> Chris, > > Thank you for your reply. > > > GDB supports a simple (no HW emu) simu until now. > > at the moment, i'm working at the Serial-JTAG adapter, which should > > become a "gateway" between GDB and the JTAG. > > JTAG will be nice.
When you can get debugging working over JTAG, there will be many more happy users. The TI parallel port JTAG device is quite good, and cheap at $99 (with an evaluation board, and a crippled version of IAR's compiler), but there are compatible ones available from Olimex at $10. As far as I understand it, the msp-gcc guys (would that be Chris for this part?) have got downloading to work over the TI JTAG adaptor, and a couple of simple commands (reset, run, etc.), but not full debugging support. Once they've been able to get the other critical commands working (breakpoints, reading/writing memory and registers), then they will be well on the way to a complete gdb-jtag debugger. Add your favourite gui front-end (mine is gvd), and you can throw out C "it looks like you have almost found your problem, so now's a good time to crash" Spy for ever. In the meantime, it is quite possible to use gcc along with C-spy for debugging. It's a mildly absurd system of compiling, linking, disassembling, assembling and linking again, and you miss symbolic information on variables (I suspect I could achieve that with some glue programs, but I keep putting it off while waiting for complete gdb-jtag), but it does work. As for the compiler, I've used it for a couple of serious projects and find it excellent. Especially with some of the optomisation flags turned on, it generates very neat code. In the long term, the msp compiler market is going to be split between gcc (for those that want the top quality code, or want a more hands-on approach, and are not scared off by lack of a telephone support line and gcc's "great once you've got it working" image) and ImageCraft (for those that want a neat, pre-packaged compiler and debugger with excellent commercial support for a modest cost). Once ImageCraft have completed their compiler (they are in alpha/beta testing now) and debugger, I suspect they will quickly become the dominant choice for those looking for a commercial compiler.
