Annotation of previous_trunk/readme.previous.txt, revision 1.1

1.1     ! root        1: 
        !             2: 
        !             3:                                  Previous 2.0
        !             4: 
        !             5: 
        !             6: 
        !             7: Contents:
        !             8: ---------
        !             9: 1. License
        !            10: 2. About Previous
        !            11: 3. Compiling and installing
        !            12: 4. Known problems
        !            13: 5. Running Previous
        !            14: 6. Contributors
        !            15: 7. Contact
        !            16: 
        !            17: 
        !            18:  1) License
        !            19:  ----------
        !            20: 
        !            21: This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
        !            22: the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Soft-
        !            23: ware Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any
        !            24: later version.
        !            25: 
        !            26: This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
        !            27: WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS
        !            28: FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
        !            29: 
        !            30: You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
        !            31: this program; if not, write to the
        !            32:  Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
        !            33:  51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston,
        !            34:  MA  02110-1301, USA
        !            35: 
        !            36: 
        !            37:  2) About Previous
        !            38:  -----------------
        !            39: 
        !            40: Previous is a NeXT Computer emulator based on the Atari emulator Hatari. It 
        !            41: uses the latest m68k emulation core from WinUAE and the i860 emulator from 
        !            42: Jason Eckhardt. Previous is confirmed to compile and run on Linux, Mac OS X 
        !            43: and Windows. It may also work on other Systems which are supported by the SDL2 
        !            44: library, like FreeBSD, NetBSD and BeOS.
        !            45: 
        !            46: Previous emulates the following machines:
        !            47:  NeXT Computer (original 68030 Cube)
        !            48:  NeXTcube
        !            49:  NeXTcube Turbo
        !            50:  NeXTstation
        !            51:  NeXTstation Turbo
        !            52:  NeXTstation Color
        !            53:  NeXTstation Turbo Color
        !            54:  NeXTdimension Graphics Board
        !            55: 
        !            56: 
        !            57:  3) Compiling and installing
        !            58:  ---------------------------
        !            59: 
        !            60: For using Previous, you need to have installed the following libraries:
        !            61: 
        !            62: Required:
        !            63: - The SDL library v2.0.5 or later (http://www.libsdl.org)
        !            64: - The zlib compression library (http://www.gzip.org/zlib/)
        !            65: 
        !            66: Optional:
        !            67: - The libpng PNG reference library (http://www.libpng.org)
        !            68:   This is required for printing to files.
        !            69: - The pcap library (https://github.com/the-tcpdump-group/libpcap or 
        !            70:   https://www.winpcap.org)
        !            71:   This is required if networking via PCAP is preferred over SLiRP.
        !            72: 
        !            73: 
        !            74: Don't forget to also install the header files of these libraries for compiling
        !            75: Previous (some Linux distributions use separate development packages for these
        !            76: header files)!
        !            77: 
        !            78: For compiling Previous, you need a C compiler (preferably GNU C), and a working
        !            79: CMake installation (see http://www.cmake.org/ for details).
        !            80: 
        !            81: CMake can generate makefiles for various flavors of "Make" (like GNU-Make)
        !            82: and various IDEs like Xcode on Mac OS X. To run CMake, you've got to pass the
        !            83: path to the sources of Previous as parameter, for example run the following if
        !            84: you are in the topmost directory of the Previous source tree:
        !            85:        cmake .
        !            86: 
        !            87: On Windows MinGW/MSYS is recommended for building Previous. CMake needs an 
        !            88: extra argument for generating the makefiles:
        !            89:  
        !            90:        cmake -G "MSYS Makefiles" .
        !            91: 
        !            92: If you're tracking Previous version control, it's preferable to do
        !            93: the build in a separate build directory as above would overwrite
        !            94: the (non-CMake) Makefiles coming with Previous:
        !            95:        mkdir -p build
        !            96:        cd build
        !            97:        cmake ..
        !            98: 
        !            99: Have a look at the manual of CMake for other options. Alternatively, you can
        !           100: use the "cmake-gui" program to configure the sources with a graphical
        !           101: application.
        !           102: 
        !           103: After cmake finished the configuration successfully, you can compile Previous
        !           104: by typing "make". If all works fine, you'll get the executable "Previous" in 
        !           105: the src/ subdirectory of the build tree.
        !           106: 
        !           107: 
        !           108:  4) Status
        !           109:  ---------
        !           110: 
        !           111: Previous is stable, but some parts are still work in progress. Some hardware 
        !           112: is not yet emulated. Status of the individual components is as follows:
        !           113: CPU            good (but not cycle-exact)
        !           114: MMU            good
        !           115: FPU            good
        !           116: DSP            good
        !           117: DMA            good
        !           118: NextBus                good
        !           119: Memory         good
        !           120: 2-bit graphics good
        !           121: Color graphics good
        !           122: RTC            good
        !           123: Timers         good
        !           124: SCSI drive     good
        !           125: MO drive       good
        !           126: Floppy drive   good
        !           127: Ethernet       good
        !           128: Serial         dummy
        !           129: Printer                good
        !           130: Sound          good
        !           131: Keyboard       good
        !           132: Mouse          good
        !           133: ADB            dummy
        !           134: Nitro          dummy
        !           135: Dimension      partial (no video I/O)
        !           136: 
        !           137: 
        !           138: There are remaining problems with the host to emulated machine interface for
        !           139: input devices.
        !           140: 
        !           141: 
        !           142:  5) Known issues
        !           143:  ---------------
        !           144: 
        !           145: - Un-emulated hardware may cause problems when attempted to being used.
        !           146: - NeXTdimension emulation does not work on hosts with big endian byte order.
        !           147: - The MO drive causes slow downs and hangs when both drives are connected, but 
        !           148:   only one disk is inserted. This is no emulation issue but a bug in NeXTstep.
        !           149: - DSP sound has timing related issues. playscore under NeXTstep 0.9 sometimes 
        !           150:   produces bad audio in variable speed mode. ScorePlayer under NeXTstep 2.x 
        !           151:   produces distorted sound in normal CPU mode.
        !           152: - Shortcuts do not work properly or overlap with host commands on some 
        !           153:   platforms.
        !           154: - CPU timings are not correct. You may experience performance differences 
        !           155:   compared to real hardware.
        !           156: - 68882 transcendental FPU instructions produce results identical to 68040 FPSP.
        !           157:   The results are slightly different from real 68882 results.
        !           158: - Changing network connection settings while a guest system is running sometimes
        !           159:   causes permanently lost connections, especially under NeXTstep 2.2.
        !           160: 
        !           161: 
        !           162: 
        !           163:  6) Release notes
        !           164:  ----------------
        !           165: 
        !           166:   Previous v1.0:
        !           167:   > Initial release.
        !           168: 
        !           169:   Previous v1.1:
        !           170:   > Adds Turbo chipset emulation.
        !           171:   > Improves DSP interrupt handling.
        !           172:   > Improves hardclock timing.
        !           173: 
        !           174:   Previous v1.2:
        !           175:   > Adds support for running Mac OS via Daydream.
        !           176:   > Improves mouse movement handling.
        !           177:   > Adds dummy Nitro emulation.
        !           178:   > Improves dummy SCC emulation.
        !           179: 
        !           180:   Previous v1.3:
        !           181:   > Adds Laser Printer emulation.
        !           182:   > Introduces option for swapping cmd and alt key.
        !           183: 
        !           184:   Previous v1.4:
        !           185:   > Adds NeXTdimension emulation, including emulated i860 CPU.
        !           186:   > Improves timings and adds a mode for higher than real speed.
        !           187:   > Improves emulator efficiency through optimizations and threads.
        !           188:   > Improves mouse movement handling.
        !           189:   > Improves Real Time Clock. Time is now handled correctly.
        !           190: 
        !           191:   Previous v1.5:
        !           192:   > Adds emulation of soundbox microphone to enable sound recording.
        !           193:   > Fixes bug in SCSI code. Images greater than 4 GB are now supported.
        !           194:   > Fixes bug in Real Time Clock. Years after 1999 are now accepted.
        !           195:   > Fixes bug that prevented screen output on Linux.
        !           196:   > Fixes bug that caused NeXTdimension to fail after disabling thread.
        !           197: 
        !           198:   Previous v1.6:
        !           199:   > Adds SoftFloat FPU emulation. Fixes FPU on non-x86 host platforms.
        !           200:   > Adds emulation of FPU arithmetic exceptions.
        !           201:   > Adds support for second magneto-optical disk drive.
        !           202:   > Fixes bug that caused a crash when writing to an NFS server.
        !           203:   > Fixes bug that prevented NeXTdimension from stopping in rare cases.
        !           204:   > Fixes bug that caused external i860 interrupts to be delayed.
        !           205:   > Fixes bug that prevented sound input under NeXTstep 0.8.
        !           206:   > Fixes bug that caused temporary speed anomalies after pausing.
        !           207:   > Improves dummy RAMDAC emulation.
        !           208: 
        !           209:   Previous v1.7:
        !           210:   > Adds support for twisted-pair Ethernet.
        !           211:   > Adds SoftFloat emulation for 68882 transcendental FPU instructions.
        !           212:   > Adds SoftFloat emulation for i860 floating point instructions.
        !           213:   > Improves 68040 FPU emulation to support resuming of instructions.
        !           214:   > Improves Ethernet connection stability.
        !           215:   > Improves efficiency while emulation is paused.
        !           216:   > Improves device timings to be closer to real hardware.
        !           217:   > Fixes bug in timing system. MO drive now works in variable speed mode.
        !           218:   > Fixes bug in 68040 MMU that caused crashes and kernel panics.
        !           219:   > Fixes bug in 68040 FPU that caused crashes due to unnormal zero.
        !           220:   > Fixes bug in FMOVEM that modified wrong FPU registers.
        !           221:   > Fixes bug that sometimes caused hangs if sound was disabled.
        !           222:   > Fixes bug that caused lags in responsiveness during sound output.
        !           223:   > Fixes bug that caused a crash when using write protected image files.
        !           224: 
        !           225: Previous v1.8:
        !           226:   > Removes support for host keyboard repeat because it became useless.
        !           227:   > Fixes bug that caused FMOVECR to return wrong values in some cases.
        !           228:   > Fixes bug in timing system that caused hangs in variable speed mode.
        !           229: 
        !           230: Previous v1.9:
        !           231:   > Adds support for networking via PCAP library.
        !           232:   > Improves 68030 and 68040 CPU to support all tracing modes.
        !           233: 
        !           234: Previous v2.0:
        !           235:   > Adds support for multiple NeXTdimension boards.
        !           236:   > Improves i860 timings to be closer to real hardware.
        !           237: 
        !           238: 
        !           239:  7) Running Previous
        !           240:  -------------------
        !           241: 
        !           242: For running the emulator, you need an image of the boot ROM of the emulated 
        !           243: machine.
        !           244: 
        !           245: While the emulator is running, you can open the configuration menu by
        !           246: pressing F12, toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode by pressing F11 
        !           247: and initiate a clean shut down by pressing F10 (emulates the power button).
        !           248: 
        !           249: 
        !           250:  8) Contributors
        !           251:  ---------------
        !           252: 
        !           253: Previous was written by Andreas Grabher, Simon Schubiger and Gilles Fetis.
        !           254: 
        !           255: Many thanks go to the members of the NeXT International Forums for their
        !           256: help. Special thanks go to Gavin Thomas Nicol, Piotr Twarecki, Toni Wilen,
        !           257: Michael Bosshard, Thomas Huth, Olivier Galibert, Jason Eckhardt, Jason 
        !           258: Stevens, Daniel L'Hommedieu, Vaughan Kaufman and Peter Leonard!
        !           259: This emulator would not exist without their help.
        !           260: 
        !           261: 
        !           262:  9) Contact
        !           263:  ----------
        !           264: 
        !           265: If you want to contact the authors of Previous, please have a look at the 
        !           266: NeXT International Forums (http://www.nextcomputers.org/forums).

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