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1999-04-07
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CHAPTER 1 - Introduction
01.01 Product Description
01.02 Using This Manual
01.03 System Requirements
01.01 Product Description
Soft-ICE is a software debugging tool that provides hardware-level
debugging capabilities to PCDOS and MSDOS debuggers.
Soft-ICE uses 80386 protected mode to run DOS in a virtual machine.
This gives Soft-ICE complete control of the DOS environment. Soft-ICE
uses 80386 protected mode features, such as paging, I/O privilege
level, and break point registers, to add hardware-level break points
your existing DOS debugger.
Soft-ICE was designed with three goals in mind:
* To utilize the 80386 virtual machine capability to debugging
features that are impossible or prohibitively slow with
software-only debuggers (e.g., real time hardware-level break
points, memory protection, breaking out of hung programs, etc.).
* To work with existing debuggers. We wanted to provide a tool that
worked with existing tools. We designed Soft-ICE in such a way
that you don't have to learn a new debugger to get powerful
hardware debugging capabilities.
* To be a user-friendly program with a window that pops up
instantly and does not get in the way. All of the Soft-ICE
commands were designed to fit in a small window so that
information on the screen behind Soft-ICE could still be viewed.
Dynamic on-line help assists users who only use Soft-ICE
occasionally.
The Soft-ICE program features:
* real time break points on memory reads/writes, port reads/writes,
memory ranges, and interrupts
* back trace history ranges
* symbolic and source level debugging
* an environment that works with existing debuggers
* full EMM 4.0 support
* backfilling to raise base memory past 640K for monochrome systems
* a window that can pop up at any time
* the ability to break out by keystroke even if interrupts are
disabled
* debugger code that is isolated by 80386 protected mode. This
prevents an errant program from modifying or destroying Soft-ICE;
even if DOS clobbered, Soft-ICE will still work
* the ability to configure Soft-ICE to use no memory in the lower
640K if the system has more than 640K
* user-friendly dynamic help
* the ability to be used as a stand-alone debugger. This ability is
useful if you are debugging loadable device drivers, interrupt
handlers, or boot sequences where traditional debuggers can't go,
if your debugger suffers from re-entrancy problems
* a soft boot capability that allows debugging with non-DOS
operating systems or self-booting programs
* a simple installation, with no DIP switches to set no I/O ports
taken up, and no memory address space conflicts
NOTE : Soft-ICE will work with real address mode programs only. It
will not work with programs that use 80286 or 80386 protected mode
instructions.
01.02 Using This Manual
The Soft-ICE manual is divided into four main sections:
* Learning Soft-ICE (Section I)
* Commands (Section II)
* Support Features (Section lII)
* Advanced Topics (Section IV)
Soft-ICE can be used for most debugging problems after reading Section
I, Learning Soft-ICE, and a little experimentation. Soft-ICE's
user-friendly on-line help can be used to reference command
descriptions and syntax.
The Learning Soft-ICE section contains installation instructions, a
description of the user interface, and a tutorial. The tutorial is
designed to get you up and running quickly.
The Commands section describes all of the Soft-ICE commands. The
command descriptions are organized by functional group with an
alphabetic index for reference.
The Support Features section covers advanced loading options,