HelP regarding Emulation!

[Mike Westerhof (mwester)]

Yasir Majeed wrote:
> Thanx marc for ur help. Well i dont know exactly what's the problem
> because the emulator perfectly runs for GTA01(Om 2007.2 images), but 
> when i try to run it for GTA02 images like Om2008.12, OM2008.9 etc, it
> just goes in loop displaying bad block address messages.

In hopes of finally ending this thread, I'll try to explain (again) what
others have been saying.  :)

The issue is that the emulator does not emulate the GTA02 hardware, only
the GTA01 hardware (and only a subset of that).

While it is true that the core CPU in the GTA02 is supported by Qemu,
that's insufficient -- the emulator needs to be "taught" (i.e. someone
needs to write the code) how to emulate the other components in the
GTA02.  I suspect that to start with, you would need to emulate the
flash memory subsystem in order to get past the bad block stuff (just a
guess) -- but as soon as you get past that, you'll have to emulate the
PMU chip used by the GTA02 (it's very different from the one in the
GTA01).  That assumes that the emulator already knows about the S3C2440
SoC (System-on-Chip, which is the Samsung CPU with the integrated I/O
devices used in the GTA02); the GTA01 uses an older SoC which is --  you
guessed it! -- not entirely compatible.

The reason the emulator does not support the GTA02 is the same reason
why it doesn't support all the hardware in the GTA01: the emulator was
intended to be used by users developing software before the GTA01
hardware was stable enough and available for use.  Since then, as others
have pointed out, developing and debugging on the hardware is so much
more practical that nobody has had any interest in further development
of the emulator.

So, the bottom line: the emulator does not, and most likely will never
boot any GTA02 images.

I can't help you out any further, because you haven't told anyone what
it is that you need from the emulator.  You say "Socket programming" --
well, you can do that on a desktop Linux system -- there is absolutely
no difference in the sockets interface; it's the same kernel source
code, the same C library, the same basic stuff.  The SoC is even
little-endian, just like a desktop system, so that shouldn't be an issue.

So, at this point, if you are convinced that you need an emulator, I
suggest that you look elsewhere -- the GTA02 is not the device that will
meet that need.  If, perhaps, you are inclined to explain a bit about
your need, perhaps the very diverse (and generally very smart) group of
folks on this list can offer some specific suggestions about
alternatives that might permit the GTA02 to meet your needs, or if not,
perhaps they know of a specific emulator and hardware device that would.

Regards,
Mike (mwester)