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Release notes for Gavare's eXperimental Emulator (GXemul), 0.4.3 |
Release notes for Gavare's eXperimental Emulator (GXemul), 0.4.4 |
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================================================================ |
================================================================ |
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Copyright (C) 2003-2006 Anders Gavare. |
Copyright (C) 2003-2007 Anders Gavare. |
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GXemul is an experimental instruction-level machine emulator. Several |
GXemul is an experimental instruction-level machine emulator. Several |
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hardware components are emulated well enough to let unmodified operating |
hardware components are emulated well enough to let unmodified operating |
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systems (e.g. NetBSD) run as if they were running on a real machine. |
systems (e.g. NetBSD) run as if they were running on a real machine. |
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Processors (ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, SuperH) are emulated using dynamic |
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translation. Unlike some other dynamically translating emulators, GXemul |
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does not need to generate native code, only a "runnable intermediate |
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representation", and will thus run on any host architecture. |
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The documentation lists the machines and guest operating systems that can |
The documentation lists the machines and guest operating systems that can |
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be regarded as "working" in GXemul. The best working guest operating |
be regarded as "working" in GXemul. The best working guest operating |
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systems are probably NetBSD/pmax, NetBSD/cats, and OpenBSD/cats. |
systems are probably NetBSD/pmax and NetBSD/cats. |
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Changes between release 0.4.2 and 0.4.3 include, among other things: |
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o) SuperH (SH4) emulation is now stable enough to let a NetBSD/dreamcast |
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GENERIC_MD (ramdisk) kernel reach userland. |
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o) There is now a simple framework for letting emulated clocks, as seen |
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by guest operating systems, run at the same speed as the host clock. |
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So far, the DECstation, MobilePro (hpcmips), NetWinder, CATS, Malta |
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(evbmips), Cobalt, Algor, Dreamcast, and testmips machine modes |
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use the new clock/timer framework. |
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o) Some changes to the way expressions are evaluated in the built-in |
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debugger, and some changes in command behaviour: |
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x) Expressions (including assignments) can now be arbitrarily |
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complex, using parentheses, and the following operators: |
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+ - * / % (modulo) ^ (xor) & (and) | (or) |
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x) Some internal emulator variables can now be read/written using |
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normal expressions. Examples of commands that did not work |
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earlier, but should work now: |
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print verbose |
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r5 = sp - arch_pagesize * 4 |
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machine[0].statistics_enabled = 1 |
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x) To force a name to be interpreted as a setting/register name, |
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a hash sign (#) is now used instead of the percentage sign (%). |
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(In the new expression evaluator, % means arithmetic modulo.) |
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x) The 'focus' command now also selects a cpu, in addition to |
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selecting machine and emul. |
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x) The 'reg' command only prints registers for one cpu now, not |
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all cpus in the currently focused machine. |
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o) The wdc (standard IDE controller) had a bug which prevented disk |
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images larger than 2 GB to work correctly. This has been fixed. |
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o) For MIPS emulation, some combinations of emulated processor + guest |
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operating system should now work better when idling (i.e. the host |
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should not run at 100% CPU): |
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x) For MIPS32/MIPS64 and RM5200, the 'wait' instruction should |
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now work more or less as expected. |
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x) For VR41xx (e.g. MobilePro) emulation, the standby instruction |
Changes between release 0.4.3 and 0.4.4 include, among other things: |
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should work like the 'wait' instruction. |
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x) For R3000 emulation, where there is no hardware wait instruction, |
o) The interrupt subsystem has been redesigned. This means two things: |
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I've implemented "instruction combination" hacks for both |
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NetBSD/pmax and Debian/pmax, so that their cpu idle loops are |
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detected and treated almost as a wait instruction. |
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o) MIPS 64-bit address translation (X=1) was not fully working before; |
x) Internal code cleanup, which makes the whole emulator more |
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TLB exception handling for xkseg and larger-than-2GB-userland should |
maintainable. Instead of using magically encoded integers |
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now actually work. (Thanks to Juli Mallett and Carl van Schaik for |
for interrupts, strings are now used. These strings are in |
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noticing these problems.) |
the form of "paths", so that devices and busses can more |
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easily be connected to other busses, devices, or CPUs. |
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o) The mouse cursor update routines in DECstation (LK201) emulation |
x) Some machine types which happened to work in release 0.4.3, |
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previously used the fact that guest OSes set the _hardware_ |
but were not listed in the documentation as working, may |
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cursor position. In order to support X Windows when emulating |
have stopped working now. As always, the documentation should |
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modern versions of NetBSD/pmax, which don't set the hardware |
indicate the combinations of machine modes and guest OSes that |
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position anymore, a workaround has been implemented which only |
are supposed to work. |
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sends relative coordinates to the guest OS. This has two drawbacks: |
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1. Ultrix emulation with dual- and tripple-head emulation will |
o) SuperH (SH4) emulation is now somewhat more stable, enough to let a |
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most likely feel very strange. It will still work, though. |
NetBSD/dreamcast Live CD be usable. |
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2. Cursor movement feels "accelerated", because the emulator |
o) PowerPC "G4" emulation is now stable enough to let NetBSD/macppc |
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sends unaccelerated movements to the guest OS, which then |
run from a disk image. (Installing actually worked before, but the |
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accelerates them. This can however be compensated to some |
NetBSD/macppc GENERIC kernel uses AltiVec instructions which were |
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degree by running 'xset m 1 0' in the guest OS. |
not implemented correctly.) |
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Having weird accelerated mouse movement is better than having no |
o) The PICA-61 (arc) and i80321 (evbarm) emulation modes now have their |
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mouse support at all, so this change was necessary. |
timers fixed at 100 Hz. A hardcoded speed like this is very ugly, but |
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it is at least better than before (when the timer wasn't really |
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running at any specific speed at all). |
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Please read the HISTORY files for more details. |
Please read the HISTORY files for more details. |
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