Talk:Machine code monitor

Page move
Machine code monitor → Machine language monitor - Outside of Wikipedia mirrors (and in my own personal experience) the latter term is far more common. I asked about this on the article Talk page and no one objected in about a week. I can't move it myself since there is already a page at the target. Crotalus horridus (TALK ● CONTRIBS) 22:32, 4 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Support Seems reasonable to me. Stan 13:47, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Oppose The function of the program is to monitor machine code not a machine language. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:09, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose Machine language redirects to Machine code and I have never used the term "machine language", only "machine code" --Lox (t,c) 15:06, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Discussion
The term "machine language monitor" (or "ML monitor") was far more common than "machine code monitor", at least as far as the Commodore versions went. I propose that the page be moved to Machine language monitor. Since this article is a stub and the talk page appears disused, I will perform the page move in a day or two if no one objects. Crotalus horridus (TALK ● CONTRIBS) 12:49, 27 December 2005 (UTC)


 * I would argue that the program monitors code which has been through an assembler or a compiler into the machine code of the processor. A computer language is a higher level concept of which were first introduced widly in the 1950s when it was realised that a programming language like FORTRAN could be used to translate symbolic ideas into machine code to make it easier for humans to conceptualise the instructions. However looking at Google returns, I can see that others use the term "machine language" for "machine code" perhapse it is a regional/national thing in English.


 * As for how common the terms are a guick Google returns:
 * about 643 English pages for "Machine language monitor" -wikipedia
 * about 770 English pages for "Machine code monitor" -wikipedia
 * So nether term is common, and "machine language monitor" is not "far more common".
 * -- Philip Baird Shearer 13:09, 8 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds very logical per the sequence of events of processing a computer language into source code, and labelling consecutively and respectively. (ie. First language, then code.)  It is more natural for a non-engineer to more naturally say "Machine Language Monitor" or to merrily assume something, but an engineer would know a "Machine Code Monitor" is a more accurate term to use or an experienced person would be more attentive! After reading Philip's comment above, I too tend to agree completely with the continued use of the "Machine Code Monitor" Wikipedia title. --roger (talk) 18:56, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Not moved per lack of consensus. &mdash; Nightstallion (?) 20:29, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Try thinking outside the square and look up "ROM Monitor" on Google. There are thousands upon thousands of pages. Try breaking them down by processor family if you prefer, in which case Google gives.


 * 527 for "ROM monitor" and 8051
 * 433 for "ROM monitor and 68000
 * 434 for "ROM monitor" and Z80
 * 593 for "ROM monitor" and 6809

Sometimes the ROM monitor is designed to work on the already-running system e.g. doing a CALL -151 from Applesoft BASIC on an Apple II. Othertimes, the ROM monitor is what looks (especially on an embedded system) for the load signature of an application program to load, or else it communicates via an I/O port to an external debugging console (e.g. by serial port, SPI port, I2C or similar)

So, in summary, I'd be against using either "Machine code monitor" or "Machine language monitor", and instead propose "ROM monitor". In very few cases would a monitor program be loaded into RAM, since, at the absolute lowest level, the target system mightn't even have working RAM - just boot ROM and CPU registers (and maybe some on-CPU RAM) to work from. OZ_Rhett 10:33, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Many older systems did NOT have any user interface in ROM and had to load the machine code monitor after powering on. I talk about really old to mid old systems, e.g. Altair 8800 with the 2048Byte-memory expansion - this one had only a micro boot loader in ROM if any at all. And C64/65536Byte which had basic but no monitor. On the other hand the KIM-1 had a monitor but this one worked at hardware levels WITHOUT rom too. So do not call it ROM monitor. Crass Spektakel (talk) 04:44, 13 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Ditto, I disagree too, as ROM Monitors are likely a more specific type of Machine Language/Code Monitor. I just recently realized the GNU GDB Debugger could be classified as a Machine Language/Code Monitor, and yet mentions of this classification are completely absent within the current GDB Debugger Wikipedia article, or almost anywhere!  (Stallman makes mention of the TRS-80 TBUG within his book, Atmel makes cross-reference with it's avrmon-stk200 debugger documentation.  Google search is your friend!)  Knowing how a monitor now sets breakpoints within memory via Assembly, makes things far more easier to understand! --roger (talk) 18:47, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Merge proposal
I propose merging resident monitor into machine code monitor. From the descriptions -- "Typical functions of a resident monitor include examining and editing ram and/or ROM" and "A machine code monitor ... allows a user to enter commands to view and change memory locations on a computer", they sound like synonyms for the same thing to me. Even if they are not exactly the same thing, they are very similar and I feel a single article could cover both of them and clarify the differences between them. --DavidCary (talk) 20:28, 27 August 2022 (UTC)