NBC Debugger for NXT

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006

A new debugger has surfaced for NBC and the LEGO Mindstorms NXT. Check out the wealth of features!

Basic Features
integration with BricxCC; start/stop/restart; step into/over/out; single/multi thread debugging; show/walk thread’s call stack; watch/modify variables; debug logging; unlimited soft and hardcoded break points and debugbreaks; copy to clipboard; optional periodical data collection during program execution; comm status lights; NXT keep alive

Debug logging
simple/multi-segment debug log with numeric and string support

Source code integration
jump to definition of subroutine/thread/variable/label/macro/file in the project; show/jump to next instruction; force continue anywhere; run to cursor; color coded soft/hard enabled/disabled breakpoints; user selected font

Breakpoints
unlimited hard coded unconditional/conditional/counter type with optional reset, enable/disable at run-time; unlimited soft breakpoints add/remove/enable/disable at run time; 1 soft break point enabled per subroutine; display location/type/hit count; enable all/disable all; reset hit count; jump to breakpoint; add/remove/enable/disable breakpoint for source line at run time; copy to clipboard

Variable watch/modify
display/modify variable/array/cluster during execution/pause; hex/decimal base; display variable name/type/value; display array type/length/values; display array as string; expand truncated lines in tool-tip; unlimited embedded array/cluster dimensions; collapse/expand clusters/arrays; full collapse/expand; 3 modes show all variables/user selected variables/variables in currently executed section; copy to clipboard

Thread and call stack
display location with subroutine/thread name/file name/line number; expand truncated lines in tool-tip; expand threads call stack; display/walk call stack; click to jump to source code; copy to clipboard

[via nxtasy.org forums]

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Next Bytes Code 1.0.1.b12 Now Available

Wednesday, November 29th, 2006

John Hansen has released an updated NBC beta. NBC allows users to program the LEGO Mindstorms NXT using textual code with assembly language syntax.

This beta release introduces support for two new languages related to NBC. The NPG language is a very simple 5 step declarative language for writing RPG (NXT Program) executables. NPG programs simple list the 5 steps with compiler support for C++-style comments interspersed. Unlike the built-in NXT menu system mechanism for writing NXT Programs which require alternating move and wait commands, programs written using NPG can sequence the 5 commands in any order except that the EndStop and EndLoop commands can only occur as the last step. See test.npg for a small sample. These programs require the RPGReader.sys program on the NXT. This executable is 14kb in size but a replacement version which nearly identical functionality will soon be available on the NBC site which is only ~2.5kb.

NBC also now supports a very early version of the NXC programming language. This language is a lot like NQC syntax-wise. It is still in its infancy so it is subject to substantial change and improvement. The NBC compiler converts the NXC code to NBC code and then compiles it as it would any other NBC program. See test.nxc for a basic example.

The NXTDefs.h header file has been split into NXCDefs.h and NXTDefs.h. NBC programs should still #include “NXTDefs.h” but NXC programs should #include “NXCDefs.h”.

This release also fixes a problem with unix-style line endings which made it so that multiline macros written on non-Windows platforms would not work correctly.

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