Debugcart
The debug cartridge is a virtual "cartridge" which provides a few features for automatic testing and debugging.
primary features
The primary features are the minimal features required for the Testbench.
- one register in I/O space. when a value is written to this register, the emulator exits with the respective value used as exit status code.
- $d7ff - C64 (and VSID), C128, SCPU, DTV
- $910f - VIC20 (discussion)
- $fdcf - Plus4 (discussion)
- $8bff - Pet
- $fdaff - CBM2 series (CBM510, CBM610 etc)
the respective memory locations have been choosen so they will most likely never collide with any kind of extension, allowing to also test cartridges and i/o extensions.
secondary features
These are additional features not required by the testbench, which could be useful to debug software running on the emulator
Feature Wishlist
- log something like "debug cart enabled" and print the available features too
- output CPU status (registers, flags) and timing info (cycle count, rasterline) to console of the host
- output strings to the console of the host (printf-alike, allowing memory peek)
- pause the emulator
- load and save blocks of memory from the host
- save screenshot with auto-generated filename
- save vice snapshot with auto-generated filename
- Possibility to measure performance. Start/stop cycle clock and print it. Preferably nested to see the whole calling tree. Think gprof
- Block CPU until cycle x, line y. Useful for quickly testing VIC-tricks without implementing boring stable timing.