Debug DIPs

Debug DIPs are like software DIPs, but can't normally be changed by the player on any hardware. They are often used to acces various debug options in games such as job meters, sprite viewers, parameters dumping, level jumping...

They typically are 2 bytes stored in the 68k user RAM at the address defined in the 68k program header at $10E.

They are believed to be originally mapped to real dipswitches on SNK devcarts.

The Unibios, debug BIOS and some emulators allow setting them manually.

The "Developer mode" is also enabled when is nonzero.

Trivia
CD BIOS call $000582 clears first 2 bytes at $10E (?)

[Debug DIPs effects list from neo-geo.com]