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by hackyhacky21 hours ago |
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upvoteby WarOnPrivacy19 hours ago|
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    The DEBUG utility was originally named DEBUG.COM in early versions
    of MS-DOS, but it was renamed to DEBUG.EXE starting with MS-DOS 3.2
Shoutout to the 12 of us who remember debug> g=c800:5
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upvoteby mesrik10 hours ago|
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Sure I remember, but since I purchased Spinrite doing lowlevel was needed just once while changing ST-506 controller to a different type or for a new disk, former was quite much rarer needed.

Then even after std lowlevel it was worth using Spinrite to check if interleave value was proper. And if it wasn't it was worth letting it first before anything else. Same when changing a faster CPU as it could speed up IO so much that no interleave would not needed any more and get faster IO.

Spinrite was such a great tool and time saver fixing or making preventive periodic maintenance to customers disks, even though it chugged hours even 30M disks. And just because not to take absolutely any risk it was necessary to make full backup first, which that took quote long also. LapLink was a great tool for that, before LAN became more common.

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upvoteby mrlonglong1 hours ago|
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Sigh. How the times change. Right now I'm looking at 2 days to rebuild my NAS array after adding another 10TB disk.
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upvoteby trollbridge18 hours ago|
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I'm glad I wasn't the only one who immediately thought of this.

And yes, some of us are either old enough that we remember DEBUG.COM, or we got started way too young.

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upvoteby 21 hours ago|
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deleted
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upvoteby mthoms18 hours ago|
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Oh wow. I remember doing this as well... with little to no success.

The debug.com binary only showed one measly ASM instruction at a time as I recall. Shudder.

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upvoteby trollbridge18 hours ago|
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Just type u and strike Enter
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upvoteby modeless20 hours ago|
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WinDbg?
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upvoteby hackyhacky20 hours ago|
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WinDbg is a cool, but debug.com predates it by quite a bit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debug_(command)

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upvoteby modeless20 hours ago|
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Thus making it "a similar tool for the modern era" as you were asking for, IMO.

My favorite thing about WinDbg is that many people pronounce it "Windbag".

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upvoteby hackyhacky20 hours ago|
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WinDbg is just a debugger: it does not assemble or disassemble. It can't patch running programs in memory. Moreover, I don't consider Windows to be part of the modern era, as I haven't used a Windows machine for 20 years.

So, no, WinDbg has nothing to do with debug.com.

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upvoteby nvme0n1p118 hours ago|
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> I don't consider Windows to be part of the modern era, as I haven't used a Windows machine for 20 years.

I don't consider France to be part of the modern world, since I haven't visited Europe lately.

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upvoteby hackyhacky17 hours ago|
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A more apt analogy: I don't consider North Sentinel Island to be part of the modern world, since there is no relevant innovation going on there, it has no influence on the rest of the world, and there is nothing to be learned there.
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upvoteby dwattttt16 hours ago|
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You miss debug.com, wish there was an equivalent for the modern era, find out that windbg does almost all these things today, and say there's nothing of value there.

I say this as something who does all the things you described debug.com as doing, in this modern era.

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upvoteby dwattttt19 hours ago|
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I'm not sure what you think a (native) debugger that can't disassemble would look like; I assure you it disassembles the instructions you debug.

Its assembler is sadly stuck in the pre-x86_64 era (and refuses to do arm at all), however it disassembles all of those fine.

Signed: someone who does pronounce it wind bag

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upvoteby dwattttt16 hours ago|
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Actually, I didn't even get to this part of your message, windbg absolutely can patch currently running programs. It does all the things you think it can't do.
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upvoteby lucb1e20 hours ago|
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Okay, but is it not what you wished for, "a similar tool for the modern era"?

edit: I see I simul-posted with u/modeless, but I can't remove it now that there's a (duplicate) reply. Maybe mods can remove or at least collapse mine (their ID is one lower so they were first)

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upvoteby hackyhacky20 hours ago|
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WinDbg is just a debugger: it does not assemble or disassemble. It can't patch running programs in memory. Moreover, I don't consider Windows to be part of the modern era, as I haven't used a Windows machine for 20 years.

So, no, WinDbg has nothing to do with debug.com.

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upvoteby LastTrain19 hours ago|
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Fun! So how was OP supposed to know your very personal and weird definition of what is part of the modern era?
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upvoteby hackyhacky19 hours ago|
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If OP wanted to know whether WinDbg and debug.com can be considered feature-similar, they could have read my first comment [1], where I specifically said that debug.com is a "debugger, *assembler*, and *disassembler*". Of those three features, WinDbg provides one.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48362927

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