thanks a lot for prompt reply!

Indeed the x6989 is in that toolchain and it compiles successfully in Visual Studio 2015 Version 14.0.25431.01 Update 3 with VisualGDB 5.2

However, I am unable to single step the “blink” example:

1>—— Build started: Project: GDB-8, Configuration: Debug VisualGDB ——
1>  LEDBlink.cpp
1>  Linking ../VisualGDB/Debug/GDB-8…
1>  ——————- Memory utilization report ——————-
1>  Used FLASH: 578 bytes out of 46KB (1%)
1>  Used RAM: 24 bytes out of 2048 bytes (1%)
========== Build: 1 succeeded, 0 failed, 0 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========

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C:\SysGCC\msp430-elf\bin\msp430-elf-gdb.exe –interpreter mi C:\workspace\GDB-8\VisualGDB\Debug\GDB-8
Cannot resolve the address of _estack. Skipping stack pointer validity check.

Any suggestions as to what I might be doing wrong?

Really my goal is to program the ESP8266/ESP32 however I don’t currently have any of the mainstream JTAG tools (I’ve tried my Altera USB Blaster and Bus Pirate without success using OpenOCD)…. so I thought this MSP430 might be easier to get acquainted with the VisualGDB software until I can get a Segger J-Link. (that’s a good JTAG interface for the ESP family, right?)

Thanks a lot 🙂