Prepare for debug
Prior to start debugging, one must start the msp430 jtag proxy program, msp430-gdbproxy. But it is more convenient to create a capability to start this from eclipse. How to arrange this?
From the run menu select "External Tools" and here enter the new button below:
Enter or browse to the location of the proxy program, under windows normally as given in the screenshot above, but without path specification is allowable when the environment variable is set correspondingly.
Further set Arguments as shown in the screenshot: --port=3333 msp430.
If you like to use the USB-FET version (e.g. MSP-FET430UIF from TI) you need to add TIUSB to the set of arguments end up with: --port=3333 msp430 TIUSB.
Give this tool entry a name (e.g. MSP430 proxy) and close this window (or run the tool immediately). The console window of eclipse informs about the status of GDBproxy.
Repeat this procedure for the GIVEIO utility. Here the Working Directory MUST be specified. Giveio is required with Windows 2000 or XP in order to ensure that the parallel port is reserved for this application. This little convenience is related to the platform independent nature of mspgcc. You may have noted that the mspgcc installation was finished with this install_giveio utility.
Both tools can be invoked by means of a single click from the eclipse menu. One must activate these utilities only each first time a debug session is started. To be honest it must be noted here that the gdb-debug interface with MSP430 is prone to spurious hang-ups. The pod interface is not really more reliable than CCE's interface.
Now start the proxy! From this dialog you can click the return button. The console window in the bottom part of the eclipse environment should show the following message:
When the message "msp430: Could not initialize device interface (1)" appears, then giveio is not installed. Activate this, and then start the proxy again. It is important to memorize how to close the proxy: click the red square right. It will be necessary to restart the proxy when the debugger hangs (lin the next section, an alternative terminate method will be shown).
Setting up for starting a Debug Session
Prior to starting a debug session, the debug environment must be set up. In the run menu, enter "Open Debug Dialog...". The following dialog in a simpler makeup as shown here appears: Right click on "Embedded debug (Cygwin)" on Windows or "Embedded debug (Native)" on Linux and select "New...". Now an extended version of this dialog box appears, just as shown here.
Further manual entries:
Specify the GDB debugger executable (with or without path).
In the tab next, enter following command lines:
Here these lines are repeated to serve pasting in your eclipse environment:
set remoteaddresssize 64 set remotetimeout 999999 target remote localhost:3333 set download-write-size 2000 set remote memory-write-packet-size 2000 set remote memory-write-packet-size fixed set remote memory-read-packet-size 2000 set remote memory-read-packet-size fixed monitor erase all load debug/<artifact_file>.elf
Remote localhost is the proxy's ID, which defaults to 3333. Not necessary, but interesting are 5 lines with size specifications for download and remote - which may be omitted. I don't know their exact effect, but specifying the given sizes as high as possible (max.: RAM limit of the derivative used) may considerably speed up download and flash timing when a debug iteration step is entered. Feel free to experiment it. The idea of size specification comes from homepage.hispeed.ch/py430/mspgcc/index.html.
For situations where information memory must be retained, specify monitor erase main.
Finally take care of the proper name of the build output file.
Now, all necessary preparations are done, and a debug session can be started.
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