/[gxemul]/trunk/RELEASE
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revision 28 by dpavlin, Mon Oct 8 16:20:26 2007 UTC revision 40 by dpavlin, Mon Oct 8 16:22:11 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), 0.4.5.1
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.  
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:  The changes between release 0.4.4.1 and 0.4.5 include, among other things:
23    
24          R3000: After removing some buggy code (hints for physical page      o)  Initial support for "disk overlays" has been implemented. This
25          translations), it was possible to remove the workaround for R3000          enables e.g. simple roll-back of emulated disk contents to a
26          caches which was needed in 0.4.0.1 to make Linux and Ultrix run.          previous state.
         This gives an overall speedup for R2000/R3000.  
27    
28          For non-R3000, there have been some speedups as well. After fixing      o)  Dyntrans bug fixes; code translations on physical addresses that
29          reference count bugs for 64-bit addressing in the dyntrans system,          were offset a multiple of 128 MB from each other could either
30          workarounds/hacks in the tlbwr/tlbwi instructions and in the ASID          cause weird bugs, or translation leaks (leading to unnecessary
31          change helper function could be removed.          dyntrans cache overflows).
32    
33      o)  A new -s command line option is now available, for dumping      o)  Some cleanup: The GDB debugging stub support, some dummy machine
34          raw runtime data/statistics on every instruction to a file.          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          Currently, the following kinds of data can be dumped:  The changes between release 0.4.5 and 0.4.5.1 include, among other things:
39    
40          1. the program counter (virtual address)      o)  OpenBSD/landisk has now had its first release (4.1, 2007-05-01).
41          2. the physical address representation of the program counter          Landisk emulation is now stable enough to allow OpenBSD/landisk
42          3. the internal dyntrans instruction call pointer, useful when          to be installed onto a disk image, and run from it.
            developing/optimizing the emulator  
43    
44          This data can then be analyzed by external tools.      o)  Finally found and fixed an old bug in the address to symbol name
45            lookup mechanism, which caused some symbols to be missed. Debug
46            output with -t or -i should now show all symbols.
47    
48          (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.  
49    
50    
51  Files included in this release are:  Files included in this release are:
# Line 149  them like this is in order: Line 142  them like this is in order:
142    
143      This product includes software developed by Ichiro FUKUHARA.      This product includes software developed by Ichiro FUKUHARA.
144    
145        This product includes software developed by Marcus Comstedt.
146    
147        This product includes software developed by Bill Paul.
148    
149  Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following:  Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following:
150    
151      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 163  See individual files for license details
163  or reuse code.  or reuse code.
164    
165    
 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.  
   
166  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
167  or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(at)gavare.se.  or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(At)gavare.se.
168    
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