Annotation of /trunk/RELEASE

Release notes for Gavare's eXperimental Emulator (GXemul), 0.4.0.1
==================================================================

Copyright (C) 2003-2006  Anders Gavare.


GXemul is an experimental instruction-level machine emulator. Several
emulation modes are available. In some modes, processors and surrounding
hardware components are emulated well enough to let unmodified operating
systems (e.g. NetBSD) run as if they were running on a real machine.

The documentation lists the machines and guest operating systems that can 
be regarded as "working" in GXemul. The best supported guest operating 
systems are probably NetBSD/pmax, NetBSD/cats, and OpenBSD/cats.


The most important change between release 0.3.8 and 0.4.0.1 is:

    o)  The emulation of MIPS processors has been completely rewritten;
        it now uses the same portable dynamic translation system as the
        ARM and PowerPC emulation modes.

        On Alpha and i386 hosts (and AMD64 hosts running in 32-bit mode),
        GXemul previously used translation into native code. This release
        will perform worse than 0.3.8 on those host architectures.

        On all other hosts (including AMD64 running in native 64-bit mode),
        0.4.0 is likely to be faster than 0.3.8, when emulating MIPS.

        I think that in the long term, moving towards full portability like
        this is a good idea.

(0.4.0 was a bit buggy and unstable; 0.4.0.1 is a quick-fix release.)

There have also been many other changes, including, but not limited to:

    o)  The "test machine" functionality is more well-defined than before,
        and some tutorial-like demos have been added. These could be useful
        e.g. in operating system construction courses.

    o)  NetBSD/sgimips 3.0 works now. This is most likely due to the rewrite
        of the MIPS emulation mode. Previous releases of GXemul only worked
        with NetBSD/sgimips 2.1.

    o)  I have begun implementing rudimentary support for GDB remote serial
        protocol connections. This means that you can run e.g. the Data
        Display Debugger, and connect it to a GXemul instance.

        No advanced GDB functionality is working yet, but starting and
        stopping the emulated machine and single-stepping should work.

Please read the HISTORY files for more details.


Files included in this release are:

  HISTORY                     Detailed revision history / changelog.
  LICENSE                     Copyright message / license.
  README                      Quick start instructions, for the impatient.
  RELEASE                     This file.
  TODO                        TODO notes.
  configure, Makefile.skel    sh and make scripts for building GXemul.
  demos                       Tutorial-like demos of testmachine functionality.
  doc                         Documentation.
  experiments                 Experimental code. (Usually not needed.)
  src                         Source code.

To build the emulator, run the configure script, and then run make. This 
should work on most Unix-like systems.


Regarding files in the src/include/ directory: only some of these are written
by me, the rest are from other sources (such as NetBSD). The license text says
that "All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software"
must display acknowledgements. Even though I do NOT feel I mention features or
use of the header files (the "software") in any advertising materials, I am
still very grateful for the fact that these people have made their files
available for re-use, so regardless of legal requirements, I guess thanking
them like this is in order:

    This product includes software developed by the University of
    California, Berkeley and its contributors.

    This product includes software developed for the
    NetBSD Project.  See http://www.netbsd.org/ for
    information about NetBSD.

    This product includes software developed by Jonathan Stone for
    the NetBSD Project.

    This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project
    by Matthias Drochner.

    This product includes software developed by the NetBSD
    Foundation, Inc. and its contributors.

    This product includes software developed by Christopher G. Demetriou.
    [for the NetBSD Project.]

    This product includes software developed by Adam Glass.

    This product includes software developed by the PocketBSD project
    and its contributors.

    This product includes software developed by Peter Galbavy.

    Carnegie Mellon University   (multiple header files,
    no specific advertisement text required)

    This product includes software developed by Charles M. Hannum.

    This product includes software developed under OpenBSD by Per Fogelström.

    This product includes software developed by Per Fogelström.

    This product includes software developed at Ludd, University of
    Luleå, Sweden and its contributors.

    This product includes software developed by Hellmuth Michaelis
    and Joerg Wunsch

    The font(s) in devices/fonts are Copyright (c) 1992, 1993, 1994
    by Hellmuth Michaelis and Joerg Wunsch.  ("This product includes software
    developed by Hellmuth Michaelis and Joerg Wunsch", well, the font
    is maybe not software, but still...)

    impactsr-bsd.h is Copyright (C) 2004 by Stanislaw Skowronek.

    This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by
    Wasabi Systems, Inc.  [by Simon Burge]

    arcbios_other.h is Copyright (c) 1996 M. Warner Losh.

    This product includes software developed by Marc Horowitz.

    This product includes software developed by Brini.

    This product includes software developed by Mark Brinicombe
    for the NetBSD Project.

    This product includes software developed by TooLs GmbH.

    This product includes software developed by Manuel Bouyer.

    This product includes software developed by the Alice Group.

    This product includes software developed by Ichiro FUKUHARA.

Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following:

    Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 Carnegie-Mellon University.
    All rights reserved.

    Author: Keith Bostic, Chris G. Demetriou

    Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and
    its documentation is hereby granted, provided that both the copyright
    notice and this permission notice appear in all copies of the
    software, derivative works or modified versions, and any portions
    thereof, and that both notices appear in supporting documentation.

See individual files for license details, if you plan to redistribute GXemul
or reuse code.


Thanks to (in no specific order) Joachim Buss, Olivier Houchard, Juli Mallett,
Juan Romero Pardines, Alec Voropay, Göran Weinholt, Alexander Yurchenko, and
everyone else who has provided me with feedback.

Special thanks to Alec Voropay for testing this release with Linux
kernels, and on Cygwin, and also thanks to Ondrej Palkovsky for testing
with HelenOS.

If you have found GXemul useful in some way, or feel like sending me comments
or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(at)gavare.se.

1	dpavlin	26	Release notes for Gavare's eXperimental Emulator (GXemul), 0.4.0.1
2			==================================================================
3	dpavlin	2
4	dpavlin	22	Copyright (C) 2003-2006 Anders Gavare.
5	dpavlin	2
6
7	dpavlin	14	GXemul is an experimental instruction-level machine emulator. Several
8			emulation modes are available. In some modes, processors and surrounding
9	dpavlin	12	hardware components are emulated well enough to let unmodified operating
10			systems (e.g. NetBSD) run as if they were running on a real machine.
11	dpavlin	2
12	dpavlin	22	The documentation lists the machines and guest operating systems that can
13			be regarded as "working" in GXemul. The best supported guest operating
14			systems are probably NetBSD/pmax, NetBSD/cats, and OpenBSD/cats.
15	dpavlin	2
16	dpavlin	20
17	dpavlin	26	The most important change between release 0.3.8 and 0.4.0.1 is:
18	dpavlin	12
19	dpavlin	24	o) The emulation of MIPS processors has been completely rewritten;
20			it now uses the same portable dynamic translation system as the
21			ARM and PowerPC emulation modes.
22	dpavlin	2
23	dpavlin	24	On Alpha and i386 hosts (and AMD64 hosts running in 32-bit mode),
24			GXemul previously used translation into native code. This release
25			will perform worse than 0.3.8 on those host architectures.
26	dpavlin	10
27	dpavlin	24	On all other hosts (including AMD64 running in native 64-bit mode),
28	dpavlin	26	0.4.0 is likely to be faster than 0.3.8, when emulating MIPS.
29	dpavlin	2
30	dpavlin	24	I think that in the long term, moving towards full portability like
31			this is a good idea.
32	dpavlin	2
33	dpavlin	26	(0.4.0 was a bit buggy and unstable; 0.4.0.1 is a quick-fix release.)
34	dpavlin	2
35	dpavlin	24	There have also been many other changes, including, but not limited to:
36	dpavlin	2
37	dpavlin	24	o) The "test machine" functionality is more well-defined than before,
38			and some tutorial-like demos have been added. These could be useful
39			e.g. in operating system construction courses.
40	dpavlin	20
41	dpavlin	24	o) NetBSD/sgimips 3.0 works now. This is most likely due to the rewrite
42			of the MIPS emulation mode. Previous releases of GXemul only worked
43			with NetBSD/sgimips 2.1.
44
45			o) I have begun implementing rudimentary support for GDB remote serial
46			protocol connections. This means that you can run e.g. the Data
47			Display Debugger, and connect it to a GXemul instance.
48
49			No advanced GDB functionality is working yet, but starting and
50			stopping the emulated machine and single-stepping should work.
51
52			Please read the HISTORY files for more details.
53
54
55	dpavlin	2	Files included in this release are:
56
57			HISTORY Detailed revision history / changelog.
58			LICENSE Copyright message / license.
59			README Quick start instructions, for the impatient.
60			RELEASE This file.
61			TODO TODO notes.
62	dpavlin	4	configure, Makefile.skel sh and make scripts for building GXemul.
63	dpavlin	24	demos Tutorial-like demos of testmachine functionality.
64	dpavlin	2	doc Documentation.
65			experiments Experimental code. (Usually not needed.)
66	dpavlin	4	src Source code.
67	dpavlin	2
68	dpavlin	24	To build the emulator, run the configure script, and then run make. This
69	dpavlin	22	should work on most Unix-like systems.
70	dpavlin	2
71	dpavlin	24
72	dpavlin	4	Regarding files in the src/include/ directory: only some of these are written
73			by me, the rest are from other sources (such as NetBSD). The license text says
74	dpavlin	2	that "All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software"
75			must display acknowledgements. Even though I do NOT feel I mention features or
76			use of the header files (the "software") in any advertising materials, I am
77			still very grateful for the fact that these people have made their files
78			available for re-use, so regardless of legal requirements, I guess thanking
79			them like this is in order:
80
81			This product includes software developed by the University of
82			California, Berkeley and its contributors.
83
84			This product includes software developed for the
85			NetBSD Project. See http://www.netbsd.org/ for
86			information about NetBSD.
87
88			This product includes software developed by Jonathan Stone for
89			the NetBSD Project.
90
91			This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project
92			by Matthias Drochner.
93
94			This product includes software developed by the NetBSD
95			Foundation, Inc. and its contributors.
96
97			This product includes software developed by Christopher G. Demetriou.
98			[for the NetBSD Project.]
99
100			This product includes software developed by Adam Glass.
101
102			This product includes software developed by the PocketBSD project
103			and its contributors.
104
105			This product includes software developed by Peter Galbavy.
106
107			Carnegie Mellon University (multiple header files,
108			no specific advertisement text required)
109
110			This product includes software developed by Charles M. Hannum.
111
112			This product includes software developed under OpenBSD by Per Fogelström.
113
114			This product includes software developed by Per Fogelström.
115
116			This product includes software developed at Ludd, University of
117			Luleå, Sweden and its contributors.
118
119			This product includes software developed by Hellmuth Michaelis
120			and Joerg Wunsch
121
122			The font(s) in devices/fonts are Copyright (c) 1992, 1993, 1994
123			by Hellmuth Michaelis and Joerg Wunsch. ("This product includes software
124			developed by Hellmuth Michaelis and Joerg Wunsch", well, the font
125			is maybe not software, but still...)
126
127			impactsr-bsd.h is Copyright (C) 2004 by Stanislaw Skowronek.
128
129			This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by
130			Wasabi Systems, Inc. [by Simon Burge]
131
132			arcbios_other.h is Copyright (c) 1996 M. Warner Losh.
133
134			This product includes software developed by Marc Horowitz.
135
136	dpavlin	14	This product includes software developed by Brini.
137
138			This product includes software developed by Mark Brinicombe
139			for the NetBSD Project.
140
141	dpavlin	20	This product includes software developed by TooLs GmbH.
142
143			This product includes software developed by Manuel Bouyer.
144
145	dpavlin	22	This product includes software developed by the Alice Group.
146
147	dpavlin	24	This product includes software developed by Ichiro FUKUHARA.
148
149	dpavlin	12	Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following:
150
151			Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 Carnegie-Mellon University.
152			All rights reserved.
153
154			Author: Keith Bostic, Chris G. Demetriou
155
156			Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and
157			its documentation is hereby granted, provided that both the copyright
158			notice and this permission notice appear in all copies of the
159			software, derivative works or modified versions, and any portions
160			thereof, and that both notices appear in supporting documentation.
161
162	dpavlin	2	See individual files for license details, if you plan to redistribute GXemul
163			or reuse code.
164
165	dpavlin	24
166	dpavlin	22	Thanks to (in no specific order) Joachim Buss, Olivier Houchard, Juli Mallett,
167			Juan Romero Pardines, Alec Voropay, Göran Weinholt, Alexander Yurchenko, and
168			everyone else who has provided me with feedback.
169	dpavlin	2
170	dpavlin	24	Special thanks to Alec Voropay for testing this release with Linux
171			kernels, and on Cygwin, and also thanks to Ondrej Palkovsky for testing
172			with HelenOS.
173
174	dpavlin	2	If you have found GXemul useful in some way, or feel like sending me comments
175			or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(at)gavare.se.
176