GXemul
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
GXemul (formerly known as mips64emul) is a computer architecture emulator originally written to emulate computer systems using the MIPS instruction set, and is available as free software under a revised BSD-style license. The emulator was originally written by Anders Gavare, a graduate student in Sweden, around August, 2003. In 2005, Gavare changed the name of the software project from mips64emul to GXemul, to avoid giving the impression that the emulator is confined to the MIPS64 instruction set.
Although the SPIM emulator has long been available for emulating 32-bit MIPS architectures such as the R2000 and R3000, the emulation provided by SPIM is limited to a virtual microprocessor alone, and does not emulate entire computer systems.
In contrast, GXemul emulates various full computer systems such as the Digital Equipment Corporation DECstation or SGI Indy, which are based on a MIPS microprocessor. Although the completeness of emulation of the several systems varies, some of the more complete variants (such as the DECstation) support emulation of on-board SCSI controllers, framebuffers, and the like, to a degree such that operating systems (for example, Ultrix) can be installed and run using the emulator.
Further features of GXemul include cross-platform portability, and binary translation-type emulation which provides significantly enhanced speed of emulation. As of January, 2005, binary translation was available for Intel 386 and DEC Alpha hosts.
