upstream/0.4.4/RELEASE

Release notes for Gavare's eXperimental Emulator (GXemul), 0.4.4
================================================================

Copyright (C) 2003-2007  Anders Gavare.


GXemul is an experimental instruction-level machine emulator. Several
emulation modes are available. In some modes, processors and surrounding
hardware components are emulated well enough to let unmodified operating
systems (e.g. NetBSD) run as if they were running on a real machine.

Processors (ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, SuperH) are emulated using dynamic 
translation. Unlike some other dynamically translating emulators, GXemul 
does not need to generate native code, only a "runnable intermediate 
representation", and will thus run on any host architecture.

The documentation lists the machines and guest operating systems that can 
be regarded as "working" in GXemul. The best working guest operating 
systems are probably NetBSD/pmax and NetBSD/cats.


Changes between release 0.4.3 and 0.4.4 include, among other things:

    o)  The interrupt subsystem has been redesigned. This means two things:

          x)  Internal code cleanup, which makes the whole emulator more
              maintainable. Instead of using magically encoded integers
              for interrupts, strings are now used. These strings are in
              the form of "paths", so that devices and busses can more
              easily be connected to other busses, devices, or CPUs.

          x)  Some machine types which happened to work in release 0.4.3,
              but were not listed in the documentation as working, may
              have stopped working now. As always, the documentation should
              indicate the combinations of machine modes and guest OSes that
              are supposed to work.

    o)  SuperH (SH4) emulation is now somewhat more stable, enough to let a
        NetBSD/dreamcast Live CD be usable.

    o)  PowerPC "G4" emulation is now stable enough to let NetBSD/macppc
        run from a disk image. (Installing actually worked before, but the
        NetBSD/macppc GENERIC kernel uses AltiVec instructions which were
        not implemented correctly.)

    o)  The PICA-61 (arc) and i80321 (evbarm) emulation modes now have their
        timers fixed at 100 Hz. A hardcoded speed like this is very ugly, but
        it is at least better than before (when the timer wasn't really
        running at any specific speed at all).

Please read the HISTORY files for more details.


Files included in this release are:

  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.

To build the emulator, run the configure script, and then run make. This 
should work on most Unix-like systems.


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
that "All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software"
must display acknowledgements. Even though I do NOT feel I mention features or
use of the header files (the "software") in any advertising materials, I am
still very grateful for the fact that these people have made their files
available for re-use, so regardless of legal requirements, I guess thanking
them like this is in order:

    This product includes software developed by the University of
    California, Berkeley and its contributors.

    This product includes software developed for the
    NetBSD Project.  See http://www.netbsd.org/ for
    information about NetBSD.

    This product includes software developed by Jonathan Stone for
    the NetBSD Project.

    This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project
    by Matthias Drochner.

    This product includes software developed by the NetBSD
    Foundation, Inc. and its contributors.

    This product includes software developed by Christopher G. Demetriou.
    [for the NetBSD Project.]

    This product includes software developed by Adam Glass.

    This product includes software developed by the PocketBSD project
    and its contributors.

    This product includes software developed by Peter Galbavy.

    Carnegie Mellon University   (multiple header files,
    no specific advertisement text required)

    This product includes software developed by Charles M. Hannum.

    This product includes software developed under OpenBSD by Per Fogelström.

    This product includes software developed by Per Fogelström.

    This product includes software developed at Ludd, University of
    Luleå, Sweden and its contributors.

    This product includes software developed by Hellmuth Michaelis
    and Joerg Wunsch

    The font(s) in devices/fonts are Copyright (c) 1992, 1993, 1994
    by Hellmuth Michaelis and Joerg Wunsch.  ("This product includes software
    developed by Hellmuth Michaelis and Joerg Wunsch", well, the font
    is maybe not software, but still...)

    impactsr-bsd.h is Copyright (C) 2004 by Stanislaw Skowronek.

    This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by
    Wasabi Systems, Inc.  [by Simon Burge]

    arcbios_other.h is Copyright (c) 1996 M. Warner Losh.

    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.


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.

1	dpavlin	34	Release notes for Gavare's eXperimental Emulator (GXemul), 0.4.4
2	dpavlin	28	================================================================
3	dpavlin	2
4	dpavlin	34	Copyright (C) 2003-2007 Anders Gavare.
5	dpavlin	2
6
7	dpavlin	14	GXemul is an experimental instruction-level machine emulator. Several
8			emulation modes are available. In some modes, processors and surrounding
9	dpavlin	12	hardware components are emulated well enough to let unmodified operating
10			systems (e.g. NetBSD) run as if they were running on a real machine.
11	dpavlin	2
12	dpavlin	34	Processors (ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, SuperH) are emulated using dynamic
13			translation. Unlike some other dynamically translating emulators, GXemul
14			does not need to generate native code, only a "runnable intermediate
15			representation", and will thus run on any host architecture.
16
17	dpavlin	22	The documentation lists the machines and guest operating systems that can
18	dpavlin	28	be regarded as "working" in GXemul. The best working guest operating
19	dpavlin	34	systems are probably NetBSD/pmax and NetBSD/cats.
20	dpavlin	2
21	dpavlin	20
22	dpavlin	34	Changes between release 0.4.3 and 0.4.4 include, among other things:
23	dpavlin	12
24	dpavlin	34	o) The interrupt subsystem has been redesigned. This means two things:
25	dpavlin	2
26	dpavlin	34	x) Internal code cleanup, which makes the whole emulator more
27			maintainable. Instead of using magically encoded integers
28			for interrupts, strings are now used. These strings are in
29			the form of "paths", so that devices and busses can more
30			easily be connected to other busses, devices, or CPUs.
31	dpavlin	10
32	dpavlin	34	x) Some machine types which happened to work in release 0.4.3,
33			but were not listed in the documentation as working, may
34			have stopped working now. As always, the documentation should
35			indicate the combinations of machine modes and guest OSes that
36			are supposed to work.
37	dpavlin	2
38	dpavlin	34	o) SuperH (SH4) emulation is now somewhat more stable, enough to let a
39			NetBSD/dreamcast Live CD be usable.
40	dpavlin	2
41	dpavlin	34	o) PowerPC "G4" emulation is now stable enough to let NetBSD/macppc
42			run from a disk image. (Installing actually worked before, but the
43			NetBSD/macppc GENERIC kernel uses AltiVec instructions which were
44			not implemented correctly.)
45	dpavlin	2
46	dpavlin	34	o) The PICA-61 (arc) and i80321 (evbarm) emulation modes now have their
47			timers fixed at 100 Hz. A hardcoded speed like this is very ugly, but
48			it is at least better than before (when the timer wasn't really
49			running at any specific speed at all).
50	dpavlin	2
51	dpavlin	24	Please read the HISTORY files for more details.
52
53
54	dpavlin	2	Files included in this release are:
55
56			HISTORY Detailed revision history / changelog.
57			LICENSE Copyright message / license.
58			README Quick start instructions, for the impatient.
59			RELEASE This file.
60			TODO TODO notes.
61	dpavlin	4	configure, Makefile.skel sh and make scripts for building GXemul.
62	dpavlin	24	demos Tutorial-like demos of testmachine functionality.
63	dpavlin	2	doc Documentation.
64			experiments Experimental code. (Usually not needed.)
65	dpavlin	4	src Source code.
66	dpavlin	2
67	dpavlin	24	To build the emulator, run the configure script, and then run make. This
68	dpavlin	22	should work on most Unix-like systems.
69	dpavlin	2
70	dpavlin	24
71	dpavlin	4	Regarding files in the src/include/ directory: only some of these are written
72			by me, the rest are from other sources (such as NetBSD). The license text says
73	dpavlin	2	that "All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software"
74			must display acknowledgements. Even though I do NOT feel I mention features or
75			use of the header files (the "software") in any advertising materials, I am
76			still very grateful for the fact that these people have made their files
77			available for re-use, so regardless of legal requirements, I guess thanking
78			them like this is in order:
79
80			This product includes software developed by the University of
81			California, Berkeley and its contributors.
82
83			This product includes software developed for the
84			NetBSD Project. See http://www.netbsd.org/ for
85			information about NetBSD.
86
87			This product includes software developed by Jonathan Stone for
88			the NetBSD Project.
89
90			This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project
91			by Matthias Drochner.
92
93			This product includes software developed by the NetBSD
94			Foundation, Inc. and its contributors.
95
96			This product includes software developed by Christopher G. Demetriou.
97			[for the NetBSD Project.]
98
99			This product includes software developed by Adam Glass.
100
101			This product includes software developed by the PocketBSD project
102			and its contributors.
103
104			This product includes software developed by Peter Galbavy.
105
106			Carnegie Mellon University (multiple header files,
107			no specific advertisement text required)
108
109			This product includes software developed by Charles M. Hannum.
110
111			This product includes software developed under OpenBSD by Per Fogelström.
112
113			This product includes software developed by Per Fogelström.
114
115			This product includes software developed at Ludd, University of
116			Luleå, Sweden and its contributors.
117
118			This product includes software developed by Hellmuth Michaelis
119			and Joerg Wunsch
120
121			The font(s) in devices/fonts are Copyright (c) 1992, 1993, 1994
122			by Hellmuth Michaelis and Joerg Wunsch. ("This product includes software
123			developed by Hellmuth Michaelis and Joerg Wunsch", well, the font
124			is maybe not software, but still...)
125
126			impactsr-bsd.h is Copyright (C) 2004 by Stanislaw Skowronek.
127
128			This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by
129			Wasabi Systems, Inc. [by Simon Burge]
130
131			arcbios_other.h is Copyright (c) 1996 M. Warner Losh.
132
133			This product includes software developed by Marc Horowitz.
134
135	dpavlin	14	This product includes software developed by Brini.
136
137			This product includes software developed by Mark Brinicombe
138			for the NetBSD Project.
139
140	dpavlin	20	This product includes software developed by TooLs GmbH.
141
142			This product includes software developed by Manuel Bouyer.
143
144	dpavlin	22	This product includes software developed by the Alice Group.
145
146	dpavlin	24	This product includes software developed by Ichiro FUKUHARA.
147
148	dpavlin	32	This product includes software developed by Marcus Comstedt.
149
150	dpavlin	12	Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following:
151
152			Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 Carnegie-Mellon University.
153			All rights reserved.
154
155			Author: Keith Bostic, Chris G. Demetriou
156
157			Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and
158			its documentation is hereby granted, provided that both the copyright
159			notice and this permission notice appear in all copies of the
160			software, derivative works or modified versions, and any portions
161			thereof, and that both notices appear in supporting documentation.
162
163	dpavlin	2	See individual files for license details, if you plan to redistribute GXemul
164			or reuse code.
165
166	dpavlin	24
167	dpavlin	2	If you have found GXemul useful in some way, or feel like sending me comments
168			or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(at)gavare.se.
169