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Plugging The Emulator Into A Target
System
The following paragraphs help you understand the emulator. Equivalent circuits
are shown, followed by a list of devices that you may need to use to overcome
mechanical and electrical constraints in your target system.
Understanding an emulator
An emulator is a tool intended for debugging software, and the interactions
between software and hardware. Although emulators can help in debugging certain
hardware problems, catastrophic problems often require use of other tools, such as
a timing analyzer with a preprocessor, or an oscilloscope. To use an emulator
effectively, you need to understand its capabilities and limitations, and how it
interacts with your target system. This chapter discusses limitations and
interactions of an emulator, as they relate to your target system.
An emulator is designed to be electrically and functionally equivalent to the
processor it emulates. Some MC6833x signals are electrically isolated from their
counterparts on the target system connection. This is done for both electrical and
functional reasons. Equivalent circuits of each processor signal are shown later in
this chapter. The impact of these circuits is calculated and presented in the
emulator specifications beginning on page 131.
Target system design
A target system that is designed around the worst-case specifications of an
MC6833x processor should work with the emulator. Ideally, you would use the
emulator specifications listed in this manual when designing your target system,
instead of the processor specifications. But usually a target system has already
been designed and prototyped before the emulator is introduced. If certain circuits
in your target system do not allow for variations in the MC6833x specifications,
compare the relevant emulator specifications to evaluate their impact on your target
system. By keeping the differences between emulator specifications and processor
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