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Release notes for Gavare's eXperimental Emulator (GXemul), 0.4.3 |
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================================================================ |
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Copyright (C) 2003-2006 Anders Gavare. |
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GXemul is an experimental instruction-level machine emulator. Several |
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emulation modes are available. In some modes, processors and surrounding |
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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. |
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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 |
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systems are probably NetBSD/pmax, NetBSD/cats, and OpenBSD/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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|
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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 |
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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, |
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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; |
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TLB exception handling for xkseg and larger-than-2GB-userland should |
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now actually work. (Thanks to Juli Mallett and Carl van Schaik for |
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noticing these problems.) |
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o) The mouse cursor update routines in DECstation (LK201) emulation |
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previously used the fact that guest OSes set the _hardware_ |
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cursor position. In order to support X Windows when emulating |
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modern versions of NetBSD/pmax, which don't set the hardware |
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position anymore, a workaround has been implemented which only |
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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 |
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most likely feel very strange. It will still work, though. |
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2. Cursor movement feels "accelerated", because the emulator |
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sends unaccelerated movements to the guest OS, which then |
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accelerates them. This can however be compensated to some |
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degree by running 'xset m 1 0' in the guest OS. |
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Having weird accelerated mouse movement is better than having no |
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mouse support at all, so this change was necessary. |
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Please read the HISTORY files for more details. |
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Files included in this release are: |
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HISTORY Detailed revision history / changelog. |
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LICENSE Copyright message / license. |
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README Quick start instructions, for the impatient. |
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RELEASE This file. |
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TODO TODO notes. |
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configure, Makefile.skel sh and make scripts for building GXemul. |
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demos Tutorial-like demos of testmachine functionality. |
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doc Documentation. |
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experiments Experimental code. (Usually not needed.) |
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src Source code. |
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To build the emulator, run the configure script, and then run make. This |
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should work on most Unix-like systems. |
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Regarding files in the src/include/ directory: only some of these are written |
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by me, the rest are from other sources (such as NetBSD). The license text says |
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that "All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software" |
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must display acknowledgements. Even though I do NOT feel I mention features or |
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use of the header files (the "software") in any advertising materials, I am |
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still very grateful for the fact that these people have made their files |
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available for re-use, so regardless of legal requirements, I guess thanking |
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them like this is in order: |
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This product includes software developed by the University of |
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California, Berkeley and its contributors. |
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This product includes software developed for the |
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NetBSD Project. See http://www.netbsd.org/ for |
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information about NetBSD. |
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This product includes software developed by Jonathan Stone for |
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the NetBSD Project. |
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This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project |
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by Matthias Drochner. |
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This product includes software developed by the NetBSD |
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Foundation, Inc. and its contributors. |
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This product includes software developed by Christopher G. Demetriou. |
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[for the NetBSD Project.] |
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This product includes software developed by Adam Glass. |
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This product includes software developed by the PocketBSD project |
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and its contributors. |
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This product includes software developed by Peter Galbavy. |
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Carnegie Mellon University (multiple header files, |
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no specific advertisement text required) |
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This product includes software developed by Charles M. Hannum. |
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This product includes software developed under OpenBSD by Per Fogelström. |
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This product includes software developed by Per Fogelström. |
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This product includes software developed at Ludd, University of |
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Luleå, Sweden and its contributors. |
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This product includes software developed by Hellmuth Michaelis |
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and Joerg Wunsch |
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The font(s) in devices/fonts are Copyright (c) 1992, 1993, 1994 |
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by Hellmuth Michaelis and Joerg Wunsch. ("This product includes software |
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developed by Hellmuth Michaelis and Joerg Wunsch", well, the font |
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is maybe not software, but still...) |
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impactsr-bsd.h is Copyright (C) 2004 by Stanislaw Skowronek. |
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This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by |
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Wasabi Systems, Inc. [by Simon Burge] |
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arcbios_other.h is Copyright (c) 1996 M. Warner Losh. |
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This product includes software developed by Marc Horowitz. |
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This product includes software developed by Brini. |
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This product includes software developed by Mark Brinicombe |
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for the NetBSD Project. |
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This product includes software developed by TooLs GmbH. |
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This product includes software developed by Manuel Bouyer. |
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This product includes software developed by the Alice Group. |
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This product includes software developed by Ichiro FUKUHARA. |
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This product includes software developed by Marcus Comstedt. |
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Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following: |
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Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 Carnegie-Mellon University. |
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All rights reserved. |
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Author: Keith Bostic, Chris G. Demetriou |
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Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and |
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its documentation is hereby granted, provided that both the copyright |
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notice and this permission notice appear in all copies of the |
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software, derivative works or modified versions, and any portions |
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thereof, and that both notices appear in supporting documentation. |
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See individual files for license details, if you plan to redistribute GXemul |
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or reuse code. |
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If you have found GXemul useful in some way, or feel like sending me comments |
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or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(at)gavare.se. |
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