I'm working on a program in 16-bit 386 assembly, and I've finished coding it but of course it doesn't work correctly. There are some logic errors in it that I'm unable to locate. I know which functions aren't working, but I've rewritten them twice and still I've gotten nowhere. I tried using debug.com first, and of course it wasn't very helpful because its interface is atrocious and it doesn't understand instructions introduced with the 386 which throws off all the 'unassembly' displays which in turn makes debugging my program practically impossible with this tool. Then I tried codeview (which came with my copy of Masm 6.11 that I'm using), and it doesn't work with .com files. Thus, I had to rewrite some code to get it to work and change the build file and then after all the trouble it seems that the assembler and linker I have don't match the codeview version such that codeview only works as a diassembler practically and no useful info like function and label names is displayed. So now I'm stuck with a broken program in need of some debugging. Does anybody know of a good program that will assist in debugging 16 bit programs? I'd prefer something that runs in windows (XP), but really anything would be helpfull even if it is a DOS text-gui or I have to run it in in DOSBox to get it to work. Any assistance would be grealy appreciated.

I hate to do it, but I'm still having trouble and haven't found anything myself, so:
Bump =-/

Didn't Borland use to provide their TurboDebugger for free download a while back? Maybe you can check out their website.

Extrarius:

A couple of months ago, I made a 16 bit assembly language program. I am pretty sure I somehow managed to debug it. I'll check on that later when I get home.

In the mean time, if you're not afraid of big downloads (aprox 64MB), you could try downloading the open watcom compiler. I am told it has a good 16 bit debugger (I have it somewhere on my machine, but haven't ever used it!)

(Or you could also try the masm32, winasm, ollydbg studio links below)

the link (no time for clickies, sorry!):

http://store.scitechsoft.com/product_info.php?products_id=37

(If you like it, consider a donation)

Hope it helps. If not, I'll check if I have something back home...

DarkSlayer:

You can always use MASM32. That's what I personally use. Along with the Winasm Studio IDE, its PERFECT!! (personal opinion!)

links:

http://www.masm32.com/masmdl.htm
http://www.winasm.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=266
http://home.t-online.de/home/Ollydbg/


Enjoy!!!

Thanks for all the pointers, but after looking back over the code for the 3298472398572098572987509827309842897999th time I finally noticed that on one line I was using the wrong register in a [reg + const] memry access (because I changed the registry definitions to simplify other parts of the code) and now it works just fine!

I'll be posting the code to the showcase soon =-)

The code is up: Boot Sector Tic-Tac-Toe