> >This wouldn't be much use once your units got to the field.  For
> >development
> >they have chips with special bond out used in the ICE, which can trap on
> >stack underflow and overflow.
>
> I guess I don't see your point.  If you're waiting until your product gets
> put into general use to determine whether or not your code overflows the
> stack, then you're doing something wrong.

No, it's the other way around.  You debug with the chips that have the extra
stack checking hardware, but then ship product without it.

> I'm strictly speaking in terms of development.  And yes, for *proper*
> development or commercial products, an ICE would be quite handy, but for
the
> poor-man's debugging process, a flag bit stored in a RAM location would be
> more than helpful, which I'm just saying could be done probably in a
simple
> way by Microchip.

Nothing is "simple" when you try to burden millions of chips with it and
it's only needed during development.  There is no reason for Microchip to do
this.  Those that develop the applications that end up buying the millions
of chips will have no problem buying an ICE.  Those that won't spend the
money on an ICE are irrelevant to the bottom line.

> The MPLAB simulator detects it, but the chip doesn't...
> that's funny, especially when it can be incredibly difficult to simulate a
> complex system.

The simulator is all software, so there is no burden on the high volume
production products.


********************************************************************
Olin Lathrop, embedded systems consultant in Littleton Massachusetts
(978) 742-9014, olin@embedinc.com, http://www.embedinc.com

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