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Mon Oct 8 16:18:38 2007 UTC (16 years, 5 months ago) by dpavlin
File size: 12045 byte(s)
++ trunk/HISTORY	(local)
$Id: HISTORY,v 1.905 2005/08/16 09:16:24 debug Exp $
20050628	Continuing the work on the ARM translation engine. end_of_page
		works. Experimenting with load/store translation caches
		(virtual -> physical -> host).
20050629	More ARM stuff (memory access translation cache, mostly). This
		might break a lot of stuff elsewhere, probably some MIPS-
		related translation things.
20050630	Many load/stores are now automatically generated and included
		into cpu_arm_instr.c; 1024 functions in total (!).
		Fixes based on feedback from Alec Voropay: only print 8 hex
		digits instead of 16 in some cases when emulating 32-bit
		machines; similar 8 vs 16 digit fix for breakpoint addresses;
		4Kc has 16 TLB entries, not 48; the MIPS config select1
		register is now printed with "reg ,0".
		Also changing many other occurances of 16 vs 8 digit output.
		Adding cache associativity fields to mips_cpu_types.h; updating
		some other cache fields; making the output of
		mips_cpu_dumpinfo() look nicer.
		Generalizing the bintrans stuff for device accesses to also
		work with the new translation system. (This might also break
		some MIPS things.)
		Adding multi-load/store instructions to the ARM disassembler
		and the translator, and some optimizations of various kinds.
20050701	Adding a simple dev_disk (it can read/write sectors from
		disk images).
20050712	Adding dev_ether (a simple ethernet send/receive device).
		Debugger command "ninstrs" for toggling show_nr_of_instructions
		during runtime.
		Removing the framebuffer logo.
20050713	Continuing on dev_ether.
		Adding a dummy cpu_alpha (again).
20050714	More work on cpu_alpha.
20050715	More work on cpu_alpha. Many instructions work, enough to run
		a simple framebuffer fill test (similar to the ARM test).
20050716	More Alpha stuff.
20050717	Minor updates (Alpha stuff).
20050718	Minor updates (Alpha stuff).
20050719	Generalizing some Alpha instructions.
20050720	More Alpha-related updates.
20050721	Continuing on cpu_alpha. Importing rpb.h from NetBSD/alpha.
20050722	Alpha-related updates: userland stuff (Hello World using
		write() compiled statically for FreeBSD/Alpha runs fine), and
		more instructions are now implemented.
20050723	Fixing ldq_u and stq_u.
		Adding more instructions (conditional moves, masks, extracts,
		shifts).
20050724	More FreeBSD/Alpha userland stuff, and adding some more
		instructions (inserts).
20050725	Continuing on the Alpha stuff. (Adding dummy ldt/stt.)
		Adding a -A command line option to turn off alignment checks
		in some cases (for translated code).
		Trying to remove the old bintrans code which updated the pc
		and nr_of_executed_instructions for every instruction.
20050726	Making another attempt att removing the pc/nr of instructions
		code. This time it worked, huge performance increase for
		artificial test code, but performance loss for real-world
		code :-( so I'm scrapping that code for now.
		Tiny performance increase on Alpha (by using ret instead of
		jmp, to play nice with the Alpha's branch prediction) for the
		old MIPS bintrans backend.
20050727	Various minor fixes and cleanups.
20050728	Switching from a 2-level virtual to host/physical translation
		system for ARM emulation, to a 1-level translation.
		Trying to switch from 2-level to 1-level for the MIPS bintrans
		system as well (Alpha only, so far), but there is at least one
		problem: caches and/or how they work with device mappings.
20050730	Doing the 2-level to 1-level conversion for the i386 backend.
		The cache/device bug is still there for R2K/3K :(
		Various other minor updates (Malta etc).
		The mc146818 clock now updates the UIP bit in a way which works
		better with Linux for at least sgimips and Malta emulation.
		Beginning the work on refactoring the dyntrans system.
20050731	Continuing the dyntrans refactoring.
		Fixing a small but serious host alignment bug in memory_rw.
		Adding support for big-endian load/stores to the i386 bintrans
		backend.
		Another minor i386 bintrans backend update: stores from the
		zero register are now one (or two) loads shorter.
		The slt and sltu instructions were incorrectly implemented for
		the i386 backend; only using them for 32-bit mode for now.
20050801	Continuing the dyntrans refactoring.
		Cleanup of the ns16550 serial controller (removing unnecessary
		code).
		Bugfix (memory corruption bug) in dev_gt, and a patch/hack from
		Alec Voropay for Linux/Malta.
20050802	More cleanup/refactoring of the dyntrans subsystem: adding
		phys_page pointers to the lookup tables, for quick jumps
		between translated pages.
		Better fix for the ns16550 device (but still no real FIFO
		functionality).
		Converting cpu_ppc to the new dyntrans system. This means that
		I will have to start from scratch with implementing each
		instruction, and figure out how to implement dual 64/32-bit
		modes etc.
		Removing the URISC CPU family, because it was useless.
20050803	When selecting a machine type, the main type can now be omitted
		if the subtype name is unique. (I.e. -E can be omitted.)
		Fixing a dyntrans/device update bug. (Writes to offset 0 of
		a device could sometimes go unnoticed.)
		Adding an experimental "instruction combination" hack for
		ARM for memset-like byte fill loops.
20050804	Minor progress on cpu_alpha and related things.
		Finally fixing the MIPS dmult/dmultu bugs.
		Fixing some minor TODOs.
20050805	Generalizing the 8259 PIC. It now also works with Cobalt
		and evbmips emulation, in addition to the x86 hack.
		Finally converting the ns16550 device to use devinit.
		Continuing the work on the dyntrans system. Thinking about
		how to add breakpoints.
20050806	More dyntrans updates. Breakpoints seem to work now.
20050807	Minor updates: cpu_alpha and related things; removing
		dev_malta (as it isn't used any more).
		Dyntrans: working on general "show trace tree" support.
		The trace tree stuff now works with both the old MIPS code and
		with newer dyntrans modes. :)
		Continuing on Alpha-related stuff (trying to get *BSD to boot
		a bit further, adding more instructions, etc).
20050808	Adding a dummy IA64 cpu family, and continuing the refactoring
		of the dyntrans system.
		Removing the regression test stuff, because it was more or
		less useless.
		Adding loadlinked/storeconditional type instructions to the
		Alpha emulation. (Needed for Linux/alpha. Not very well tested
		yet.)
20050809	The function call trace tree now prints a per-function nr of
		arguments. (Semi-meaningless, since that data isn't read yet
		from the ELFs; some hardcoded symbols such as memcpy() and
		strlen() work fine, though.)
		More dyntrans refactoring; taking out more of the things that
		are common to all cpu families.
20050810	Working on adding support for "dual mode" for PPC dyntrans
		(i.e. both 64-bit and 32-bit modes).
		(Re)adding some simple PPC instructions.
20050811	Adding a dummy M68K cpu family. The dyntrans system isn't ready
		for variable-length ISAs yet, so it's completely bogus so far.
		Re-adding more PPC instructions.
		Adding a hack to src/file.c which allows OpenBSD/mac68k a.out
		kernels to be loaded.
		Beginning to add PPC loads/stores. So far they only work in
		32-bit mode.
20050812	The configure file option "add_remote" now accepts symbolic
		host names, in addition to numeric IPv4 addresses.
		Re-adding more PPC instructions.
20050814	Continuing to port back more PPC instructions.
		Found and fixed the cache/device write-update bug for 32-bit
		MIPS bintrans. :-)
		Triggered a really weird and annoying bug in Compaq's C
		compiler; ccc sometimes outputs code which loads from an
		address _before_ checking whether the pointer was NULL or not.
		(I'm not sure how to handle this problem.)
20050815	Removing all of the old x86 instruction execution code; adding
		a new (dummy) dyntrans module for x86.
		Taking the first steps to extend the dyntrans system to support
		variable-length instructions.
		Slowly preparing for the next release.
20050816	Adding a dummy SPARC cpu module.
		Minor updates (documentation etc) for the release.

==============  RELEASE 0.3.5  ==============


1 dpavlin 12 .\" $Id: gxemul.1,v 1.29 2005/08/10 15:51:09 debug Exp $
2 dpavlin 2 .\"
3     .\" Copyright (C) 2004-2005 Anders Gavare. All rights reserved.
4     .\"
5     .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
6     .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
7     .\"
8     .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
9     .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
10     .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
11     .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
12     .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
13     .\" 3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote products
14     .\" derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
15     .\"
16     .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
17     .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
18     .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
19     .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
20     .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
21     .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
22     .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
23     .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
24     .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
25     .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
26     .\" SUCH DAMAGE.
27     .\"
28     .\"
29     .\" This is a minimal man page for GXemul. Process this file with
30     .\" groff -man -Tascii gxemul.1 or nroff -man gxemul.1
31     .\"
32 dpavlin 12 .Dd AUGUST 2005
33 dpavlin 2 .Dt GXEMUL 1
34     .Os
35     .Sh NAME
36     .Nm gxemul
37     .Nd an experimental machine emulator
38     .Sh SYNOPSIS
39     .Nm
40     .Op machine, other, and general options
41     .Op file Ar ...
42     .Nm
43     .Op general options
44     .Op Ar @configfile ...
45     .Nm
46     .Op userland, other, and general options
47     .Ar file Op Ar args ...
48     .Sh DESCRIPTION
49     .Nm
50 dpavlin 10 is an experimental instruction-level machine emulator. It can be used to
51 dpavlin 12 run binary code for MIPS-based machines, regardless of host
52 dpavlin 10 platform. Several emulation modes are available. For some modes,
53     processors and surrounding hardware components are emulated well enough to
54     let unmodified operating systems (e.g. NetBSD) run as if they were running
55     on a real machine.
56 dpavlin 2 .Pp
57 dpavlin 12 (Non-MIPS emulation modes are also under development, but so far none of
58     those modes has reached the completeness required to run unmodified
59     operating systems.)
60     .Pp
61 dpavlin 2 There are three ways to invoke the emulator. When emulating a
62     complete machine, settings can be entered directly on the command line, or
63     they can be read from a configuration file. When emulating a userland
64     environment (syscall-only emulation, not emulating complete machines),
65     then the program name and its argument should be given on the command
66     line.
67     .Pp
68     The easiest way to use the emulator is to supply settings directly on the
69     command line. The most important thing you need to supply is the
70     file argument. This is the name of a binary file (an ELF, a.out, ECOFF,
71     SREC, or a raw binary image) which you wish to run in the emulator. This file
72     might be an operating system kernel, or perhaps a ROM image file.
73     .Pp
74     If more than one filename is supplied, all files are loaded into memory,
75     and the entry point (if available) is taken from the last file.
76     .Pp
77     Apart from the name of a binary file, it is also necessary to select
78     which specific emulation mode to use. For example, a MIPS-based machine
79     from DEC (a DECstation) is very different from a MIPS-based machine
80     from SGI. Use
81     .Nm
82     .Fl H
83     to get a list of available emulation modes.
84     .Pp
85 dpavlin 6 There are two exceptions to the normal invocation usage mentioned above.
86     The first is for DECstation emulation: if you have a bootable
87 dpavlin 2 DECstation harddisk or CDROM image, then just supplying the diskimage via
88     the
89     .Fl d
90 dpavlin 6 option is sufficient. (The filename of the kernel can then be
91 dpavlin 2 skipped, as the emulator runs the bootblocks from the diskimage directly and
92     doesn't need the kernel as a separate file.)
93 dpavlin 6 The second is if you supply an ISO9660 CDROM disk image. You may then use
94     the
95     .Fl j
96     option to indicate which file on the CDROM filesystem that should be
97     loaded into emulated memory.
98 dpavlin 2 .Pp
99     Machine selection options:
100     .Bl -tag -width Ds
101     .It Fl E Ar t
102     Try to emulate machine type
103     .Ar "t".
104 dpavlin 12 This option is not always needed, if the
105     .Fl e
106     option uniquely selects a machine.
107 dpavlin 2 (Use
108     .Fl H
109     to get a list of types.)
110     .It Fl e Ar st
111     Try to emulate machine subtype
112     .Ar "st".
113     Use this together with
114     .Fl E .
115     (This option is not always needed, if a machine type has no subtypes.)
116     .El
117     .Pp
118     Other options:
119     .Bl -tag -width Ds
120 dpavlin 12 .It Fl A
121     Disable load/store alignment checks in some cases. This might give a small
122     increase in performance, but the emulator will not run correctly if the
123     emulated code actually tries to do unaligned loads or stores.
124 dpavlin 2 .It Fl B
125 dpavlin 10 Disable dynamic binary translation. By default, bintrans
126     will be turned on if the host+target architecture combination is
127     supported.
128 dpavlin 2 .It Fl C Ar x
129     Try to emulate a specific CPU type,
130     .Ar "x".
131     This overrides the default CPU type for the machine being emulated.
132     (Use
133     .Fl H
134     to get a list of available CPU types.)
135     .It Fl d Ar name
136     Add
137     .Ar name
138     as a disk image. By adding one or more modifier characters and then a
139     colon (":") as a prefix to
140     .Ar "name",
141 dpavlin 6 you can modify the way the disk image is treated. Available modifiers are:
142 dpavlin 2 .Bl -tag -width Ds
143     .It b
144     Specifies that this is a boot device.
145     .It c
146 dpavlin 4 CD-ROM.
147 dpavlin 2 .It d
148 dpavlin 4 DISK (this is the default).
149     .It f
150     FLOPPY.
151 dpavlin 6 .It gH;S;
152     Override the default geometry; use H heads and S sectors-per-track.
153     (The number of cylinders is calculated automatically.)
154 dpavlin 2 .It i
155 dpavlin 4 IDE.
156 dpavlin 2 .It r
157     Read-only (don't allow changes to be written to the file).
158 dpavlin 4 .It s
159     SCSI (this is the default for most machine types).
160 dpavlin 2 .It t
161 dpavlin 4 Tape.
162 dpavlin 2 .It 0-7
163 dpavlin 6 Force a specific ID number.
164 dpavlin 2 .El
165     .Pp
166 dpavlin 6 Unless otherwise specified, filenames ending with ".iso" are assumed to be
167     CDROM images. Most others are assumed to be disks. Depending on which
168     machine is being emulated, the default for disks can be either SCSI or
169     IDE. Some disk images that are very small are assumed to be floppy disks.
170     (If you are not happy with the way a disk image is detected, then you need
171     to use explicit prefixes to force a specific type.)
172     .Pp
173     For floppies, the gH;S; prefix is ignored. Instead, the number of
174     heads and cylinders are assumed to be 2 and 80, respectively, and the
175     number of sectors per track is calculated automatically. (This works for
176     720KB, 1.2MB, 1.44MB, and 2.88MB floppies.)
177 dpavlin 2 .It Fl I Ar x
178     Emulate clock interrupts at
179     .Ar x
180     Hz. (This affects emulated clock devices only, not actual runtime speed.
181     This disables automatic clock adjustments, which is otherwise turned on.)
182     (This option is probably only valid for DECstation emulation.)
183     .It Fl i
184     Display each instruction as it is being executed.
185     .It Fl J
186     Disable some speed tricks.
187     .It Fl j Ar n
188     Set the name of the kernel to
189     .Ar "n".
190 dpavlin 10 When booting from an ISO9660 filesystem, the emulator will try to boot
191     using this file. (In some emulation modes, eg. DECstation, this name is passed
192 dpavlin 6 along to the boot program. Useful names are "bsd" for OpenBSD/pmax,
193     or "vmunix" for Ultrix.)
194 dpavlin 2 .It Fl M Ar m
195     Emulate
196     .Ar m
197     MBs of physical RAM. This overrides the default amount of RAM for the
198     selected machine type.
199     .It Fl m Ar nr
200     Run at most
201     .Ar nr
202     instructions (on any cpu).
203     .It Fl N
204     Display nr of instructions/second average, at regular intervals.
205     .It Fl n Ar nr
206     Set nr of CPUs (for SMP experiments).
207     .It Fl O
208     Force a "netboot" (tftp instead of disk), even when a disk image is
209     present (for DECstation, SGI, and ARC emulation).
210     .It Fl o Ar arg
211     Set the boot argument (for DEC, ARC, or SGI emulation).
212     Default
213     .Ar arg
214 dpavlin 6 for DEC is "-a", for ARC "-aN".
215 dpavlin 2 .It Fl p Ar pc
216 dpavlin 6 Add a breakpoint. (Remember to use the "0x" prefix for hex.)
217 dpavlin 2 .It Fl Q
218     Disable the built-in PROM emulation. This is useful for running raw ROM
219     images from real machines.
220     .It Fl R
221     Use a random bootstrap cpu, instead of CPU nr 0. (For SMP experiments.)
222     .It Fl r
223     Dump register contents for every executed instruction.
224     .It Fl S
225     Initialize the emulated RAM to random data, instead of zeroes.
226     .It Fl T
227     Enter the single-step debugger on unimplemented memory accesses.
228     .It Fl t
229     Show a trace tree of all function calls being made.
230     .It Fl U
231     Enable slow_serial_interrupts_hack_for_linux.
232     .It Fl X
233     Use X11.
234     .It Fl x
235     Open up new xterms for emulated serial ports. (Default is to open up
236     xterms when using configuration files, but not when starting an
237     emulation with settings directly on the command line.)
238     .It Fl Y Ar n
239     Scale down framebuffer windows by
240     .Ar n
241     x
242     .Ar n
243     times.
244     .It Fl y Ar x
245     Set max_random_cycles_per_chunk to
246     .Ar x
247     (experimental).
248     .It Fl Z Ar n
249     Set the number of graphics cards, for emulating a dual-head or tripple-head
250     environment. (Only for DECstation emulation so far.)
251     .It Fl z Ar disp
252     Add
253     .Ar disp
254     as an X11 display to use for framebuffers.
255     .El
256     .Pp
257     Userland options:
258     .Bl -tag -width Ds
259     .It Fl u Ar emul-mode
260     Userland-only (syscall) emulation. (Use
261     .Fl H
262     to get a list of available emulation modes.) Some (but not all) of the
263     options listed under Other options above can also be used with userland
264     emulation.
265     .El
266     .Pp
267     General options:
268     .Bl -tag -width Ds
269     .It Fl D
270 dpavlin 6 Guarantee fully deterministic behavior. Normally, the emulator calls
271 dpavlin 2 srandom() with a seed based on the current time at startup. When the
272     .Fl D
273     option is used, the srandom() call is skipped, which should cause two
274 dpavlin 6 subsequent invocations of the emulator to be identical, if all other
275     settings are identical and no user input is taking place. (If this option
276     is used, then
277 dpavlin 2 .Fl I
278     must also be used.)
279     .It Fl H
280     Display a list of available CPU types, machine types, and userland
281     emulation modes. (Most of these don't work. Please read the documentation
282     included in the
283     .Nm
284     distribution for details on which modes that actually work.)
285     .It Fl h
286     Display a list of all available command line options.
287     .It Fl K
288     Force the single-step debugger to be entered at the end of a simulation.
289     .It Fl q
290     Quiet mode; this suppresses startup messages.
291     .It Fl s
292     Show opcode usage statistics after the simulation.
293     .It Fl V
294     Start up in the single-step debugger, paused.
295     .It Fl v
296     Verbose debug messages.
297     .El
298     .Pp
299     Configuration file startup:
300     .Bl -tag -width Ds
301     .It @ Ar configfile
302     Start an emulation based on the contents of
303     .Ar "configfile".
304     .El
305     .Pp
306     For more information, please read the documentation in the doc/
307     subdirectory of the
308     .Nm
309     distribution.
310     .Sh EXAMPLES
311     The following command will start NetBSD/pmax on an emulated DECstation
312 dpavlin 10 5000/200 (3MAX):
313 dpavlin 2 .Pp
314 dpavlin 12 .Dl "gxemul -e 3max -d nbsd_pmax.img"
315 dpavlin 2 .Pp
316 dpavlin 10 nbsd_pmax.img should be a raw disk image containing a bootable
317 dpavlin 2 NetBSD/pmax filesystem.
318     .Pp
319     The following command will start an emulation session based on settings in
320     the configuration file "mysession". The -v option tells gxemul to be
321     verbose.
322     .Pp
323     .Dl "gxemul -v @mysession"
324     .Pp
325     If you have compiled the small Hello World program mentioned in the
326     .Nm
327     documentation, the following command will start up an
328     emulated test machine in "paused" mode:
329     .Pp
330     .Dl "gxemul -E testmips -V hello_mips"
331     .Pp
332     (Paused mode means that you enter the interactive single-step debugger
333     directly at startup, instead of launching the Hello World program.)
334     .Pp
335     Please read the documentation for more details.
336     .Sh BUGS
337     There are many bugs. Some of the known bugs are listed in the BUGS
338     file in the
339     .Nm
340 dpavlin 12 source distribution, some are indirectly mentioned in the TODO file,
341     and some are mentioned in the source code itself.
342 dpavlin 2 .Pp
343 dpavlin 10 The binary translation subsystem is really terrible, but it is less
344     terrible than running without it.
345 dpavlin 2 .Pp
346 dpavlin 12 Userland (syscall-only) emulation doesn't really work yet.
347     .Pp
348 dpavlin 2 .Nm
349     does not simulate individual pipe-line stages or penalties caused by
350 dpavlin 10 branch-prediction misses or cache misses, so it cannot be used for
351     accurate performance measurement.
352 dpavlin 6 .Pp
353     .Nm
354     is not timing-accurate.
355 dpavlin 2 .Sh AUTHOR
356     Anders Gavare <anders@gavare.se>
357     .Pp
358     See http://gavare.se/gxemul/ for more information.

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