There are a couple of other "ports" on a PC that could be used for initial debugging. I have used a spare IDE channel as a general 8 bit IO port. In fact you can address up to 8 different ports per channel. A simple outb(b, 0x170) gets reflected on the port. This is dead easy to interface with. Connect a logic analyser or a small circuit and then just write to the port. Does not help if the IDE sits out on the PCI bus though.
Another thought would be to tap the SMBus signals. These are routed to all memory DIMMS. With some careful soldering you can tap the signals off the DIMM to a logic analyser. The code can then just write to an unised i2c address.
Regards, Denis.
Ronald G Minnich wrote:
Bari Ari wrote:
SemiconductorStore.com has several of the the USB debug cables currently in stock for $80:
http://shop.semiconductorstore.com/iwwida.pvx?;item?item_no=NET20DC%20%20%20...
They say that PLX is still processing orders for them as well.
yes, but ... depending on obsolete hardware for future debug strategy is not a good plan.
ron