upstream/0.4.1/RELEASE

Release notes for Gavare's eXperimental Emulator (GXemul), 0.4.1
================================================================

Copyright (C) 2003-2006  Anders Gavare.


GXemul is an experimental instruction-level machine emulator. Several
emulation modes are available. In some modes, processors and surrounding
hardware components are emulated well enough to let unmodified operating
systems (e.g. NetBSD) run as if they were running on a real machine.

The documentation lists the machines and guest operating systems that can 
be regarded as "working" in GXemul. The best working guest operating 
systems are probably NetBSD/pmax, NetBSD/cats, and OpenBSD/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:

        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.

        For non-R3000, there have been some speedups as well. After fixing
        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.

    o)  A new -s command line option is now available, for dumping
        raw runtime data/statistics on every instruction to a file.

        Currently, the following kinds of data can be dumped:

        1. the program counter (virtual address)
        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.


Files included in this release are:

  HISTORY                     Detailed revision history / changelog.
  LICENSE                     Copyright message / license.
  README                      Quick start instructions, for the impatient.
  RELEASE                     This file.
  TODO                        TODO notes.
  configure, Makefile.skel    sh and make scripts for building GXemul.
  demos                       Tutorial-like demos of testmachine functionality.
  doc                         Documentation.
  experiments                 Experimental code. (Usually not needed.)
  src                         Source code.

To build the emulator, run the configure script, and then run make. This 
should work on most Unix-like systems.


Regarding files in the src/include/ directory: only some of these are written
by me, the rest are from other sources (such as NetBSD). The license text says
that "All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software"
must display acknowledgements. Even though I do NOT feel I mention features or
use of the header files (the "software") in any advertising materials, I am
still very grateful for the fact that these people have made their files
available for re-use, so regardless of legal requirements, I guess thanking
them like this is in order:

    This product includes software developed by the University of
    California, Berkeley and its contributors.

    This product includes software developed for the
    NetBSD Project.  See http://www.netbsd.org/ for
    information about NetBSD.

    This product includes software developed by Jonathan Stone for
    the NetBSD Project.

    This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project
    by Matthias Drochner.

    This product includes software developed by the NetBSD
    Foundation, Inc. and its contributors.

    This product includes software developed by Christopher G. Demetriou.
    [for the NetBSD Project.]

    This product includes software developed by Adam Glass.

    This product includes software developed by the PocketBSD project
    and its contributors.

    This product includes software developed by Peter Galbavy.

    Carnegie Mellon University   (multiple header files,
    no specific advertisement text required)

    This product includes software developed by Charles M. Hannum.

    This product includes software developed under OpenBSD by Per Fogelström.

    This product includes software developed by Per Fogelström.

    This product includes software developed at Ludd, University of
    Luleå, Sweden and its contributors.

    This product includes software developed by Hellmuth Michaelis
    and Joerg Wunsch

    The font(s) in devices/fonts are Copyright (c) 1992, 1993, 1994
    by Hellmuth Michaelis and Joerg Wunsch.  ("This product includes software
    developed by Hellmuth Michaelis and Joerg Wunsch", well, the font
    is maybe not software, but still...)

    impactsr-bsd.h is Copyright (C) 2004 by Stanislaw Skowronek.

    This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by
    Wasabi Systems, Inc.  [by Simon Burge]

    arcbios_other.h is Copyright (c) 1996 M. Warner Losh.

    This product includes software developed by Marc Horowitz.

    This product includes software developed by Brini.

    This product includes software developed by Mark Brinicombe
    for the NetBSD Project.

    This product includes software developed by TooLs GmbH.

    This product includes software developed by Manuel Bouyer.

    This product includes software developed by the Alice Group.

    This product includes software developed by Ichiro FUKUHARA.

Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following:

    Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 Carnegie-Mellon University.
    All rights reserved.

    Author: Keith Bostic, Chris G. Demetriou

    Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and
    its documentation is hereby granted, provided that both the copyright
    notice and this permission notice appear in all copies of the
    software, derivative works or modified versions, and any portions
    thereof, and that both notices appear in supporting documentation.

See individual files for license details, if you plan to redistribute GXemul
or reuse code.


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.

If you have found GXemul useful in some way, or feel like sending me comments
or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(at)gavare.se.

1	dpavlin	28	Release notes for Gavare's eXperimental Emulator (GXemul), 0.4.1
2			================================================================
3	dpavlin	2
4	dpavlin	22	Copyright (C) 2003-2006 Anders Gavare.
5	dpavlin	2
6
7	dpavlin	14	GXemul is an experimental instruction-level machine emulator. Several
8			emulation modes are available. In some modes, processors and surrounding
9	dpavlin	12	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.
11	dpavlin	2
12	dpavlin	22	The documentation lists the machines and guest operating systems that can
13	dpavlin	28	be regarded as "working" in GXemul. The best working guest operating
14	dpavlin	22	systems are probably NetBSD/pmax, NetBSD/cats, and OpenBSD/cats.
15	dpavlin	2
16	dpavlin	20
17	dpavlin	28	Changes between release 0.4.0.1 and 0.4.1 include, among other things:
18	dpavlin	12
19	dpavlin	28	o) Some bugs in the dynamic translation core have been fixed, making
20			all emulation modes (especially the MIPS mode) more stable.
21	dpavlin	2
22	dpavlin	28	o) In the refactoring effort between 0.4.0 and 0.4.0.1, single-stepping
23			(and instruction tracing) of 64-bit programs was accidentally broken.
24			Single-stepping in 64-bit mode could result in strange exceptions.
25			This has been fixed in 0.4.1.
26	dpavlin	10
27	dpavlin	28	o) MIPS emulation performance has been improved somewhat:
28	dpavlin	2
29	dpavlin	28	R3000: After removing some buggy code (hints for physical page
30			translations), it was possible to remove the workaround for R3000
31			caches which was needed in 0.4.0.1 to make Linux and Ultrix run.
32			This gives an overall speedup for R2000/R3000.
33	dpavlin	2
34	dpavlin	28	For non-R3000, there have been some speedups as well. After fixing
35			reference count bugs for 64-bit addressing in the dyntrans system,
36			workarounds/hacks in the tlbwr/tlbwi instructions and in the ASID
37			change helper function could be removed.
38	dpavlin	2
39	dpavlin	28	o) A new -s command line option is now available, for dumping
40			raw runtime data/statistics on every instruction to a file.
41	dpavlin	2
42	dpavlin	28	Currently, the following kinds of data can be dumped:
43	dpavlin	20
44	dpavlin	28	1. the program counter (virtual address)
45			2. the physical address representation of the program counter
46			3. the internal dyntrans instruction call pointer, useful when
47			developing/optimizing the emulator
48	dpavlin	24
49	dpavlin	28	This data can then be analyzed by external tools.
50	dpavlin	24
51	dpavlin	28	(There was a -s command line option in previous releases of
52			the emulator, but it did not work as intended, and was not
53			usable from dyntrans emulation modes.)
54	dpavlin	24
55			Please read the HISTORY files for more details.
56
57
58	dpavlin	2	Files included in this release are:
59
60			HISTORY Detailed revision history / changelog.
61			LICENSE Copyright message / license.
62			README Quick start instructions, for the impatient.
63			RELEASE This file.
64			TODO TODO notes.
65	dpavlin	4	configure, Makefile.skel sh and make scripts for building GXemul.
66	dpavlin	24	demos Tutorial-like demos of testmachine functionality.
67	dpavlin	2	doc Documentation.
68			experiments Experimental code. (Usually not needed.)
69	dpavlin	4	src Source code.
70	dpavlin	2
71	dpavlin	24	To build the emulator, run the configure script, and then run make. This
72	dpavlin	22	should work on most Unix-like systems.
73	dpavlin	2
74	dpavlin	24
75	dpavlin	4	Regarding files in the src/include/ directory: only some of these are written
76			by me, the rest are from other sources (such as NetBSD). The license text says
77	dpavlin	2	that "All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software"
78			must display acknowledgements. Even though I do NOT feel I mention features or
79			use of the header files (the "software") in any advertising materials, I am
80			still very grateful for the fact that these people have made their files
81			available for re-use, so regardless of legal requirements, I guess thanking
82			them like this is in order:
83
84			This product includes software developed by the University of
85			California, Berkeley and its contributors.
86
87			This product includes software developed for the
88			NetBSD Project. See http://www.netbsd.org/ for
89			information about NetBSD.
90
91			This product includes software developed by Jonathan Stone for
92			the NetBSD Project.
93
94			This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project
95			by Matthias Drochner.
96
97			This product includes software developed by the NetBSD
98			Foundation, Inc. and its contributors.
99
100			This product includes software developed by Christopher G. Demetriou.
101			[for the NetBSD Project.]
102
103			This product includes software developed by Adam Glass.
104
105			This product includes software developed by the PocketBSD project
106			and its contributors.
107
108			This product includes software developed by Peter Galbavy.
109
110			Carnegie Mellon University (multiple header files,
111			no specific advertisement text required)
112
113			This product includes software developed by Charles M. Hannum.
114
115			This product includes software developed under OpenBSD by Per Fogelström.
116
117			This product includes software developed by Per Fogelström.
118
119			This product includes software developed at Ludd, University of
120			Luleå, Sweden and its contributors.
121
122			This product includes software developed by Hellmuth Michaelis
123			and Joerg Wunsch
124
125			The font(s) in devices/fonts are Copyright (c) 1992, 1993, 1994
126			by Hellmuth Michaelis and Joerg Wunsch. ("This product includes software
127			developed by Hellmuth Michaelis and Joerg Wunsch", well, the font
128			is maybe not software, but still...)
129
130			impactsr-bsd.h is Copyright (C) 2004 by Stanislaw Skowronek.
131
132			This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by
133			Wasabi Systems, Inc. [by Simon Burge]
134
135			arcbios_other.h is Copyright (c) 1996 M. Warner Losh.
136
137			This product includes software developed by Marc Horowitz.
138
139	dpavlin	14	This product includes software developed by Brini.
140
141			This product includes software developed by Mark Brinicombe
142			for the NetBSD Project.
143
144	dpavlin	20	This product includes software developed by TooLs GmbH.
145
146			This product includes software developed by Manuel Bouyer.
147
148	dpavlin	22	This product includes software developed by the Alice Group.
149
150	dpavlin	24	This product includes software developed by Ichiro FUKUHARA.
151
152	dpavlin	12	Also, src/include/alpha_rpb.h requires the following:
153
154			Copyright (c) 1994, 1995, 1996 Carnegie-Mellon University.
155			All rights reserved.
156
157			Author: Keith Bostic, Chris G. Demetriou
158
159			Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and
160			its documentation is hereby granted, provided that both the copyright
161			notice and this permission notice appear in all copies of the
162			software, derivative works or modified versions, and any portions
163			thereof, and that both notices appear in supporting documentation.
164
165	dpavlin	2	See individual files for license details, if you plan to redistribute GXemul
166			or reuse code.
167
168	dpavlin	24
169	dpavlin	22	Thanks to (in no specific order) Joachim Buss, Olivier Houchard, Juli Mallett,
170			Juan Romero Pardines, Alec Voropay, Göran Weinholt, Alexander Yurchenko, and
171			everyone else who has provided me with feedback.
172	dpavlin	2
173			If you have found GXemul useful in some way, or feel like sending me comments
174			or feedback in general, then mail me at anders(at)gavare.se.
175