1*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetIntroduction
2*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet============
3*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet
4*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetThis directory contains the version 0.92 test release of the NetWinder
5*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetFloating Point Emulator.
6*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet
7*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetThe majority of the code was written by me, Scott Bambrough It is
8*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetwritten in C, with a small number of routines in inline assembler
9*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetwhere required.  It was written quickly, with a goal of implementing a
10*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetworking version of all the floating point instructions the compiler
11*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetemits as the first target.  I have attempted to be as optimal as
12*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetpossible, but there remains much room for improvement.
13*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet
14*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetI have attempted to make the emulator as portable as possible.  One of
15*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetthe problems is with leading underscores on kernel symbols.  Elf
16*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetkernels have no leading underscores, a.out compiled kernels do.  I
17*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbethave attempted to use the C_SYMBOL_NAME macro wherever this may be
18*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetimportant.
19*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet
20*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetAnother choice I made was in the file structure.  I have attempted to
21*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetcontain all operating system specific code in one module (fpmodule.*).
22*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetAll the other files contain emulator specific code.  This should allow
23*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetothers to port the emulator to NetBSD for instance relatively easily.
24*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet
25*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetThe floating point operations are based on SoftFloat Release 2, by
26*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetJohn Hauser.  SoftFloat is a software implementation of floating-point
27*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetthat conforms to the IEC/IEEE Standard for Binary Floating-point
28*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetArithmetic.  As many as four formats are supported: single precision,
29*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetdouble precision, extended double precision, and quadruple precision.
30*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetAll operations required by the standard are implemented, except for
31*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetconversions to and from decimal.  We use only the single precision,
32*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetdouble precision and extended double precision formats.  The port of
33*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetSoftFloat to the ARM was done by Phil Blundell, based on an earlier
34*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetport of SoftFloat version 1 by Neil Carson for NetBSD/arm32.
35*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet
36*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetThe file README.FPE contains a description of what has been implemented
37*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetso far in the emulator.  The file TODO contains a information on what
38*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetremains to be done, and other ideas for the emulator.
39*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet
40*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetBug reports, comments, suggestions should be directed to me at
41*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet<scottb@netwinder.org>.  General reports of "this program doesn't
42*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetwork correctly when your emulator is installed" are useful for
43*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetdetermining that bugs still exist; but are virtually useless when
44*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetattempting to isolate the problem.  Please report them, but don't
45*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetexpect quick action.  Bugs still exist.  The problem remains in isolating
46*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetwhich instruction contains the bug.  Small programs illustrating a specific
47*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetproblem are a godsend.
48*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet
49*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetLegal Notices
50*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet-------------
51*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet
52*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetThe NetWinder Floating Point Emulator is free software.  Everything Rebel.com
53*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbethas written is provided under the GNU GPL.  See the file COPYING for copying
54*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetconditions.  Excluded from the above is the SoftFloat code.  John Hauser's
55*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetlegal notice for SoftFloat is included below.
56*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet
57*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
58*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet
59*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetSoftFloat Legal Notice
60*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet
61*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetSoftFloat was written by John R. Hauser.  This work was made possible in
62*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetpart by the International Computer Science Institute, located at Suite 600,
63*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet1947 Center Street, Berkeley, California 94704.  Funding was partially
64*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetprovided by the National Science Foundation under grant MIP-9311980.  The
65*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbetoriginal version of this code was written as part of a project to build
66*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbeta fixed-point vector processor in collaboration with the University of
67*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetCalifornia at Berkeley, overseen by Profs. Nelson Morgan and John Wawrzynek.
68*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet
69*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetTHIS SOFTWARE IS DISTRIBUTED AS IS, FOR FREE.  Although reasonable effort
70*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbethas been made to avoid it, THIS SOFTWARE MAY CONTAIN FAULTS THAT WILL AT
71*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetTIMES RESULT IN INCORRECT BEHAVIOR.  USE OF THIS SOFTWARE IS RESTRICTED TO
72*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetPERSONS AND ORGANIZATIONS WHO CAN AND WILL TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY
73*e790a4ceSJonathan CorbetAND ALL LOSSES, COSTS, OR OTHER PROBLEMS ARISING FROM ITS USE.
74*e790a4ceSJonathan Corbet-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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