/[gxemul]/trunk/RELEASE
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revision 31 by dpavlin, Mon Oct 8 16:20:40 2007 UTC revision 32 by dpavlin, Mon Oct 8 16:20:58 2007 UTC
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1  Release notes for Gavare's eXperimental Emulator (GXemul), 0.4.2  Release notes for Gavare's eXperimental Emulator (GXemul), 0.4.3
2  ================================================================  ================================================================
3    
4  Copyright (C) 2003-2006  Anders Gavare.  Copyright (C) 2003-2006  Anders Gavare.
# Line 14  be regarded as "working" in GXemul. The Line 14  be regarded as "working" in GXemul. The
14  systems are probably NetBSD/pmax, NetBSD/cats, and OpenBSD/cats.  systems are probably NetBSD/pmax, NetBSD/cats, and OpenBSD/cats.
15    
16    
17  Changes between release 0.4.1 and 0.4.2 include, among other things:  Changes between release 0.4.2 and 0.4.3 include, among other things:
18    
19      o)  The NetWinder emulation mode now works well enough to let      o)  SuperH (SH4) emulation is now stable enough to let a NetBSD/dreamcast
20          NetBSD/netwinder run from a disk image.          GENERIC_MD (ramdisk) kernel reach userland.
21    
22          (NetBSD/netwinder has to be installed manually, though, because      o)  There is now a simple framework for letting emulated clocks, as seen
23          there is no installation ramdisk kernel. The GXemul documentation          by guest operating systems, run at the same speed as the host clock.
         has an example of how to install NetBSD/netwinder using an emulated  
         NetBSD/pmax machine.)  
24    
25      o)  Algorithmics P5064 emulation works well enough to let NetBSD/algor          So far, the DECstation, MobilePro (hpcmips), NetWinder, CATS, Malta
26          run from a disk image. (Similar to NetBSD/netwinder, it has to          (evbmips), Cobalt, Algor, Dreamcast, and testmips machine modes
27          be installed manually, using another emulated machine.)          use the new clock/timer framework.
28    
29      o)  PCI configuration register writes can now be handled, which allows      o)  Some changes to the way expressions are evaluated in the built-in
30          NetBSD/Malta (evbmips) 3.0.1 and NetBSD/cobalt 3.0.1 to run from          debugger, and some changes in command behaviour:
         PCI IDE harddisk images. (Previously, only NetBSD 2.1 worked for  
         the Malta and Cobalt emulation modes.)  
31    
32      o)  Some performance increases:            x)  Expressions (including assignments) can now be arbitrarily
33                  complex, using parentheses, and the following operators:
34    
35          The virtual translation table update routine has been simplified                    + - * /    % (modulo)  ^ (xor)  & (and)  | (or)
         to work the same way for 32-bit and 64-bit emulation, and this  
         apparently results in a speedup for all 64-bit modes.  
36    
37          For 32-bit MIPS, some more instruction combinations have been added.            x)  Some internal emulator variables can now be read/written using
38                  normal expressions. Examples of commands that did not work
39                  earlier, but should work now:
40    
41                      print verbose
42                      r5 = sp - arch_pagesize * 4
43                      machine[0].statistics_enabled = 1
44    
45              x)  To force a name to be interpreted as a setting/register name,
46                  a hash sign (#) is now used instead of the percentage sign (%).
47                  (In the new expression evaluator, % means arithmetic modulo.)
48    
49              x)  The 'focus' command now also selects a cpu, in addition to
50                  selecting machine and emul.
51    
52              x)  The 'reg' command only prints registers for one cpu now, not
53                  all cpus in the currently focused machine.
54    
55        o)  The wdc (standard IDE controller) had a bug which prevented disk
56            images larger than 2 GB to work correctly. This has been fixed.
57    
58        o)  For MIPS emulation, some combinations of emulated processor + guest
59            operating system should now work better when idling (i.e. the host
60            should not run at 100% CPU):
61    
62              x)  For MIPS32/MIPS64 and RM5200, the 'wait' instruction should
63                  now work more or less as expected.
64    
65              x)  For VR41xx (e.g. MobilePro) emulation, the standby instruction
66                  should work like the 'wait' instruction.
67    
68              x)  For R3000 emulation, where there is no hardware wait instruction,
69                  I've implemented "instruction combination" hacks for both
70                  NetBSD/pmax and Debian/pmax, so that their cpu idle loops are
71                  detected and treated almost as a wait instruction.
72    
73        o)  MIPS 64-bit address translation (X=1) was not fully working before;
74            TLB exception handling for xkseg and larger-than-2GB-userland should
75            now actually work. (Thanks to Juli Mallett and Carl van Schaik for
76            noticing these problems.)
77    
78        o)  The mouse cursor update routines in DECstation (LK201) emulation
79            previously used the fact that guest OSes set the _hardware_
80            cursor position. In order to support X Windows when emulating
81            modern versions of NetBSD/pmax, which don't set the hardware
82            position anymore, a workaround has been implemented which only
83            sends relative coordinates to the guest OS. This has two drawbacks:
84    
85            1. Ultrix emulation with dual- and tripple-head emulation will
86               most likely feel very strange. It will still work, though.
87    
88            2. Cursor movement feels "accelerated", because the emulator
89               sends unaccelerated movements to the guest OS, which then
90               accelerates them. This can however be compensated to some
91               degree by running 'xset m 1 0' in the guest OS.
92    
93            Having weird accelerated mouse movement is better than having no
94            mouse support at all, so this change was necessary.
95    
96  Please read the HISTORY files for more details.  Please read the HISTORY files for more details.
97    
# Line 138  them like this is in order: Line 190  them like this is in order:
190    
191      This product includes software developed by Ichiro FUKUHARA.      This product includes software developed by Ichiro FUKUHARA.
192    
193        This product includes software developed by Marcus Comstedt.
194    
195  Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following:  Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following:
196    
197      Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 Carnegie-Mellon University.      Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 Carnegie-Mellon University.
# Line 155  See individual files for license details Line 209  See individual files for license details
209  or reuse code.  or reuse code.
210    
211    
 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.  
   
212  If you have found GXemul useful in some way, or feel like sending me comments  If you have found GXemul useful in some way, or feel like sending me comments
213  or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(at)gavare.se.  or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(at)gavare.se.
214    

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