This project is dedicated to the memory of William Morris (aka Frags), who was the main contributor to the bounty but was unable to see the final result.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Apple from the Tree

I try to keep this post short. New update is available:
  • MacOSX Darwin PowerPC support is implemented.
  • Fixed address distance calculation for the PowerPC native relative branch instructions.
  • Refactored the boolean values to use TRUE/FALSE preprocessor defines.
Big thanks goes to Tobias Netzel, who implemented the MacOSX support for the JIT compiling and helped me chasing down one more sneaky bug.

Some details on the bug: previously the negative relative branch calculation was completely wrong, which caused jumping to invalid addresses among certain situations and made the application crash.

END-OF-TRANSMISSION

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Bug! *Splat*

Every developer knows the feeling when finally he/she finds a bug and slaps to the forehead while mumbling: "How on earth was this thing ever been working?..."

Well, it just happened to me, I have fixed a bug that stopped the ROM from booting. It was a rather stupid mistake (as usually); for the details check out the update.
In this other minor update I have fixed one more nuance with the wrong addresses in the dumped PowerPC code log.

Right now the emulation advances even further in the booting process than before, when it stops with this cryptic message:

Compiling error: instruction or addressing mode is not implemented, but marked as implemented: 0x323b

Unfortunately, this is true: this is a move instruction with complex addressing mode (68020), which one is not implemented yet.
Since the move instruction itself is marked as supported and all the addressing mode is listed in the descriptor it busts me big time and calls me a liar. Fair enough.

I promise that I implement all the missing addressing modes soon. Honest.

I was so excited that I tried to run the ROM without compiling the instructions but in this case I got back to the previous problem: the reboot loop. :(

At least one bug was squashed again.

In the meanwhile Tobias managed to port the JIT to PowerPC MacOSX. For the speed check out his comment. I hope he sends me the changes soon and I can add it into the main source repository.