A new approach to on-line,run-time program logic and error debugging using hardware implementation

What is believed to be a somewhat different approach to rapid program debugging has been devised in which: (1) execution of the programmer’s logical thinking is automatically debugged by the computer at run time and (2) status errors of any type may be fed back into the computer, which subsequently outputs the immediate steps leading to that error. Debugging is carried out by the computer on an instruction-by-instruction basis, on-line, with all or selected interrupts serviced. A hardware-software implementation package for the PDP-8 is described, which could be adapted to other computers as well.