Gavare's eXperimental Emulator: Experimenting with GXemul

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## Experimenting with GXemul

- Hello world
- Experimental devices

### Hello world:

You might want to use the emulator to develop programs on your own, not just run precompiled kernels such as NetBSD. To get started, I recommend that you do two things:

- Build and install a cross-compiler for your chosen target. GCC is usually a good compiler choice, because it is portable and in wide-spread use. (Other compilers should work too.)

- Compile the Hello World demo program for your chosen target, and run it in the emulator.

The Hello World demo program is included in the GXemul source code distribution, in the `demos/hello/` subdirectory. The README files in the demo directories have several examples of how the demo programs can be built.

Hopefully this is enough to get you inspired. :-)

### Experimental devices:

The emulator has several modes where it doesn't emulate any real machine. It can either run in "bare" mode, where no devices are included by default (just the CPU), or in a "test" mode where some simple devices are emulated.

The test machines (`testmips`, `testppc`, etc) have the following experimental devices:

`cons`:

A simple console device, for writing characters to the controlling terminal and receiving keypresses.

Source code: `src/devices/dev_cons.c`

Include file: `dev_cons.h`
Default physical address: 0x10000000

Offset: | Effect:
`0x00` | Read: `getchar()` (non-blocking; returns `0` if no char was available) Write: `putchar(ch)`
`0x10` | Read or write: `halt()` (Useful for exiting the emulator.)

`mp`:

This device controls the behaviour of CPUs in an emulated multi-processor system.

Source code: `src/devices/dev_mp.c`

Include file: `dev_mp.h`
Default physical address: 0x11000000

Offset: | Effect:
`0x0000` | Read: `whoami()`. Returns the id of the CPU doing the read.
`0x0010` | Read: `ncpus()`. Returns the number of CPUs in the system.
`0x0020` | Write: `startupcpu(i)`. Starts CPU i. It begins execution at the address set by a write to startupaddr (see below).
`0x0030` | Write: `startupaddr(addr)`. Sets the starting address for CPUs.
`0x0040` | Write: `pause_addr(addr)`. Sets the pause address. (NOTE: This is not used anymore.)
`0x0050` | Write: `pause_cpu(i)`. Pauses all CPUs except CPU i.
`0x0060` | Write: `unpause_cpu(i)`. Unpauses CPU i.
`0x0070` | Write: `startupstack(addr)`. Sets the startup stack address. (CPUs started with startupcpu() above will have their stack pointer set to this value.)
`0x0080` | Read: `hardware_random()`. This produces a "random" number.
`0x0090` | Read: `memory()`. Returns the number of bytes of RAM in the system.
`0x00a0` | Write: `ipi_one((nr << 16) + cpuid)`. Sends IPI `nr` to a specific CPU.
`0x00b0` | Write: `ipi_many((nr << 16) + cpuid)`. Sends IPI `nr` to all CPUs except the specified one.
`0x00c0` | Read: `ipi_read()`. Returns the next pending IPI. 0 is returned if there is no pending IPI (so 0 shouldn't be used for valid IPIs). Hardware int 6 is deasserted when the IPI queue is empty. Write: `ipi_flush()`. Clears the IPI queue, discarding any pending IPIs.
`0x00d0` | Read: `ncycles()`. Returns approximately the number of cycles executed. Note: this value is not updated for every instruction, so it cannot be used for small measurements.

`fb`:

A simple linear framebuffer, for graphics output. 640 x 480 pixels, 3 bytes per pixel (red, green, blue, 8 bits each).

Source code: `src/devices/dev_fb.c`

Include file: `dev_fb.h`
Default physical address: 0x12000000

Offset: | Effect:
`0x00000-` `0xe0fff` | Read: read pixel values. Write: write pixel values.

`disk`:

Disk controller, which can read from and write to emulated IDE disks. It does not use interrupts; read and write operations finish instantaneously.

Source code: `src/devices/dev_disk.c`

Include file: `dev_disk.h`
Default physical address: 0x13000000

Offset: | Effect:
`0x0000` | Write: Set the offset (in bytes) from the beginning of the disk image. This offset will be used for the next read/write operation.
`0x0010` | Write: Select the IDE ID to be used in the next read/write operation.
`0x0020` | Write: Start a read or write operation. (Writing `0` means a Read operation, a `1` means a Write operation.)
`0x0030` | Read: Get status of the last operation. (Status 0 means failure, non-zero means success.)
`0x4000-` `0x41ff` | Read/Write: 512 bytes data buffer.

`ether`:

A simple ethernet controller, enough to send and receive packets on a simulated network.

Source code: `src/devices/dev_ether.c`

Include file: `dev_ether.h`
Default physical address: 0x14000000

Offset: | Effect:
`0x0000-` `0x3fff` | Read/write buffer for the packet to be sent/received.
`0x4000` | Read: status word, one or more of these: `0x01` = something was received (because of the last command) `0x02` = more packets are available NOTE: Whenever the status word is non-zero, an interrupt is asserted. Reading the status word clears it, and deasserts the interrupt.
`0x4010` | Read: get the Length of the received packet Write: set the Length of the next packet to transmit
`0x4020` | Write: command: `0x00:` receive a packet `0x01:` send a packet

While these devices may resemble real-world hardware, they are intentionally made simpler to use. (An exception is the framebuffer; some machines actually have simple linear framebuffers like this.)

If the physical address is `0x10000000`, then for MIPS that means that it can be accessed at virtual address `0xffffffffb0000000`. (Actually it can be accessed at `0xffffffff90000000` too, but devices should usually be accessed in a non-cached manner.)

When using the Alpha, ARM, or PPC test machines, the addresses are `0x10000000`, `0x11000000` etc., so no need to add any virtual displacement.

The `mp`, `disk`, and `ether` devices are agnostic when it comes to word-length. For example, when reading offset `0x0000` of the `mp` device, you may use any kind of read (an 8-bit read will work just as well as a 64-bit read, although the value will be truncated to 8 bits in the first case). You can not, however, read one byte from `0x0000` and one from `0x0001`, and combine the result. The read from `0x0001` will be invalid.

The `cons` device should be accessed using 8-bit reads and writes. Doing a getchar() (ie reading from offset `0x00`) returns `0` if no character was available. Whenever a character is available, the `cons` device' interrupt is asserted. When there are no more available characters, the interrupt is deasserted. (Remember that the interrupt has to be unmasked to be able to actually cause an interrupt.)

IPIs (inter-processor interrupts) are controlled by the `mp` device. Whenever an IPI is "sent" from a source to one or more target CPUs, the interrupt is asserted on the target CPUs, and the IPI number is added last in the IPI queue for each of the target CPUs. It is then up to those CPUs to individually read from offset `0x00c0`, to figure out what kind of IPI it was.

Interrupt mappings are as follows:

`testmips`

IRQ: |  | Used for:
7 |  | MIPS count/compare interrupt
6 |  | `mp` (inter-processor interrupts)
3 |  | `ether`
2 |  | `cons`

Other machines: TODO