Macraigor announces free Eclipse-compliant debugger

Macraigor Systems has announced the immediate availability of a free Eclipse-compliant embedded debugging solution with sample Eclipse projects that run on many standard evaluation boards. This provides embedded systems engineers with an integrated platform for developing and debugging embedded systems using the Eclipse platform.

Common look-and-feel
Eclipse provides embedded developers with an integrated platform for building and debugging systems and software. This platform enables different tools to share a common look-and-feel while providing accessibility within the same framework. It is also possible to customize the environment with a unique tool profile, depending on the type of embedded development being done. Engineers can also add other tools to the Eclipse environment to fill out a customized development platform for high productivity.

The Macraigor Eclipse + GNU Tools Suite is an implementation that packages Eclipse 3.2.1, several of the open-source GNU tools/utilities and a program called OCDRemote, which provides an interface between Eclipse, the GDB debugger and a Macraigor on-chip debug device. The GNU tools provided by Macraigor Systems include binutils, gcc, gdb and gdbtui.

Additional tools
In addition to the freely available GNU toolset, users can run the following Macraigor software tools from Eclipse's External Tools menu:

usbDemon Finder—This tool finds all the Macraigor USB devices currently connected to the host and lets the user flash each device's LED and program license codes for additional Macraigor software tools into a Macraigor USB JTAG device.

Scan Chain Analyzer—This tool determines if the JTAG Scan chain is working, what devices are on the JTAG scan chain and what order are they in.

OCD Commander—This is an assembly language-level debugger with a built-in assembler/disassember, s19/elf/hex image loader and macro file parser.

Improved productivity
"Eclipse is rapidly becoming the development environment of choice for building and debugging embedded systems," said Craig Haller, chief engineer of Macraigor Systems LLC. "By incorporating the free GNU development and debugging toolset into Eclipse, we are making it possible for embedded systems engineers to use the tools they are familiar with on a platform that improves their productivity."

The free Macraigor Eclipse + GNU Tools Suite downloads for the i386, PowerPC, MIPS32/64, ARM 7/9/11 and Intel XScale-core processors are immediately available at company Website.