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Annotation of uae/README, revision 1.1

1.1     ! root        1: This is version 0.1 of UAE, the Unusable Amiga Emulator for Un*x systems.
        !             2: 
        !             3: 1. <stddisclaim.h>
        !             4: 
        !             5: Copyright 1995 Bernd Schmidt. This program is freeware. You may do whatever
        !             6: you want with it for personal use. Permission is granted to redistribute this
        !             7: program free of charge, provided it is distributed in the full archive with
        !             8: unmodified contents.
        !             9: You may not port this program to Windows or any other so-called operating 
        !            10: system made by Microsoft.
        !            11: There are no warranties of any kind for this program. If you use this program,
        !            12: you do so at your own risk. The author is not responsible for any damages 
        !            13: that might result from using this program.
        !            14: The program is not supposed to do anything useful. Don't expect it to work,
        !            15: and you won't be disappointed.
        !            16: 
        !            17: 2. What you need to get it to work
        !            18: 
        !            19:   - a Un*x system with the X Window System.
        !            20:   - a C++ compiler. I use gcc; version 2.6.x will do, 2.7.0 will do better. 
        !            21:     With some modifications it can be made to compile with gcc 2.5.8.
        !            22:     Since only very few elements of C++ are used in the source, it should be
        !            23:     possible to create a C version with minimal effort as well.
        !            24:   - a Kickstart ROM file. I use 1.3, other versions may work, too.
        !            25:   
        !            26: I've successfully tested UAE on the following systems:
        !            27:   - Pentium-90, Linux 1.2.7, X11R6 (XFree86 3.1.1), GCC 2.6.3
        !            28:   - a while ago, i486DX2-66, Linux 1.1.>80, X11R6, GCC 2.5.8
        !            29:   - HP Apollo, HP-UX, X11R5, GCC 2.6.0
        !            30:   - Sun Sparcstation, X11R5, GCC 2.6.0
        !            31:   
        !            32: You see, it's fairly portable; it doesn't even rely on endianness.
        !            33: 
        !            34: What you need to enjoy it:
        !            35:   - some programming skills to fix the bugs and add the missing features.
        !            36:   - a CPU that is roughly 30 times faster than a Pentium 90.
        !            37: 
        !            38: To build UAE, first unpack it to an appropriate directory (e.g. /usr/src/uae
        !            39: on a Linux system), cd into it and type "xmkmf" to create the Makefile. Then, 
        !            40: do "make" to compile everything. Warnings can be ignored; there should be no
        !            41: errors.
        !            42: Some systems (the ones at my university) have a broken imake that generates
        !            43: bogus Makefiles. For this, an examples Makefile is provided which can be
        !            44: modified to suit your system.
        !            45: After compilation, you'll need to install the ROM image. This must have a size
        !            46: of exactly 512K and should be an image of the addresses 0xF80000-0xFFFFFF on
        !            47: your Amiga system. You can dump it with any debugger that deserves its name,
        !            48: and transfer it to a PC with a tool like CrossDos or MessyFS (or a serial
        !            49: cable). It must be called kick.rom to be recognized.
        !            50: You can also install a disk image file. This must be called wb13.adf (Amiga
        !            51: Disk File), and should be a raw image of the data on the floppy disk: 
        !            52: 11x2x80 sectors == 901120 bytes. This will not buy you anything, since
        !            53: floppy disk support is broken. The Kickstart will recognize that there's a
        !            54: disk in the drive and try to boot from it, and therefore will not show the
        !            55: startup logo. Since showing the logo is all the Kickstart ever does with the
        !            56: emulator if there's no disk in the drive, you won't see anything at all, so 
        !            57: don't install that disk file.
        !            58: You can then execute the file "uae". It should load the Kickstart and
        !            59: open a large X Window. UAE starts up in the builtin debugger, you can single 
        !            60: step through the Kickstart if you want, but you can also type "f 1" to make it
        !            61: run forever or until you press ^C, whichever comes first.
        !            62: 
        !            63: 3. Current state of UAE
        !            64: 
        !            65: This program is only half-finished, that's why it is called the Unusable
        !            66: Amiga Emulator. The following parts are already mostly complete:
        !            67: 
        !            68:   - MC68000 CPU: Almost done, some rare instructions (ABCD, ...) are not
        !            69:     emulated yet. I'd like to make this a 68020 emulation, but I need more
        !            70:     info than I have about the special registers (MMU etc.)
        !            71:     Maybe it will one day run Linux/68k!
        !            72:   - Blitter: If there's no bug, it ought to be complete.
        !            73:   - Copper: Not much to emulate here :-)
        !            74:   - Timers: I think these are fully working, too.
        !            75: 
        !            76: Not done properly:
        !            77:   - Playfield (display) hardware: Only black & white graphics, no dual
        !            78:     playfield support, no HAM.
        !            79:   - Sprites: None.
        !            80:   - Sound: None.
        !            81:   - Mouse, Keyboard, Joystick: None.
        !            82:   - Timing: The CPU and blitter cycles are counted, but I have not bothered
        !            83:     yet to adjust the timing to match the characteristics of a real A500
        !            84:   - Floppy disk: Broken. I never modified disk.cc after creating it. It is not
        !            85:     debugged and does not work.
        !            86: 
        !            87: Currently, this program can only display the Kickstart logo (hand holding
        !            88: WB disk). If the disk support were working, it would probably boot and could
        !            89: be made to execute some demos correctly.
        !            90: 
        !            91: 4. Future
        !            92: 
        !            93: I have only very little spare time to work on this program. So, any help
        !            94: is welcome.
        !            95: If you fix any bugs or implement new features, please mail me any of these
        !            96: enhancements (see below for address). If they are any good, I will include 
        !            97: them into a new version of the emulator. You'll be credited for any of your 
        !            98: changes that make it into the source.
        !            99: 
        !           100: Various approaches how to write an Amiga emulator have been discussed in
        !           101: comp.emulators.misc, comp.emulators.cbm and comp.sys.amiga.emulations. This
        !           102: implementation tries to emulate the behaviour of the Amiga hardware. This
        !           103: hardware is supposed to be an A500 with Old Chipset, KS1.3 and 512K chipmem.
        !           104: Extending this to ECS should be no problem, a 68020 emulation should be
        !           105: possible as well, AGA may be tricky. I don't see a reason why newer
        !           106: Kickstarts should fail with the emulator, please try it.
        !           107: 
        !           108: It should be possible to speed the thing up quite a bit. Currently, it is 30
        !           109: times slower than it should be on my Pentium-90. I am sure this can be
        !           110: improved by a factor of at least two. But currently, I think it's more
        !           111: useful to work on compatibility instead.
        !           112: 
        !           113: Bugs: 
        !           114:   - When the Kickstart tries to boot from a floppy, it doesn't seem to do the 
        !           115:     Right Things. That may be a bug in the floppy support, or in the 68000
        !           116:     part.
        !           117:   - Somehow, I don't like what the Kickstart does with the copper lists when
        !           118:     the system is initialized. COP2LC points at some location where no copper
        !           119:     list is found. That may be a bug in the Kickstart, but I think that's
        !           120:     unlikely.
        !           121: 
        !           122: 5. The author's address
        !           123: 
        !           124: [email protected]
        !           125: 
        !           126: or, via snailmail
        !           127: 
        !           128: Bernd Schmidt
        !           129: Schlossweiherstrasse 14
        !           130: 52072 Aachen
        !           131: Germany

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