/[gxemul]/upstream/0.4.6/RELEASE
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revision 28 by dpavlin, Mon Oct 8 16:20:26 2007 UTC revision 38 by dpavlin, Mon Oct 8 16:21:53 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), 0.4.5
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.  
   
     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.  
20    
     o)  MIPS emulation performance has been improved somewhat:  
21    
22          R3000: After removing some buggy code (hints for physical page  The changes between release 0.4.4.1 and 0.4.5 include, among other 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.  
23    
24          For non-R3000, there have been some speedups as well. After fixing      o)  Initial support for "disk overlays" has been implemented. This
25          reference count bugs for 64-bit addressing in the dyntrans system,          enables e.g. simple roll-back of emulated disk contents to a
26          workarounds/hacks in the tlbwr/tlbwi instructions and in the ASID          previous state.
         change helper function could be removed.  
27    
28      o)  A new -s command line option is now available, for dumping      o)  Dyntrans bug fixes; code translations on physical addresses that
29          raw runtime data/statistics on every instruction to a file.          were offset a multiple of 128 MB from each other could either
30            cause weird bugs, or translation leaks (leading to unnecessary
31            dyntrans cache overflows).
32    
33          Currently, the following kinds of data can be dumped:      o)  Some cleanup: The GDB debugging stub support, some dummy machine
34            modes (TS7200, Walnut, PB1000, and Meshcube), and some dummy or
35            experimental CPUs (RCA180x and Transputer) have been removed, to
36            make the emulator slightly more maintainable.
37    
38          1. the program counter (virtual address)  Please read the HISTORY file for more details.
         2. the physical address representation of the program counter  
         3. the internal dyntrans instruction call pointer, useful when  
            developing/optimizing the emulator  
   
         This data can then be analyzed by external tools.  
   
         (There was a -s command line option in previous releases of  
         the emulator, but it did not work as intended, and was not  
         usable from dyntrans emulation modes.)  
   
 Please read the HISTORY files for more details.  
39    
40    
41  Files included in this release are:  Files included in this release are:
# Line 149  them like this is in order: Line 132  them like this is in order:
132    
133      This product includes software developed by Ichiro FUKUHARA.      This product includes software developed by Ichiro FUKUHARA.
134    
135        This product includes software developed by Marcus Comstedt.
136    
137  Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following:  Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following:
138    
139      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 151  See individual files for license details
151  or reuse code.  or reuse code.
152    
153    
 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.  
   
154  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
155  or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(at)gavare.se.  or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(At)gavare.se.
156    
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