Debug4x, HP Software Development Kit (SDK) v 2.0

Welcome to Debug4x, an integrated RPL development and testing environment for the Hewlett-Packard HP-48 and HP-49 calculators.

Debug4x is a very powerful environment for developing and testing System RPL and Saturn assembly language programs on your PC. Debug4x also contains a builder for "Inform Boxes" using the new 49G InformBox engine or the older 48 style DoInputForm engine. The compiled programs can be loaded into the integrated HP48 or HP 49G emulators. You can then set breakpoints and execute your programs step by step, while watching the current state of values and the return stack in Debug4x's debugger window. This greatly facilitates the debugging of applications with user interfaces (i.e., inform boxes and parameterized outer loops), since the debugger does not mess up the calculator display while debugging the application.

Copyright Notice and Disclaimer of Warranty

Major Contributors and Thank You

Information Resources
You should be well familiar at least with System RPL programming to get the most out of Debug4x. Many documents about System RPL programming are available from www.hpcalc.org ; see both the HP48 and HP49 Doc/Programming sections. In particular, the HP System RPL manual and Eduardo M. Kalinowski's guides: Programming in System RPL and Using the HP49G for System RPL Programming. (The former two have been written for the HP 48 series calculators, but also apply to the 49G.) Another great online resource for System RPL programming is Eduardo's HP Knowledge Database. And of course there's the comp.sys.hp48 newsgroup.  There is some additional information about the HPTools in this guide.

Debug4x has a built-in version of the EMU48 (48 and 49) emulators.  You can also run emulation without Debug4x as standalone programs.  The standalone version and related materials can be found on www.hpcalc.org (see the PC/Emulators section.)

Introducing Debug4x
Debug4x is release 2.0 of the older debug2 SDK from Hewlett-Packard.  debug2 only worked with the HP49G calculators.  Debug4x has a large number of bug fixes, usability improvements and end-user development features (such as directory creation, and enhanced form editor options). There are many features and benefits with Debug4x.  The new, improved Debug4x allows you to:

-Edit Source Files
-Create Inform Boxes
-Create and Manage Projects
-Emulate an HP Calculator and Run Programs on it
-Debug your program on the emulated calculator
-Specify Command Line Arguments
-Connect to your Calculator with XModem

In order to learn the basics of the debugger, you should follow the Quick Start lesson.

Debug4x also includes:
- built-in HP Tools (RPLCOMP, SASM, SLOAD, MAKEROM)
- the Supported Entry Point lists (SUPROM48, SUPROM49)
- built-in EMU48 Emulator (supports HP48 and HP49)
- some sample projects and help files