How do I set a breakpoint before the first scanline is drawn?

[quohog]

I know how to use breakif in Stella to stop the code from running if a certain condition is met, but in my current program, things are going haywire in the very first frame! How can I start up Stella, or restart my .bin, with the first breakpoint set either at the very start of code, or somewhere before the first frame is drawn?

 

Thank you!

[+stephena]

From the ROM launcher, right-click on the game, select Power-on Options.  Then for Startup mode, select Debugger.  This will start the debugger before the very first instruction is executed.  There's also a way to do this from the commandline if you prefer.

[quohog]

Oh, that's great news! Thanks for the quick answer!

[+Andrew Davie]

I just run the program, hit the tilde (~) and then I'm in the debugger. Then I type "reset" and I'm at the start of the program. I can step through from there, and/or put breakpoints (with mouse-click) on the part I'm interested in.

 

[quohog]

Reset! That sounds like a handy command. Thank you!

Really enjoyed your book, by the way!

[+stephena]

Yep, 'reset' from the debugger is another way to do it.  Yet another way is to use the '-debug' commandline argument.  As with a lot of things in Stella, there's usually more than one way of accomplishing something.