Debugging

[guy lateur]

I'm using vasm to cross compile Amiga applications. My main interest is in games and demos, so the first thing I do is usually to turn off the system, and then program 'to the metal'. I'm using AF (7.2) to test my results, so 99% of dev time is spent on PC.

I'm getting to a point where a debugger would come in very handy. I have no debugging experience on actual hardware, but I believe that, in this case, a second Amiga was used (connected using null modem) to run the debugger on and examine the app running on the first Amiga.

Is this kind of setup possible in AF at all? Can I run 2 instances of AF and have 1 debug the other? I'd be wanting to put some breakpoints, examine the registers and selected memory locations, these kinds of things.

Any tips, anyone?
TIA!

[tolkien]

What about the winuae debugger?
Try pressing Shift +f12 to enter.

[guy lateur]

Originally Posted by tolkien

What about the winuae debugger?
Try pressing Shift +f12 to enter.

That doesn't do anything, I'm afraid. Unless I have to do something special in my code or assembly process or something? Because I basically just come into AF with the .exe file..

[tolkien]

Oh sorry! You are using AmigaForever. Perhaps it hides some keys from winuae. I think I have AF installed in my PC...will try later.

[guy lateur]

Originally Posted by tolkien

Oh sorry! You are using AmigaForever. Perhaps it hides some keys from winuae. I think I have AF installed in my PC...will try later.

Thank you! I had read some things about the winUAE debugger, and since AF is using that under the hood, we should be able to use it in AF too, right?

[tolkien]

I have tried to start the debugger with AF with no success. Why dont you try WinUAE directly? You have the roms and the system from AF.

[guy lateur]

Originally Posted by tolkien

I have tried to start the debugger with AF with no success. Why dont you try WinUAE directly? You have the roms and the system from AF.

Thanks for your help, tolkien!

Yeah, I guess you're right. Although I wished it wouldn't have to come to this, I might actually have to try this. This is not so easy for me, ATM, even though I should indeed have everything I need. Eg, I wouldn't readily know how to start my AF A1200 dev config in winuae..

Also, before I spend a lot of time on this, are you/we confident this will work with a demo, ie, an application that shuts down the system? In other words, is it truely a winuae debugger, that runs 'next to' the emulator, ie, regardless of the app/sys you are trying to debug?

[tolkien]

you can be sure the winuae debugger works even if you kill the system. Im using it right now debugging my little asm intro.

[guy lateur]

Originally Posted by tolkien

you can be sure the winuae debugger works even if you kill the system. Im using it right now debugging my little asm intro.

Ok thanks for confirming this. I will definitely check the pure-winuae route then.

[Toni Wilen]

Make also sure you aren't in exclusive full screen mode. It only works in windowed modes.

btw, note that old GUI debugger isn't really supported, it mostly works but there can be issues, type xx to switch modes. Still waiting for someone to find some nice multi-window GUI library.. But as usual, it probably does not exists and I need to implement it from scratch. Someday..

[guy lateur]

Thanks for the help, people, I got it working, woohoo! There definitely are issues with the GUI debugger, in that it doesn't want to even start while my demo is running. It does start when you're in workbench, so I switched it to command line mode there. Fortunately, it remembers this mode, and after a restart I was able to get to the debugger while my demo was running. I'm using winUAE 4.0.1 (2018.07.16) on windows 10 pro.

Btw, are there any decent tutorials out there on this? I've read the help in the debugger itself, but most of that is rather cryptic to me, never having used an Amiga debugger before. If anybody knows of any stuff I could check to bring me up to speed more easily, I'll be glad to hear about it.

Edit: Oh and btw, it says "couldn't open amiga.lib". Not sure if that's something I should be worried about..