about ESP32-S3 Built-in JTAG Interface

[Wenjie Wu]

Do you use JTAG to debug microblocks VM? The ESP32-S3 has a built-in JTAG debugging interface, which seems to be very helpful for gaining a deeper understanding of the VM's runtime state or for performing surgery on it. I haven't found how to use it on MacOS yet, only found methods for using it on Windows.

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https://community.platformio.org/t/how-to-use-jtag-built-in-debugger-of-the-esp32-s3-in-platformio/36042

https://warped3.substack.com/p/how-to-debug-esp32s3-devkitc-1-using

If you use it on MacOS, it might be helpful to me

[John Maloney]

I've never used JTAG or any other hardware chip debugger, partly because many hardware debuggers require expensive hardware interfaces. There have been times (e.g. when debugging a lockup or crash in the low-level code) that I could have used one, although MicroBlocks supports so many different chips that I'd actually need at least six different hardware debugging setups (hardware + software).

It's cool that the ESP32-S3 has can do JTAG over the USB connection!

I also have a Mac, so if you figure out how to do JTAG debugging on a Mac, let me know!

[Wenjie Wu]

It's cool that the ESP32-S3 has can do JTAG over the USB connection!

I didn't want to buy these extra devices before, but it's really cool that the ESP32-S3 has it built-in.

Since I haven't found any tutorials for Mac and I'm very unfamiliar with it. I might follow the tutorial and try it on Windows first.

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[John Maloney]

I'll mark this resolved for now but feel free to add additional comments as you find out more about using JTAG on the S3