Turbo Debugger (TD) is a machine-level debugger for

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

executables, intended mainly for debugging Borland Turbo Pascal, and later Turbo C programs, sold by

Borland Borland Software Corporation was a computer technology company founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn. Its main business was the development and sale of software development and software deployment product ...

. It is a full-screen debugger displaying both Turbo Pascal or Turbo C source and corresponding assembly-language instructions, with powerful capabilities for setting breakpoints, watching the execution of instructions, monitoring machine registers, etc. Turbo Debugger can be used for programs not generated by Borland compilers, but without showing source statements; it is by no means the only debugger available for non-Borland executables, and not a significant general-purpose debugger. Although Borland's

Turbo Pascal Turbo Pascal is a software development system that includes a compiler and an integrated development environment (IDE) for the Pascal (programming language), Pascal programming language running on CP/M, CP/M-86, and DOS. It was originally develo ...

has useful single-stepping and conditional breakpoint facilities, the need for a more powerful debugger became apparent when Turbo Pascal started to be used for serious development. Initially, a separate company, TurboPower Software, produced a debugger, T-Debug, and also their

Turbo Analyst In an internal combustion engine, a turbocharger (often called a turbo) is a forced induction device that is powered by the flow of exhaust gases. It uses this energy to compress the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to pro ...

and Overlay Manager for Turbo Pascal for versions 1 to 3. TurboPower released T-Debug Plus 4.0 for Turbo Pascal 4.0 in 1988, but by then Borland's Turbo Debugger had been announced. The original Turbo Debugger was sold as a stand-alone product introduced in 1989, along with

Turbo Assembler Turbo Assembler (sometimes shortened to the name of the executable, TASM) is an assembler for software development published by Borland in 1989. It runs on and produces code for 16- or 32-bit x86 MS-DOS and compatible on Microsoft Windows. It ...

and the second version of

Turbo C Turbo C is a discontinued integrated development environment (IDE) and compiler for the C programming language from Borland. First introduced in 1987, it was noted for its integrated development environment, small size, fast compile speed, compr ...

. To use Turbo Debugger with source display, programs, or relevant parts of programs, must be compiled with Turbo Pascal or Turbo C with a conditional directive set to add debugging information to the compiled executable, with related source statements and corresponding machine code. The debugger can then be started (Turbo Debugger does not debug within the development IDE). After debugging the program can be recompiled without debugging information to reduce its size. Later Turbo Debugger, the stand-alone

(TASM), and Turbo Profiler were included with the compilers in the professional Borland Pascal and

Borland C++ Borland C++ is a C and C++ IDE (integrated development environment) for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. It was the successor to Turbo C++ and included a better debugger, the Turbo Debugger, which was written in protected mode DOS. Libraries O ...

versions of the more restricted Turbo Pascal and Turbo C++ suites for DOS. After the popularity of

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

ended the era of DOS software development, Turbo Debugger was bundled with TASM for low-level software development. For many years after the end of the DOS era, Borland supplied Turbo Debugger with the last console-mode Borland C++ application development environment, version 5, and with Turbo Assembler 5.0. For many years both of these products were sold even though active development stopped on them. With Borland's reorganization of their development tools as

CodeGear CodeGear is a wholly owned division of Embarcadero Technologies. CodeGear develops software development tools such as the Delphi Integrated development environment, the programming language Delphi, and the database server InterBase. Originally ...

, all references to Borland C++ and Turbo Assembler vanished from their web site. The debuggers in later products such as

C++Builder C++Builder is a rapid application development (RAD) environment, originally developed by Borland and owned by Embarcadero Technologies (a subsidiary of Idera Software, Idera), for writing programs in the C++ programming language currently targeti ...

and

Delphi Delphi (; ), in legend previously called Pytho (Πυθώ), in ancient times was a sacred precinct that served as the seat of Pythia, the major oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The oracle ...

are based on the Windows debugger introduced with the first Borland C++ and Pascal versions for Windows. The final version of Turbo Debugger came with several versions of the debugger program: TD.EXE was the basic debugger; TD286.EXE runs in protected mode, and TD386.EXE is a virtual debugger which uses the TDH386.SYS device driver to communicate with TD.EXE. The TDH386.SYS driver also adds breakpoints supported in hardware by the 386 and later processors to all three debugger programs. TD386 allows some extra breakpoints that the other debuggers of the era do not (I/O access breaks, ranges greater than 16 bytes, and so on). There is also a debugger for

Windows 3 Windows 3.x means either of, or all of the following versions of Microsoft Windows: * Windows 3.0 * Windows 3.1x Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windo ...

(TDW.EXE). Remote debugging was supported.

Reception

BYTE The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...

'' in 1989 listed Turbo Debugger as among the "Distinction" winners of the BYTE Awards. Praising its ease of use and integration with Turbo Pascal and Turbo C, the magazine described it as "a programmer's Swiss army knife".

Turbo Debugger and emulation

Various versions of Turbo Assembler, spanning from version 1.0 through 5.0, have been reported to run on the

DOSBox DOSBox is a free and open-source emulator which runs software for MS-DOS compatible disk operating systems—primarily video games. It was first released in 2002, when DOS technology was becoming obsolete. Its adoption for running DOS games i ...

emulator, which emulates DOS 5.0. The last DOS release of TD.EXE, version 3.2, runs successfully in the 32-bit

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

NTVDM Virtual DOS machines (VDM) refer to a technology that allows running 16-bit/32-bit DOS and 16-bit Windows programs when there is already another operating system running and controlling the hardware. Overview Virtual DOS machines can operate ei ...

(i.e., in a DOS window, invoked with

CMD.EXE Command Prompt, also known as cmd.exe or cmd, is the default command-line interpreter for the OS/2, eComStation, ArcaOS, Microsoft Windows (Windows NT family and Windows CE family), and ReactOS operating systems. On Windows CE .NET 4.2, Windo ...

), but TD286.EXE and TD386.EXE do not. Hardware breakpoints supported by the 386 and later processors are available if TDH386.SYS is loaded by including " DEVICE=TDH386.SYS" in a

CONFIG.NT CONFIG.SYS is the primary configuration file for the DOS and OS/2 operating systems. It is a special ASCII text file that contains user-accessible setup or configuration directives evaluated by the operating system's DOS BIOS (typically residing ...

file invoked when running TD.EXE.

References

{{reflist, refs= TurboPower T-Debug Plus 4.0
on the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...

1988-03-21: Announcement of TurboPower Software's T-Debug 4 Advertisement for Turbo Debugger
/ref> C++Builder product page
{{webarchive , url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070405233209/http://www.codegear.com/Products/CBuilder/tabid/123/Default.aspx , date=2007-04-05 {{Cite magazine , date=January 1989 , title=The BYTE Awards , url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1989-01/1989_01_BYTE_14-01_PC_Communications_and_Annual_Awards_and_Digitizing_Tablets#page/n371/mode/2up , magazine=

, page=327

Reception

Turbo Debugger and emulation

See also

References

Further reading