Thanks! I've mirrored this to the FreeDOS Files Archive at Ibiblio,
and posted a news item. (Thanks also for the suggested news item ..
that made this a lot easier for me.)
I refreshed the news feed on the website, so the announcement is there now. :-)
Jim
On Sat, Dec 21, 2024 at 6:37 AM E. C. Masloch via Freedos-user
<freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> Today I'm pushing out release 9 of lDebug, the 86-DOS debugger with the small
> L [1]! Just in time for the next FreeDOS interim release. It collected a few
> changes [2] since March's release 8. This includes several bugfixes and a
> number of other improvements, such as:
>
> Assembling PUSH or POP with memory operands will now default to a size if
> none is given, to make the debugger more compatible to MS-DOS Debug. When
> specifying 16-bit unsigned numbers above-or-equal FF80h to the assembler, it
> can encode them as sign-extended 8-bit immediates in some cases. Further, the
> assembler accepts JMP FAR with a single number as implying a destination code
> segment equal to the current assembly segment, a feature copied from MS-DOS
> Debug. Assembling a MOVZX instruction writing to a 32-bit register from a
> memory operand lacking a size is rejected. (If the destination is a 16-bit
> register instead then a byte size is assumed.)
>
> The new MODRM keyword allows to select or depict encodings that the assembler
> wouldn't choose by default. The xchg operand order in both the assembler and
> disassembler match NASM's and NDISASM's now. With a new DAO (Debugger
> Assembler Options) flag the NASM form of LOOP with an ECX or CX operand can
> be disassembled when an ASIZE prefix is found, rather than suffixing a D or W.
>
> Three patch areas are added, currently used only for the TSC Extension for
> lDebug (ELD), to run small code snippets close to exiting or entering the
> debugger upon running a debuggee.
>
> The instsect.com application now ships with the improved FSIBOOT5 protocol
> for the two-stage FAT32 loader. The application itself was improved somewhat,
> as well.
>
> Heatshrink compression of the online help pages is now enabled, shrinking the
> total resident size of the debugger as compared to using the uncompressed
> online help.
>
> The immediate assembler is enabled as well. This feature is inspired by D86.
> It allows you to enter a debugger command that consists of a dot followed by
> an assembly instruction, which will be assembled into a small buffer and ran
> immediately.
>
> Bugs fixed:
>
> * DPMI exit call to int 21h with 32-bit stack would crash. Reported by
> Japheth.
>
> * Switching modes from DPMI PM to Real/Virtual 86 Mode with non-86-mode
> selector bases for one of the address variables (such as ADS, "Address D
> command Segment/Selector") would crash.
>
> * Linear address specification to G or B commands using "@(" didn't parse
> closing parens correctly.
>
> * BL command display fixed for DPMI with segments not matching current CS.
>
> * Allow a comma between a numeric size expression (after L specifier) and a
> subsequent size keyword.
>
> * Correctly parse device mode command line if it ends in a Line Feed (LF).
>
> * Avoid some memory corruption during device mode init.
>
> * The LBA check of the booted debugger works around a bug in the Xi8088
> ROM-BIOS [3] by setting DS to 40h while calling int 13h function 41h.
>
> * Flat binary file load disabled by default in device mode or resident
> debugger. It'd corrupt memory if no address was specified.
>
> For the exact log of changesets you can consult the Mercurial repo [4]. I
> also write about lDebug changes regularly on my tech blog, the pushbx blog
> [5]. As usual the default, FreeDOS, and SvarDOS packages can be downloaded
> from our server [6].
>
> My suggested blurb for the FreeDOS news:
>
> Today marks another release of the DOS debugger with the small L, lDebug.
> This line-oriented debugger is a fork originally based on the 2008 version
> 1.13 of FreeDOS Debug/X, with a number of additions. Release 9 marks some
> bugfixes, a new revision of the lDebug/lDOS boot protocol for FAT32 drives,
> and the immediate assembler feature now enabled at build time. There's [a
> longer announcement on the freedos-user list]. Get lDebug from [ecm's
> website] [7] or from the mirror at ibiblio's FreeDOS Files Archive.
>
> Regards,
> ecm
>
>
> [1]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/web/#projects-ldebug
> [2]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/doc/ldebug.htm#news-r9
> [3]: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/forum_entry.php?id=21275
> [4]: https://hg.pushbx.org/ecm/ldebug/shortlog/release9
> [5]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=blog:pushbx
> [6]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/download/ldebug/
> [7]: https://pushbx.org/ecm/web/#projects-ldebug
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