This week we talk about the nebulous world of debugging interfaces, some of their history, and how they can be used in reverse engineering. We cover the basics of what are JTAG and SWD ( both ARM Debug Access Port (DAP) and ARM® Debug Interface Architecture Specification) and can they both be used to debug a MIPS processor (the answer is NO!).

We list a few other standards but also some key vendors and projects to get you debugging and controlling your next system:

• Segger J-Link/J-Trace (generally the most flexible)
• BlackMagicProbe
• ST-Link
• BusBlaster
• JTAGulator
• Cypress Miniprog3
• Microchips supports both AVR and Microchip parts for debug.

Since a few of these are from the OSHW/OSSW world, we briefly discuss the impact of this work on driving down costs and opening up the field to more people.

As always, we might have missed your favorite tool or you had questions and comments about our list, find us on twitter @unnamed_show,  or email us at [email protected] and tell us.

Music by TeknoAxe (http://www.youtube.com/user/teknoaxe)