The only client side software that's needed is a simple terminal emulator, connected to the serial port at 57,600 baud.
On Linux, I use gtkterm:
After powering up the target system, you should see:
The emulator has two modes:
- running mode, where it is executing target processor instructions
- command mode, where it is the target processor is stopped, and the emulator is waiting for command input
The emulator powers up in the running mode, and the target system should run normally.
To change to command mode, just hit return, and you should see the command prompt:
The first field (09.678286) is the number of cycles of processor execution (in million cycles). If the target clock speed were 1MHz (which it is the Acorn Atom, this is also the number of seconds).
The second field (FE87) is the address of the current instruction.
The third field (LDA B000) is a disassembly of the current instruction.
At this point, you can list all the command available using the help (h) command.
Command can be abbreviated to their first few characters.
Each of the commands is described in the command reference section below.
To see the current value of the target processor registers, use the regs (r) command:
To single step a few instruction, use the step (s) command:
To change back to running mode, use the continue (c) command.