Summary

Several other tools can prove to be quite handy in a firmware development arsenal. A TFTP client server and DHCP/BOOTP server are useful when developing code on a target that runs any kind of network boot. The TFTP client alone is great for transferring files to and from the target. Servers on the PC allow you to test networked devices without getting a system administrator to set up servers on a Unix host.

The disadvantage of using your own home-grown tools is that if you do not understand something, you are propagating the error in the tool to the target firmware. The advantage of the home-grown approach, at least for some of these tools, is that they are not that complicated to write. Also, having the source code for the tools allows you to add code in the tool that simulates protocol errors or lost packets.

Tools that can parse the executable image (for instance, coff or elf ) allow you to dump symbols and memory map information in formats that may be more convenient than those supported by the tools that come with the compiler. Also, in the case of MicroMonitor and TFS, some host-based tools are essential because TFS decompression requires a preprocessing step that is non-standard.

Complete source for these tools, and others, is on the CD.