/[gxemul]/upstream/0.4.6/RELEASE
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revision 28 by dpavlin, Mon Oct 8 16:20:26 2007 UTC revision 34 by dpavlin, Mon Oct 8 16:21:17 2007 UTC
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1  Release notes for Gavare's eXperimental Emulator (GXemul), 0.4.1  Release notes for Gavare's eXperimental Emulator (GXemul), 0.4.4
2  ================================================================  ================================================================
3    
4  Copyright (C) 2003-2006  Anders Gavare.  Copyright (C) 2003-2007  Anders Gavare.
5    
6    
7  GXemul is an experimental instruction-level machine emulator. Several  GXemul is an experimental instruction-level machine emulator. Several
# Line 9  emulation modes are available. In some m Line 9  emulation modes are available. In some m
9  hardware components are emulated well enough to let unmodified operating  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.  systems (e.g. NetBSD) run as if they were running on a real machine.
11    
12    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  The documentation lists the machines and guest operating systems that can  The documentation lists the machines and guest operating systems that can
18  be regarded as "working" in GXemul. The best working guest operating  be regarded as "working" in GXemul. The best working guest operating
19  systems are probably NetBSD/pmax, NetBSD/cats, and OpenBSD/cats.  systems are probably NetBSD/pmax and NetBSD/cats.
   
   
 Changes between release 0.4.0.1 and 0.4.1 include, among other things:  
   
     o)  Some bugs in the dynamic translation core have been fixed, making  
         all emulation modes (especially the MIPS mode) more stable.  
20    
     o)  In the refactoring effort between 0.4.0 and 0.4.0.1, single-stepping  
         (and instruction tracing) of 64-bit programs was accidentally broken.  
         Single-stepping in 64-bit mode could result in strange exceptions.  
         This has been fixed in 0.4.1.  
21    
22      o)  MIPS emulation performance has been improved somewhat:  Changes between release 0.4.3 and 0.4.4 include, among other things:
23    
24          R3000: After removing some buggy code (hints for physical page      o)  The interrupt subsystem has been redesigned. This means two things:
         translations), it was possible to remove the workaround for R3000  
         caches which was needed in 0.4.0.1 to make Linux and Ultrix run.  
         This gives an overall speedup for R2000/R3000.  
25    
26          For non-R3000, there have been some speedups as well. After fixing            x)  Internal code cleanup, which makes the whole emulator more
27          reference count bugs for 64-bit addressing in the dyntrans system,                maintainable. Instead of using magically encoded integers
28          workarounds/hacks in the tlbwr/tlbwi instructions and in the ASID                for interrupts, strings are now used. These strings are in
29          change helper function could be removed.                the form of "paths", so that devices and busses can more
30                  easily be connected to other busses, devices, or CPUs.
31    
32      o)  A new -s command line option is now available, for dumping            x)  Some machine types which happened to work in release 0.4.3,
33          raw runtime data/statistics on every instruction to a file.                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    
38          Currently, the following kinds of data can be dumped:      o)  SuperH (SH4) emulation is now somewhat more stable, enough to let a
39            NetBSD/dreamcast Live CD be usable.
40    
41          1. the program counter (virtual address)      o)  PowerPC "G4" emulation is now stable enough to let NetBSD/macppc
42          2. the physical address representation of the program counter          run from a disk image. (Installing actually worked before, but the
43          3. the internal dyntrans instruction call pointer, useful when          NetBSD/macppc GENERIC kernel uses AltiVec instructions which were
44             developing/optimizing the emulator          not implemented correctly.)
45    
46          This data can then be analyzed by external tools.      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          (There was a -s command line option in previous releases of          it is at least better than before (when the timer wasn't really
49          the emulator, but it did not work as intended, and was not          running at any specific speed at all).
         usable from dyntrans emulation modes.)  
50    
51  Please read the HISTORY files for more details.  Please read the HISTORY files for more details.
52    
# Line 149  them like this is in order: Line 145  them like this is in order:
145    
146      This product includes software developed by Ichiro FUKUHARA.      This product includes software developed by Ichiro FUKUHARA.
147    
148        This product includes software developed by Marcus Comstedt.
149    
150  Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following:  Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following:
151    
152      Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 Carnegie-Mellon University.      Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 Carnegie-Mellon University.
# Line 166  See individual files for license details Line 164  See individual files for license details
164  or reuse code.  or reuse code.
165    
166    
 Thanks to (in no specific order) Joachim Buss, Olivier Houchard, Juli Mallett,  
 Juan Romero Pardines, Alec Voropay, Göran Weinholt, Alexander Yurchenko, and  
 everyone else who has provided me with feedback.  
   
167  If you have found GXemul useful in some way, or feel like sending me comments  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.  or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(at)gavare.se.
169    
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