I've used both VisionICE and BDI2000 (we bought two VisionICEs initially and only BDI2000s since then :-). Both connect via the JTAG port and neither support traceback. As Charlie points out, traceback requires capturing the address and data bus which is bloody tricky on todays processors.
With a JTAG or a software only debugger you could theoretically enable the "trace on branch" PPC exception and run at full speed in (very short :-) bursts, saving each branch location and then rebuild the traceback using the saved the branches, but that would still cause a significant speed degradation because of all the exceptions. I don't know if anyone does this. I have my doubts whether this would be useful due to the speed slowdown.
gvb
-----Original Message----- From: u-boot-users-admin@lists.sourceforge.net [mailto:u-boot-users-admin@lists.sourceforge.net]On Behalf Of Wells, Charles Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2004 5:57 PM To: u-boot-users@lists.sourceforge.net Cc: 'Mike Wellington' Subject: RE: [U-Boot-Users] BDI2000 vs Vision-ICE
Mike,
People at my place of work are telling me that the Vision-Ice supports "backtrace" and the BDI2000 does not.
I don't believe visionICE supports what you describe, but visionEVENT (another WRS/EST product) does. visionEVENT behaves like a classic "bus capture" analyzer. It's no longer a "10-bin BDM port connected device." visionEVENT is housed in a seperate box that attaches to the bottom of the visionICE case and requires two 80-pin high-density connectors on your target for its connection. Further, visionEVENT imposes some nasty restrictions on the target (e.g. not being able to run the CPU clock at 2x bus clock).
We bought the visionICE/visionEVENT stuff a couple of years ago. I use visionICE regularly and it works adequately for bringing up new targets and debugging startup code. We haven't use visionEVENT much at all. We've just never needed its capabilities. I've never used the BDI2000, but it sounds like its Linux integration is better than either visionICE or visionEVENT (although WRS may have improved this since we took delivery of ours).
BTW, I agree with Wolfgang's earlier point. What really matters is the capabilities of the debugger software front-end. One of these days, I need to get someone around here to approve the purchase of a BDI2000 and see how it compares.
Regards, Charlie
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