The basic principle of serial debugging is this: At strategic points in your program you insert a small bit of special debug code, which sends some data out through the serial port for display on the terminal. Typically this debug data will be in human-readable ASCII.

That’s it!

This is a very simple idea, but quite powerful. No programming/debugging tool, like SPLat/PC, is capable of having features targeted at every situation that could arise while developing a complex program. Being able to write your own tool, so to speak, and have it run in the SPLat is very powerful.

The rest of this tutorial will basically show you a number of ideas based on this theme. Don’t see these as being the full repertoire of what can be done. Rather, consider them as a starting point for your own creativity.