Some time after getting zBUG to run, I decided to write my own monitor. zBUG had some quirks that I didn't like about it, particularly the non-sanitizing input routines which had no way to make corrections, and interpreted otherwise invalid characters in unfortunate ways (such as 'G' in hexadecimal inputs having a value of 16). In my opinion, the zBUG code wasn't well suited to modification into a more usable monitor, so I decided to begin writing my own from scratch.

The code for this monitor is here: https://github.com/jzatarski/Joe-Mon

My first goal was to get a simple command parser. This command parser would search an array of commands, comparing the command that was typed with strings stored in the monitor corresponding to the commands that are supported. Once the framework for the command parser was there, the next goal was to create a way to download s-records into the memory of the board. Afterwards, the next goal was to create a boot command that would simulate the boot process of the CPU32. These three features together allowed me to finally replace zBUG (which was currently in ROM) with the new monitor. As I added features, I could test them by assembling a RAM version of the monitor, downloading that into memory, and using the boot command. Now the new version of the monitor would be running. This way, I didn't have to erase and reprogram the old UV EPROMs every time I had a new version of the monitor, as this is a somewhat time consuming process.

Development of this monitor has continued. I added support for command arguments to the command parser. Arguments are passed somewhat in the C style of an argc int (in register d7) and an *argv[] pointer to an array of string pointers (dynamically allocated on the stack) in a6, with each pointer pointing to one argument. When the command returns, the command parser removes the dynamically allocated stack variables.

I also added handling and reporting of various exceptions, including full parsing of the CPU32 BERR exception stack frames.

Now, I am currently working on a disassembler, after which I'll finally add single stepping support for running and debugging code.

Future planned features include:

PATA disk support

virtualization support

some sort of TRAP based API for various I/O functions