I have finally returned to debugging the SECD implementation on the FPGA. When I stopped with this, I had problems getting the dual ported RAM controller to run. The SECD CPU is designed as a coprocessor and relies on a host CPU to set up the program in its memory and to start itself. Once the program has finished to run, the host CPU reads out the results from the SECD memory.
My host CPU is a 6809, based on System09 written by John Kent. This is a historic coincidence, too, as the original SECD implementation used an 6809 as host CPU, too, at least for the testing. The 6809 software that has originally been used is not available anymore, so I needed to find a way to quickly write some diagnosis and debugging routines. System09 is designed to run the FLEX operating system and there is a BASIC interpreter for Flex available, but somehow I did not like that too much.
My first attempt to create a diagnostic monitor was to write a C program and compile it with gcc6809. This worked, but I did not like the turnaround times too much. Thus, I tried to find a Forth implementation for the 6809 that I could use as a diagnostics monitor. My search led me to Maisforth, which is a Forth implementation for a custom computer called the "mais kastje" which was built and used by a group of dutch Forth enthusiasts. I changed my System09 based 6809 system so that its memory map matches that of the "mais kastje" and hacked the Forth interpreter so that it properly initializes and uses the ACIA serial port in System09.
Getting Maisforth to run was not too hard, but I certainly would not have finished that without the help of the excellent Logicport logic analyzer that I have bought earlier this year. Logicport is a PC based logic analyzer that retails at $389, with 34 channels, complex triggering and 500 Mhz sample rate. The Windows software is very usable, and it comes with interpreters for a few serial protocols (I2C, SPI, RS232) which helped me to track down my ACIA initialization problem in a short timespan. I'm a very happy customer of this and can recommend Logicport to anyone who can't afford a "real" logic analyzer.
Now that I have Forth running on the FPGA, I am back to debugging the memory controller problems. I use Forth as a scriptable debug monitor, so in addition to examine and change memory contents, I can define symbolic addresses, write little test programs and thus automate debugging quite a bit. With Forth and the logic analyzer, I quickly found that my problem lies in how I set up the low and high byte select bits of the RAM chip, which has a 16 bit datapath.