--- trunk/doc/intro.html	2007/10/08 16:20:40	30
+++ trunk/doc/intro.html	2007/10/08 16:22:11	40
@@ -10,9 +10,9 @@
 
 <!--
 
-$Id: intro.html,v 1.90 2006/08/14 17:45:47 debug Exp $
+$Id: intro.html,v 1.110 2007/04/28 00:12:03 debug Exp $
 
-Copyright (C) 2003-2006  Anders Gavare.  All rights reserved.
+Copyright (C) 2003-2007  Anders Gavare.  All rights reserved.
 
 Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
 modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
@@ -53,7 +53,6 @@
   <li><a href="#run">How to run the emulator</a>
   <li><a href="#cpus">Which processor architectures does GXemul emulate?</a>
   <li><a href="#hosts">Which host architectures are supported?</a>
-  <li><a href="#translation">What kind of translation does GXemul use?</a>
   <li><a href="#accuracy">Emulation accuracy</a>
   <li><a href="#emulmodes">Which machines does GXemul emulate?</a>
 </ul>
@@ -73,11 +72,11 @@
 hardware components are emulated well enough to let unmodified operating
 systems (e.g. NetBSD) run as if they were running on a real machine.
 
-<p>Devices and processors (ARM, MIPS, PowerPC) are not simulated with 100% 
-accuracy. They are only ``faked'' well enough to allow guest operating 
-systems run without complaining too much. Still, the emulator could be of 
-interest for academic research and experiments, such as when learning how 
-to write operating system code.
+<p>Devices and processors are not simulated with 100% accuracy. They are 
+only ``faked'' well enough to allow guest operating systems to run without 
+complaining too much. Still, the emulator could be of interest for 
+academic research and experiments, such as when learning how to write 
+operating system code.
 
 <p>The emulator is written in C, does not depend on third-party libraries,
 and should compile and run on most 64-bit and 32-bit Unix-like systems.
@@ -95,9 +94,14 @@
 
 <p>If you do not have a kernel as a separate file, but you have a bootable
 disk image, then it is sometimes possible to boot directly from that
-image. (This works for example with DECstation emulation, or when booting
-from ISO9660 CDROM images.)
-
+image. (This works for example with DECstation emulation, Dreamcast 
+emulation, or when booting from generic ISO9660 CDROM images if the 
+kernel is included in the image as a plain file.)
+
+<p>Thanks to (in no specific order) Joachim Buss, Olivier Houchard, Juli 
+Mallett, Juan Romero Pardines, Carl van Schaik, Alec Voropay, Göran
+Weinholt, Alexander Yurchenko, and everyone else who has provided me with
+feedback.
 
 
 
@@ -213,220 +217,29 @@
 <h3>Which processor architectures does GXemul emulate?</h3>
 
 The architectures that are emulated well enough to let at least one 
-guest operating system run (per architecture) are ARM, MIPS, and 
-PowerPC.
-
-
-
+guest operating system run (per architecture) are ARM, MIPS, PowerPC,
+and SuperH.
 
+<p>Please read the page about <a href="guestoses.html">guest operating
+systems</a> for more information about the machines and operating systems 
+that can be considered "working" in the emulator.
 
-<p><br>
-<a name="hosts"></a>
-<h3>Which host architectures are supported?</h3>
-
-As of release 0.4.0 of GXemul, the old binary translation subsystem, which 
-was used for emulation of MIPS processors on Alpha and i386 hosts, has 
-been removed. The current dynamic translation subsystem should work on any 
-host.
 
 
 
 
 
 <p><br>
-<a name="translation"></a>
-<h3>What kind of translation does GXemul use?</h3>
-
-<b>Static vs. dynamic:</b>
-
-<p>In order to support guest operating systems, which can overwrite old 
-code pages in memory with new code, it is necessary to translate code 
-dynamically. It is not possible to do a "one-pass" (static) translation.
-Self-modifying code and Just-in-Time compilers running inside 
-the emulator are other things that would not work with a static 
-translator. GXemul is a dynamic translator. However, it does not 
-necessarily translate into native code, like many other emulators.
-
-<p><b>"Runnable" Intermediate Representation:</b>
-
-<p>Dynamic translators usually translate from the emulated architecture
-(e.g. MIPS) into a kind of <i>intermediate representation</i> (IR), and then
-to native code (e.g. AMD64 or x86 code). Since one of my main goals for
-GXemul is to keep everything as portable as possible, I have tried to make
-sure that the IR is something which can be executed regardless of whether 
-the final step (translation from IR to native code) has been implemented
-or not.
-
-<p>The IR in GXemul consists of arrays of pointers to functions, and a few 
-arguments which are passed along to those functions. The functions are 
-implemented in either manually hand-coded C, or automatically generated C.
-In any case, this is all statically linked into the GXemul binary at link 
-time.
-
-<p>Here is a simplified diagram of how these arrays work.
-
-<p><center><img src="simplified_dyntrans.png"></center>
-
-<p>There is one instruction call slot for every possible program counter
-location. In the MIPS case, instruction words are 32 bits in length,
-and pages are (usually) 4 KB large, resulting in 1024 instruction call
-slots. After the last of these instruction calls, there is an additional
-call to a special "end of page" function (which doesn't count as an executed
-instruction). This function switches to the first instruction
-on the next virtual page (which might cause exceptions, etc).
-
-<p>The complexity of individual instructions vary. A simple example of
-what an instruction can look like is the MIPS <tt>addiu</tt> instruction:
-<pre>
-	X(addiu)
-	{
-	        reg(ic->arg[1]) = (int32_t)
-	            ((int32_t)reg(ic->arg[0]) + (int32_t)ic->arg[2]);
-	}
-</pre>
-
-<p>It stores the result of a 32-bit addition of the register at arg[0]
-with the immediate value arg[2] (treating both as signed 32-bit
-integers) into register arg[1]. If the emulated CPU is a 64-bit CPU,
-then this will store a correctly sign-extended value into arg[1].
-If it is a 32-bit CPU, then only the lowest 32 bits will be stored,
-and the high part ignored. <tt>X(addiu)</tt> is expanded to
-<tt>mips_instr_addiu</tt> in the 64-bit case, and <tt>mips32_instr_addiu</tt>
-in the 32-bit case. Both are compiled into the GXemul executable; no code 
-is created during run-time.
-
-<p>Here are examples of what the <tt>addiu</tt> instruction actually
-looks like when it is compiled, on various host architectures:
-
-<p><center><table border="0">
-    <tr><td><b>GCC 4.0.1 on Alpha:</b></td>
-	<td width="35"></td><td></td>
-    <tr>
-	<td valign="top">
-<pre>mips_instr_addiu:
-     ldq     t1,8(a1)
-     ldq     t2,24(a1)
-     ldq     t3,16(a1)
-     ldq     t0,0(t1)
-     addl    t0,t2,t0
-     stq     t0,0(t3)
-     ret</pre>
-	</td>
-	<td></td>
-	<td valign="top">
-<pre>mips32_instr_addiu:
-     ldq     t2,8(a1)
-     ldq     t0,24(a1)
-     ldq     t3,16(a1)
-     ldl     t1,0(t2)
-     addq    t0,t1,t0
-     stl     t0,0(t3)
-     ret</pre>
-	</td>
-    </tr>
-
-    <tr><td><b><br>GCC 3.4.4 on AMD64:</b></td>
-    <tr>
-	<td valign="top">
-<pre>mips_instr_addiu:
-     mov    0x8(%rsi),%rdx
-     mov    0x18(%rsi),%rax
-     mov    0x10(%rsi),%rcx
-     add    (%rdx),%eax
-     cltq
-     mov    %rax,(%rcx)
-     retq</pre>
-	</td>
-	<td></td>
-	<td valign="top">
-<pre>mips32_instr_addiu:
-     mov    0x8(%rsi),%rcx
-     mov    0x10(%rsi),%rdx
-     mov    (%rcx),%eax
-     add    0x18(%rsi),%eax
-     mov    %eax,(%rdx)
-     retq</pre>
-	</td>
-    </tr>
-
-    <tr><td><b><br>GCC 4.0.1 on i386:</b></td>
-    <tr>
-	<td valign="top">
-<pre>mips_instr_addiu:
-     mov    0x8(%esp),%eax
-     mov    0x8(%eax),%ecx
-     mov    0x4(%eax),%edx
-     mov    0xc(%eax),%eax
-     add    (%edx),%eax
-     mov    %eax,(%ecx)
-     cltd
-     mov    %edx,0x4(%ecx)
-     ret</pre>
-	</td>
-	<td></td>
-	<td valign="top">
-<pre>mips32_instr_addiu:
-     mov    0x8(%esp),%eax
-     mov    0x8(%eax),%ecx
-     mov    0x4(%eax),%edx
-     mov    0xc(%eax),%eax
-     add    (%edx),%eax
-     mov    %eax,(%ecx)
-     ret</pre>
-	</td>
-    </tr>
-</table></center>
-
-<p>On 64-bit hosts, there is not much difference, but on 32-bit hosts (and
-to some extent on AMD64), the difference is enough to make it worthwhile.
-
-
-<p><b>Performance:</b>
-
-<p>The performance of using this kind of runnable IR is obviously lower
-than what can be achieved by emulators using native code generation, but
-can be significantly higher than using a naive fetch-decode-execute
-interpretation loop. In my opinion, using a runnable IR is an interesting
-compromise.
-
-<p>The overhead per emulated instruction is usually around or below
-approximately 10 host instructions. This is very much dependent on your
-host architecture and what compiler and compiler switches you are using.
-Added to this instruction count is (of course) also the C code used to
-implement each specific instruction.
-
-<p><b>Instruction Combinations:</b>
-
-<p>Short, common instruction sequences can sometimes be replaced by a 
-"compound" instruction. An example could be a compare instruction followed 
-by a conditional branch instruction. The advantages of instruction 
-combinations are that
-<ul>
-  <li>the amortized overhead per instruction is slightly reduced, and
-  <p>
-  <li>the host's compiler can make a good job at optimizing the common
-	instruction sequence.
-</ul>
+<a name="hosts"></a>
+<h3>Which host architectures are supported?</h3>
 
-<p>The special cases where instruction combinations give the most gain
-are in the cores of string/memory manipulation functions such as 
-<tt>memset()</tt> or <tt>strlen()</tt>. The core loop can then (at least
-to some extent) be replaced by a native call to the equivalent function.
-
-<p>The implementations of compound instructions still keep track of the
-number of executed instructions, etc. When single-stepping, these
-translations are invalidated, and replaced by normal instruction calls
-(one per emulated instruction).
-
-<p><b>Native Code Back-ends: (not in this release)</b>
-
-<p>In theory, it will be possible to implement native code generation
-(similar to what is used in high-performance emulators such as QEMU),
-as long as that generated code abides to the C ABI on the host, but
-for now I wanted to make sure that GXemul works without such native
-code back-ends. For this reason, as of release 0.4.0, GXemul is
-completely free of native code back-ends.
+GXemul should compile and run on any modern host architecture (64-bit or 
+32-bit word-length).
 
+<p>Note: The <a href="translation.html">dynamic translation</a> engine 
+does <i>not</i> require backends for native code generation to be written 
+for each individual host architecture; the intermediate representation 
+that the dyntrans system uses can be executed on any host architecture.
 
 
 
@@ -446,18 +259,16 @@
 operating systems think that they are there, but for all practical
 purposes, these caches are non-working.
 
-<p>The emulator is <i>not</i> timing-accurate. It can be run in a
-"deterministic" mode, <tt><b>-D</b></tt>. The meaning of deterministic is
-simply that running two emulations with the same settings will result in
-identical runs. Obviously, this requires that no user interaction is
-taking place, and that clock speeds are fixed with the <tt><b>-I</b></tt>
-option. (Deterministic in this case does <i>not</i> mean that the
-emulation will be identical to some actual real-world machine.)
-
-<p>(Note that user interaction means <i>both</i> input to the emulated
-program/OS, and interaction with the emulator's debugger. Breaking into the
-debugger and then continuing execution may affect when/how interrupts
-occur.)
+<p>The emulator is in general <i>not</i> timing-accurate, neither at the
+instruction level nor on any higher level. An attempt is made to let
+emulated clocks run at the same speed as the host (i.e. an emulated timer
+running at 100 Hz will interrupt around 100 times per real second), but
+since the host speed may vary, e.g. because of other running processes,
+there is no guarantee as to how many instructions will be executed in
+each of these 100 Hz cycles.
+
+<p>If the host is very slow, the emulated clocks might even lag behind
+the real-world clock.
 
 
 
@@ -489,22 +300,37 @@
 	<a href="guestoses.html#declinux">Linux/DECstation</a>,
 	<a href="guestoses.html#sprite">Sprite</a>)
     <li><b>Acer Pica-61</b> (<a href="guestoses.html#netbsdarcinstall">NetBSD/arc</a>)
-    <li><b>NEC MobilePro 770, 780, 800, and 880</b> (<a href="guestoses.html#netbsdhpcmipsinstall">NetBSD/hpcmips</a>)
+    <li><b>NEC MobilePro 770, 780, 800, 880</b> (<a href="guestoses.html#netbsdhpcmipsinstall">NetBSD/hpcmips</a>)
     <li><b>Cobalt</b> (<a href="guestoses.html#netbsdcobaltinstall">NetBSD/cobalt</a>)
-    <li><b>Malta</b> (<a href="guestoses.html#netbsdevbmipsinstall">NetBSD/evbmips</a>)
+    <li><b>Malta</b> (<a href="guestoses.html#netbsdevbmipsinstall">NetBSD/evbmips</a>, Linux/Malta <font color="#0000e0">(<super>*1</super>)</font>)
     <li><b>Algorithmics P5064</b> (<a href="guestoses.html#netbsdalgorinstall">NetBSD/algor</a>)
-    <li><b>SGI O2 (aka IP32)</b> <font color="#0000e0">(<super>*</super>)</font>
+    <li><b>SGI O2 (aka IP32)</b> <font color="#0000e0">(<super>*2</super>)</font>
 	(<a href="guestoses.html#netbsdsgimips">NetBSD/sgi</a>)
   </ul>
   <p>
   <li><b><u>PowerPC</u></b>
   <ul>
     <li><b>IBM 6050/6070 (PReP, PowerPC Reference Platform)</b> (<a href="guestoses.html#netbsdprepinstall">NetBSD/prep</a>)
+    <li><b>MacPPC (generic "G4" Macintosh)</b> (<a href="guestoses.html#netbsdmacppcinstall">NetBSD/macppc</a>)
+  </ul>
+  <p>
+  <li><b><u>SuperH</u></b>
+  <ul>
+    <li><b>Sega Dreamcast</b> (<a href="dreamcast.html#netbsd_generic_md">NetBSD/dreamcast</a>, <a href="dreamcast.html#linux_live_cd">Linux/dreamcast</a>)
+    <li><b>Landisk</b> (<a href="guestoses.html#openbsdlandiskinstall">OpenBSD/landisk</a>)
   </ul>
 </ul>
 
-<p><small><font color="#0000e0">(<super>*</super>)</font> =
-Enough for root-on-nfs, but not for disk boot.)</small>
+<p>
+<small><font color="#0000e0">(<super>*1</super>)</font> =
+Linux/Malta may be run as a guest OS, however I have not yet found any stable
+URL to pre-compiled Linux/Malta kernels. Thus, Linux/Malta emulation is not
+tested for every release of the emulator; sometimes it works, sometimes
+it doesn't.</small>
+
+<br><small><font color="#0000e0">(<super>*2</super>)</font> =
+SGI O2 emulation is enough for root-on-nfs, but not for disk boot.</small>
+
 
 <p>There is code in GXemul for emulation of many other machine types; the
 degree to which these work range from almost being able to run a complete
@@ -520,8 +346,9 @@
   <li>a console I/O device (putchar() and getchar()...)
   <li>an inter-processor communication device, for SMP experiments
   <li>a very simple linear framebuffer device (for graphics output)
-  <li>a simple SCSI disk controller
+  <li>a simple disk controller
   <li>a simple ethernet controller
+  <li>a real-time clock device
 </ul>
 
 <p>This mode is useful if you wish to run experimental code, but do not