Excellent news, thanks for sharing! I'll post a news item about it for the website this tomorrow, when I'm in front of my computer again
On Fri, Feb 16, 2024, 1:23 PM E. C. Masloch via Freedos-user < [email protected]> wrote: > Hello list! > > Today I prepared release 7 of lDebug (small L). lDebug is an advanced > debugger for 86-DOS like systems. It is based on Paul Vojta's and > Japheth's FreeDOS Debug/X, which in turn started out as a clone of > MS-DOS Debug. Like all of these, it operates with a line-based terminal > interface. lDebug expands a lot on the capabilities of its ancestors > however. > > Release 7 adds one big feature that's new: The debugger now allocates > space for and allows loading of Extensions for lDebug (ELDs). Several > dozen ELDs have been written so far. They're included in the release in > the bin/ subdirectory (lDebug original packages) or in BIN/ (FreeDOS > package). The ELD architecture was created to allow optional extensions > of the debugger without bogging down the build, particularly the code > segment, with a lot of most likely unused code. > > Other than that, some bugfixes have arrived. To summarize from the > manual's list of news [1]: > > * The DIL command works now, fixing an embarrassing bug in release 6 > for which I provided patches [2]. > * The INSTALL command correctly works with the AREAS keyword followed > by another keyword. > * Two bootloaded mode file system read errors were fixed, one when a > file ends exactly on a cluster boundary and another when a FAT12 entry > is read which straddles a sector boundary in the FAT. > * The BOOT PROTOCOL= command with two kernel load files (MS-DOS v6 or > IBM-DOS load protocol) now allows to freely select the second (DOS) file > in any subdirectory of the partition to boot from. > > A few new features were added (aside from those implemented by > Extensions for lDebug): > > * An INSTALL TOGGLE command to switch certain features on or off. > * A fractional digit sometimes displayed for formatted sizes. > * ::scripts:: and ::config:: keywords can be used in pathnames passed > to Y, EXT, or BOOT DIR commands in bootloaded mode. > * The debugger will allocate a 2 KiB environment block for itself (in > any mode) which is intended for storing Variables for lDebug using the > set.eld and variable.eld. > * The application and device init will try to work with a smaller > initial allocation instead of enforcing a maximum-size ("init max") > layout early on. > > Several new switches are now recognised by the application and device > mode init. /X resizes the ELD code instance segment from its default > size, /Y does likewise for the ELD data block area, and /H is the switch > to do the same to the debugger's history buffer. There is also the > undocumented /T switch, described some on the blog [3]. > > Some little-used features of the debugger were actually thrown out. The > build options _EMS, _RM, and _RN are now disabled by default. They > correspond to the X commands, as well as the RM and RN command. If > desired, then apart from creating a build with the options enabled, > users may instead choose to install the Extensions for lDebug that share > the sources of the disabled commands. They are named x.eld, rm.eld, and > rn.eld. They can be used either as transient ELDs (to run a single > command; requires DOS or bootloaded FS access each time) or installed as > resident ELDs (needs to access the file only for ELD install). > > The packages of this release are found on our server [4]. In the fdpkg > subdirectory I placed a FreeDOS package, and in the svardpkg a SvarDOS > binary and sources package each. As usual, all changes are recorded in > the hg (Mercurial) repository, which can be browsed using our hgweb [5]. > > As a news blurb for the FreeDOS website (and the sourceforge.net news > tracker [6]) I would suggest the following: > > lDebug release 7 > > lDebug (small L) is a DOS debugger based on FreeDOS Debug/X. Today's new > release 7 adds the architecture for Extensions for lDebug, with 52 > different ELDs included in the release package. Further, a number of > smaller improvements and fixes are included, several of which make > lDebug better in its bootloaded mode. The application and device mode > init is less memory-hungry than it would be with its prior "init max" > approach. Find more details on [the mailing list], and everything lDebug > at [the lDebug website][7]. > > Regards, > ecm > > > [1]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/doc/ldebug.htm#news-r7 > [2]: > > https://pushbx.org/ecm/dokuwiki/blog/pushbx/2023/0911_live_patching_the_debugger_itself > [3]: > > https://pushbx.org/ecm/dokuwiki/blog/pushbx/2023/0911_debugger_relocation_all_switches_explained > [4]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/download/ldebug/ > [5]: https://hg.pushbx.org/ecm/ldebug/log/release7 > [6]: https://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/news/ > [7]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/web/#projects-ldebug > > > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-user mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user >
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