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A dynamic very high-level debugger for low-level microprograms

1986; Association for Computing Machinery; Volume: 17; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1145/19530.19547

1558-0296

Nancy J. Wahl, S.R. Schach, Robert I. Winner,

Evolutionary Algorithms and Applications

Microcode debuggers may be classified according to the following three criteria: static or dynamic output, the level of debugging, and the type of debugging facilities provided. A very high level interactive debugger that supports dynamic debugging of microcode written for the Perkin-Elmer 3220 is described in this paper. The system allows the user to debug microcode at a very high level because the microarchitecture of the machine can be displayed in the format conceived by the user. The display is dynamic in that the user sees the flow of data as it occurs during the execution of microinstructions. The system supports the usual debugging facilities including setting breakpoints, executing in step or continuous modes, executing in trace mode, examining and changing the contents of memory locations and registers, and restarting the microprogram at an earlier location. But, these facilities are greatly enhanced because the output of the debugger is graphical and dynamic.