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">XScreenSaver</span> Screensaver software

XScreenSaver is a free and open-source collection of 240+ screensavers for Unix, macOS, iOS and Android operating systems. It was created by Jamie Zawinski in 1992 and is still maintained by him, with new releases coming out several times a year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joyboard</span> Atari 2600 balance board peripheral

The Joyboard is a balance board peripheral for the Atari 2600 home video game console. It was released in 1983 and was used by standing on top of it and leaning in a certain direction. Skier Suzy Chaffee appeared on television and at toy fairs demonstrating its use.

The Amiga Fast File System is a file system used on the Amiga personal computer. The previous Amiga filesystem was never given a specific name and known originally simply as "DOS" or AmigaDOS. Upon the release of FFS, the original filesystem became known as Amiga Old File System (OFS). OFS, which was primarily designed for use with floppy disks, had been proving slow to keep up with hard drives of the era. FFS was designed as a full replacement for the original Amiga filesystem. FFS differs from its predecessor mainly in the removal of redundant information. Data blocks contain nothing but data, allowing the filesystem to manage the transfer of large chunks of data directly from the host adapter to the final destination.

The bomb icon (💣) has several different applications in computing, and typically indicates a fatal system error.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Power-on self-test</span> Process performed by firmware or software routines

A power-on self-test (POST) is a process performed by firmware or software routines immediately after a computer or other digital electronic device is powered on.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual desktop</span> User interfaces describe ways in which virtual space of a computers desktop is expanded

In computing, a virtual desktop is a term used with respect to user interfaces, usually within the WIMP paradigm, to describe ways in which the virtual space of a computer's desktop environment is expanded beyond the physical limits of the screen's display area through the use of software. This compensates limits of the desktop area and is helpful in reducing clutter of running graphical applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Error message</span> Computer message indicating an error

An error message is the information displayed when an unforeseen problem occurs, usually on a computer or other device. Modern operating systems with graphical user interfaces, often display error messages using dialog boxes. Error messages are used when user intervention is required, to indicate that a desired operation has failed, or to relay important warnings. Error messages are seen widely throughout computing, and are part of every operating system or computer hardware device. The proper design of error messages is an important topic in usability and other fields of human–computer interaction.

A compositing manager, or compositor, is software that provides applications with an off-screen buffer for each window. The compositing manager composites the window buffers into an image representing the screen and writes the result into the display memory. A compositing window manager is a window manager that is also a compositing manager.

AmigaOS is the proprietary native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. Since its introduction with the launch of the Amiga 1000 in 1985, there have been four major versions and several minor revisions of the operating system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AmigaOS 4</span> Line of Amiga operating systems

AmigaOS 4 is a line of Amiga operating systems which runs on PowerPC microprocessors. It is mainly based on AmigaOS 3.1 source code developed by Commodore, and partially on version 3.9 developed by Haage & Partner. "The Final Update" was released on 24 December 2006 after five years of development by the Belgian company Hyperion Entertainment under license from Amiga, Inc. for AmigaOne registered users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Screen of death</span> Fatal error displays in operating systems

In computing, a screen of death, colloquially referred to as a blue screen of death, is an informal term for a type of a computer operating system error message displayed onscreen when the system has experienced a fatal system error. The fatal error typically results in unsaved work being lost and often indicates serious problems with the system's hardware or software. These error screens are usually the result of a kernel panic, although the terms are frequently used interchangeably. Most screens of death are displayed on an even background color with a message advising the user to restart the computer.

Amiga support and maintenance software performs service functions such as formatting media for a specific filesystem, diagnosing failures that occur on formatted media, data recovery after media failure, and installation of new software for the Amiga family of personal computers—as opposed to application software, which performs business, education, and recreation functions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kickstart (Amiga)</span> Bootstrap firmware used by Amiga computers

Kickstart is the bootstrap firmware of the Amiga computers developed by Commodore International. Its purpose is to initialize the Amiga hardware and core components of AmigaOS and then attempt to boot from a bootable volume, such as a floppy disk. Most Amiga models were shipped with the Kickstart firmware stored on ROM chips.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blue screen of death</span> Fatal system error screen

The blue screen of death is a critical error screen displayed by Microsoft Windows. It indicates a system crash, in which the operating system reaches a critical condition where it can no longer operate safely.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AmigaOS</span> Operating system for Amiga computers

AmigaOS is a family of proprietary native operating systems of the Amiga and AmigaOne personal computers. It was developed first by Commodore International and introduced with the launch of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, in 1985. Early versions of AmigaOS required the Motorola 68000 series of 16-bit and 32-bit microprocessors. Later versions were developed by Haage & Partner and then Hyperion Entertainment. A PowerPC microprocessor is required for the most recent release, AmigaOS 4.

References

  1. 1 2 "Varnish Troubleshooting: Varnish gives me Guru meditation" . Retrieved 2011-12-18.
  2. "Glossary of Terms: Guru mediation". Fastly Developer Hub. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
  3. "What is guru meditation? (VirtualBox forum)" . Retrieved 2012-11-11.
  4. "How We Created the Amiga Computer by RJ Mical, Info Magazine issue 13". January 1987.
  5. Bogost, Ian. "Guru Meditation" . Retrieved 2007-07-21.
  6. "Fatal Errors — ESP-IDF Programming Guide v4.1-dev-279-g96b96ae24 documentation" . Retrieved 2019-09-24. This section explains the meaning of different error causes, printed in parens after Guru Meditation Error: Core panic'ed message.
  7. "Guru Meditation". Elive Forums. 2020-04-21. Retrieved 2020-05-04.[ permanent dead link ]