The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 28, 1999
Filed:
Mar. 17, 1997
Bruce Gerard Mealey, Austin, TX (US);
Randal Craig Swanberg, Round Rock, TX (US);
Michael Stephen Williams, Austin, TX (US);
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
A method of using a debugger for a computer operating system by providing a statically bound debugger driver which can be used early in the boot process, and further providing one or more dynamic debugger drivers which can be loaded after system initialization. The core portion of the operating system, such as the kernel for a UNIX-type workstation, makes a determination of whether any hardware device is connected to the computer that is of the type of debugger devices supported by the statically bound driver; if so, then the debugger can be used early in the boot process, but if not, provision is made for calling the dynamic debugger driver from some other portion of the operating system software, such as from the boot filesystem or PAL. The dynamic debugger driver may be selected from a plurality of dynamic debugger drivers, the particular selected dynamic debugger driver being associated with the particular hardware device that is actually connected to the computer. The computer's firmware may be designed to detect whether a hardware debugger device is connected to the computer that is of the appropriate type, so the firmware can pass this information to the core portion of the operating system. This approach simplifies testing of the operating system by allowing for the temporary connection of a debugger device which is supported by the statically bound driver.