Agner`s CPU blog

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Version 1.01
Author: Agner Date: 2016-05-14 05:23
Hubert Lamontagne wrote:
Do you have any plans for writing an assembler or a simulator?
(or other more involved stuff like a verilog/vhdl implementation or a c compiler... though that's a lot of work!)
That is the plan. Right now I am working on the ELF object file format for this architecture.

But I am very busy with other projects too, so progress will be slow as long as this is a one man project.

I have an idea for how to implement system calls. It is a system call instruction which takes as input a 64-bit ID number. The upper 32 bits is a module ID which identifies a system module or device driver (The system core has ID = 0). The lower 32 bits identify a function within this module. System add-on modules and device drivers do not necessarily have fixed ID numbers because this would require some central authority to assign these ID numbers. Instead, the program will have to ask for the ID number by giving the name of the module. The functions within a module can have fixed or variable ID numbers.

There will be a system function (with fixed ID number) which takes the names of module and function as input and returns the ID number. The ID number can retrieved in this way before the first call to the function.

The ID number can be put into the program in three ways:
1. The most important system functions have fixed ID numbers which can be inserted at compile time.
2. The ID number can be found at load time in the same way as relocation works. The loader will find the ID number and insert it in the code before running the program.
3. The ID number is found at run time before the first call to the desired function.

The system call instruction can get the necessary ID number either in a 64-bit register operand or in an immediate constant with 32 bits for the module ID and 16 bits for the function ID (assuming that the module has no more than 65000 functions).

The calling convention for system functions is the same as for other functions, using registers for parameters and for return value. Any register not used for a parameter to the system function can be used for the ID of the function.

The system call instruction will change the instruction pointer and stack pointer and proceed to system code. The old values of instruction pointer and stack pointer are saved in special registers, to be restored by a system return instruction.

 
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