/[gxemul]/upstream/0.4.3/RELEASE

This is repository of my old source code which isn't updated any more. Go to git.rot13.org for current projects!

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-trunk/RELEASE
revision 10 by dpavlin,
Mon Oct  8 16:18:27 2007 UTC
+upstream/0.4.3/RELEASE
revision 33 by dpavlin,
Mon Oct  8 16:21:06 2007 UTC
 Line 1
- Release notes for GXemul 0.3.4
+ Release notes for Gavare's eXperimental Emulator (GXemul), 0.4.3
- ==============================
+ ================================================================
- Copyright (C) 2003-2005  Anders Gavare.
+ Copyright (C) 2003-2006  Anders Gavare.
- GXemul is an experimental instruction-level machine emulator. It can be
+ GXemul is an experimental instruction-level machine emulator. Several
- used to run binary code for (among others) MIPS-based machines, regardless
+ emulation modes are available. In some modes, processors and surrounding
- of host platform. Several emulation modes are available. For some modes,
+ hardware components are emulated well enough to let unmodified operating
- processors and surrounding hardware components are emulated well enough to
+ systems (e.g. NetBSD) run as if they were running on a real machine.
- 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 working guest operating
- I have verified that the following "guest" operating systems can run
+ systems are probably NetBSD/pmax, NetBSD/cats, and OpenBSD/cats.
- inside the emulator:
-     Guest operating system             Emulated machine
+ Changes between release 0.4.2 and 0.4.3 include, among other things:
-     ----------------------             ----------------
-     NetBSD/pmax 2.0.2 (and 1.6.2)      DECstation 5000/200
+     o)  SuperH (SH4) emulation is now stable enough to let a NetBSD/dreamcast
-     OpenBSD/pmax 2.8-BETA              DECstation 5000/200
+         GENERIC_MD (ramdisk) kernel reach userland.
-     Ultrix 4.2-4.5                     DECstation 5000/200
-     Sprite demo harddisk image         DECstation 5000/200
+     o)  There is now a simple framework for letting emulated clocks, as seen
-     Debian GNU/Linux for DECstation    DECstation 5000/200
+         by guest operating systems, run at the same speed as the host clock.
-     Redhat Linux 7.1 for mips          DECstation 5000/200
-     NetBSD/arc 1.6.2                   Acer PICA-61
+         So far, the DECstation, MobilePro (hpcmips), NetWinder, CATS, Malta
-     OpenBSD/arc 2.3                    Acer PICA-61
+         (evbmips), Cobalt, Algor, Dreamcast, and testmips machine modes
-     NetBSD/hpcmips 2.0.2               NEC MobilePro 770, 780, 800, 880
+         use the new clock/timer framework.
-     NetBSD/cobalt 2.0.2                Cobalt
-     NetBSD/evbmips 2.0.2               Malta 5Kc/4Kc evaluation board
+     o)  Some changes to the way expressions are evaluated in the built-in
-     NetBSD/sgimips 2.0.2               SGI O2 ("IP32")
+         debugger, and some changes in command behaviour:
- Some of these guest operating systems are easier to install and run than
+           x)  Expressions (including assignments) can now be arbitrarily
- others. The best supported mode is the DECstation 5000/200 emulation mode,
+               complex, using parentheses, and the following operators:
- with NetBSD/pmax as the guest operating system.
+                   + - * /    % (modulo)  ^ (xor)  & (and)  | (or)
- A couple of other emulation modes exist. Some of these modes are almost
- working well enough to run complete guest operating systems, but most are
+           x)  Some internal emulator variables can now be read/written using
- just skeletons. The modes that work are listed in the documentation.
+               normal expressions. Examples of commands that did not work
+               earlier, but should work now:
- The emulator can also be used in other experiments; it does not have to
- run entire guest operating systems. (However, GXemul does not simulate
+                   print verbose
- things smaller than an instruction. What this means is that pipe-line
+                   r5 = sp - arch_pagesize * 4
- stalls, penalties caused by branch-prediction misses or cache misses, and
+                   machine[0].statistics_enabled = 1
- other micro-architectural effects are not simulated.)
+           x)  To force a name to be interpreted as a setting/register name,
- Summary of changes between release 0.3.3.2 and 0.3.4:
+               a hash sign (#) is now used instead of the percentage sign (%).
+               (In the new expression evaluator, % means arithmetic modulo.)
-         x)  When emulating a network of multiple machines, the emulated
-             machines can now be placed on different hosts.
+           x)  The 'focus' command now also selects a cpu, in addition to
+               selecting machine and emul.
-         x)  NetBSD/evbmips can now be installed and run from a disk image.
-             (There is no INSTALL kernel for NetBSD/evbmips, so you need to
+           x)  The 'reg' command only prints registers for one cpu now, not
-             install using another OS, for example emulated NetBSD/pmax.)
+               all cpus in the currently focused machine.
-         x)  NetBSD/sgimips can now be installed. Not onto a SCSI disk,
+     o)  The wdc (standard IDE controller) had a bug which prevented disk
-             but the files can be exported via nfs from another emulated
+         images larger than 2 GB to work correctly. This has been fixed.
-             machine. The sgimips machine can then netboot. (Read the
-             documentation for details.)
+     o)  For MIPS emulation, some combinations of emulated processor + guest
+         operating system should now work better when idling (i.e. the host
+         should not run at 100% CPU):
+           x)  For MIPS32/MIPS64 and RM5200, the 'wait' instruction should
+               now work more or less as expected.
+           x)  For VR41xx (e.g. MobilePro) emulation, the standby instruction
+               should work like the 'wait' instruction.
+           x)  For R3000 emulation, where there is no hardware wait instruction,
+               I've implemented "instruction combination" hacks for both
+               NetBSD/pmax and Debian/pmax, so that their cpu idle loops are
+               detected and treated almost as a wait instruction.
+     o)  MIPS 64-bit address translation (X=1) was not fully working before;
+         TLB exception handling for xkseg and larger-than-2GB-userland should
+         now actually work. (Thanks to Juli Mallett and Carl van Schaik for
+         noticing these problems.)
+     o)  The mouse cursor update routines in DECstation (LK201) emulation
+         previously used the fact that guest OSes set the _hardware_
+         cursor position. In order to support X Windows when emulating
+         modern versions of NetBSD/pmax, which don't set the hardware
+         position anymore, a workaround has been implemented which only
+         sends relative coordinates to the guest OS. This has two drawbacks:
+. Ultrix emulation with dual- and tripple-head emulation will
+            most likely feel very strange. It will still work, though.
+. Cursor movement feels "accelerated", because the emulator
+            sends unaccelerated movements to the guest OS, which then
+            accelerates them. This can however be compensated to some
+            degree by running 'xset m 1 0' in the guest OS.
+         Having weird accelerated mouse movement is better than having no
+         mouse support at all, so this change was necessary.
+ Please read the HISTORY files for more details.
- There have also been various other minor updates and bugfixes.
  Files included in this release are:
-   BUGS                        A list of known bugs.
    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.
-   tests                       Regression tests.
- To build the emulator, run the ./configure script, and then run make.
+ To build the emulator, run the configure script, and then run make. This
+ should work on most Unix-like systems.
- Building the emulator should work on most Unix-like systems. (One system which
- is specifically known to NOT work is Ultrix/RISC inside the emulator; Ultrix
- chokes on the configure script and the default cc in Ultrix doesn't work.)
  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
-Line 143 
 them like this is in order:
+Line 177 
 them like this is in order:
      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.
+     This product includes software developed by Marcus Comstedt.
+ 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, that is, this is in alphabetic order :-)
- Joachim Buss, Juli Mallett, Juan RP, Alec Voropay, Alexander Yurchenko,
- and everyone else who has provided me with feedback.
  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.

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