On Sun, 26 Jul 1998, Alex Holden wrote:


>
> On the other hand, I definitely would like to see more free GPL'd PIC
> development tools under Linux. Things I'd like to see most of all are a
> decent simulator and C compiler which understand MP compatible file
> formats and syntax. Others have also said they want an IDE as well, and
> there are many free IDEs available which could easily be adapted to use
> the pic development tools.

Alex,

I would like to see more GPL'd PIC development tools too. So I'm working
on a simulator. If you (or any one else) wish to be involved - with
either coding or testing, then send me a private e-mail.

Just to arouse some interest, here are some of the features:

  o Simulates the midrange, 14-bit core instruction set.
  o Supports the WDT and interrupts. Other peripherals like EEPROM and A/D
    are designed but not yet implemented.
  o Register dumps, Disassemble program memory.
  o All breakpoint types are supported:
      Execution
      Read a register
      Write a register
      hooks are in place for boolean type of breakpoints (e.g. break if
      the pc is less than 100 and 8 is written to the INDF)
  o Continuous trace - Everything is traced: instruction execution,
    register reads and writes, stack accesses, interrupts, indirect
    modification of the status register, etc.
  o Step, step over, run, and step backwards.
  o Simulate more than one processor at a time (this is not yet complete).
  o Stimulation files (not complete) will support bit, multi-bit, and
    analog stimuli.

Preliminary tests have shown that the simulation is astonishingly fast. On
my 90Mhz pentium slug I'm able to simulate about 1 million cycles in  3 or
4 seconds! I've made recent optimizations that promise to even improve
upon this.

I still have a whole lot of work left. Some of the major areas are:
  o Support the 12 and 16-bit cores
  o Add a user interface (I'm embarassed to show you what I've got now)
  o Add support for symbol files

I plan to give the initial release to James Bowman this Thursday. If
anyone else cares for a copy then send me a private email.

Scott