/[gxemul]/upstream/0.4.6/RELEASE
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trunk/RELEASE revision 28 by dpavlin, Mon Oct 8 16:20:26 2007 UTC upstream/0.4.6/RELEASE revision 43 by dpavlin, Mon Oct 8 16:22:43 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), 0.4.6
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, and 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.  
   
     o)  MIPS emulation performance has been improved somewhat:  
20    
         R3000: After removing some buggy code (hints for physical page  
         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.  
21    
22          For non-R3000, there have been some speedups as well. After fixing  The changes between release 0.4.5.1 and 0.4.6 include, among other things:
         reference count bugs for 64-bit addressing in the dyntrans system,  
         workarounds/hacks in the tlbwr/tlbwi instructions and in the ASID  
         change helper function could be removed.  
23    
24      o)  A new -s command line option is now available, for dumping      o)  NetBSD/pmppc can now run in the emulator (with root-on-nfs), on
25          raw runtime data/statistics on every instruction to a file.          an emulated Artesyn PM/PPC board.
26    
27          Currently, the following kinds of data can be dumped:      o)  An instruction combination has been implemented for the idle loop
28            used by NetBSD/arm (cats, netwinder, and iq80321). In plain English,
29            this means that if the guest OS inside the emulator is not using
30            any CPU, the emulator should not use much CPU on the host either.
31    
32          1. the program counter (virtual address)      o)  Some minor SuperH emulation speed improvements.
         2. the physical address representation of the program counter  
         3. the internal dyntrans instruction call pointer, useful when  
            developing/optimizing the emulator  
33    
34          This data can then be analyzed by external tools.      o)  General code cleanup: Non-working (skeleton) emulation modes have
35            been removed, to make it easier to maintain the source code in
36            the long run, and many unused/legacy constructs have been removed.
37    
38          (There was a -s command line option in previous releases of  Please read the HISTORY file for more details.
         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        This product includes software developed by Bill Paul.
138    
139        This product includes software developed by Nivas Madhur.
140    
141  Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following:  Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following:
142    
143      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 155  See individual files for license details
155  or reuse code.  or reuse code.
156    
157    
 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.  
   
158  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
159  or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(at)gavare.se.  or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(At)gavare.se.
160    
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