Apparatus and method for electronically tracking and duplicating user input to an interactive electronic device

An apparatus and method to allow testers or developers of computer programs to electronically track and duplicate the occurrence of programming defects in interactive electronic devices accurately and quickly by recording and playing back user input data. The apparatus uses two processors, a host processor and a slave processor. The slave processor is directly coupled to the interactive electronic device. The host processor is coupled to the slave processor which allows the two processors to exchange data and control signals during the testing of the computer program. First, the slave processor receives the user input to the software being tested. Second, the host processor collects the data from the slave processor and reads, processes, and ultimately stores the data for later playback. Next, when requested, the host processor sends the data back to the slave processor which buffers the data and in turn feeds the data back to the test system exactly as it was originally input by the tester. Thus, in effect, the tester's input is electronically tracked and is precisely duplicated by recording and playing back the data previously input.