Re: [MiNT] [PATCH] FreeMiNT on native ColdFire

[Alan Hourihane <alanh@fairlite.co.uk>]

On 09/26/12 20:59, Vincent Rivière wrote:
> Hello.
>
> Here is the long awaited patch for FreeMiNT on native ColdFire.
>
> Basically, it allows running mintv4e.prg over EmuTOS for ColdFire.
> In that case, everything is 100% ColdFire. Nothing is emulated, it is
> as fast as possible.
>
> The big advantage is that in that native mode, there is no cheat, the
> whole ColdFire features are available from supervisor mode and kernel
> modules. New kernel modules could be written right now for the FireBee
> specific hardware.
>
> The drawback is that native ColdFire mode allows only to run 100%
> ColdFire MiNT programs. Any classic 680x0 binary will die with an
> Illegal Instruction exception.
>
> Of course, mintv4e.prg is still compatible with FireTOS. If 680x0
> emulation is detected, it is used for specific supervisor instructions
> (exception stack frame format, rte, cache management...). Only
> supervisor instructions are emulated, so there is almost no
> performance loss.
>
> Best of all, all that emulation mess is hidden in the kernel itself.
> ColdFire kernel modules and user programs can run equally well on
> FireTOS or EmuTOS :-)
> Currently, the FireBee FEC (ethernet) driver cleanly fails to load on
> EmuTOS because it uses FireTOS specific features (the DMA API). But we
> will find a solution for that.
>
> native_coldfire.patch
> Added support for native ColdFire. Contributed by Vincent Riviere.
>
> Alan or Helmut, please commit!
>
Done. Thank you muchly for this Vincent !

Alan.