From: KendallB@scitechsoft.com (Kendall Bennett)
Subject: X86EMU: Project Leadership Change!
Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 17:45:11 -0500

Hi All,

Some of you may be familiar with the x86emu project, which is GPL'ed x86 
real mode emulator that can be compiled and used with the Linux MILO 
loader for DEC Alpha systems. The emulator that is included in the 
current MILO sources, and what I have found on the internet (x86emu-
0.0.tar.gz) appears to be lacking in functionality in some areas, 
specifically in the support for 32-bit instructions from real mode code 
(which many modern VGA BIOS'es use). MILO itself does not use this 
emulator by default, but rather uses the DEC provided binary only 
emulator.

Since the emulator has a lot of uses on both x86 systems as well as non-
x86 systems, we have started work on updating the emulator to support the 
latest Intel instruction sets. I have contacted the original author of 
the x86emu project (David Mosberger-Tang), and although David is still 
interested in the project, he has not had the time to continue to 
maintain it for quite a while. Hence I have now become the new official 
maintainer for this project.

This new emulator has a number of uses on both x86 systems and non-x86 
systems. For x86 systems, it can be used to bring up multi-head graphics 
controller configurations via the BIOS as well as provide the Linux 
kernel with the ability to call the VESA BIOS safely at runtime from 
within the fbcon device drivers. For non-x86 systems this can be used to 
initialise any PCI/AGP graphics controller via the real mode BIOS, and it 
could also be used to bring up any other controller that has a BIOS on it 
(such as SCSI adapters and the like).

If anyone is interested, perhaps we should set up a new mailing lists 
specifically dedicated to the x86emu project?

Regards,

-- 

+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
|      SciTech Software - Building Truly Plug'n'Play Software!         |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Kendall Bennett          | To reply via email, remove nospam from    |
| Director of Engineering  | the reply to email address. Do NOT send   |
| SciTech Software, Inc.   | unsolicited commercial email!             |
| 505 Wall Street          | ftp  : ftp.scitechsoft.com                |
| Chico, CA 95928, USA     | www  : http://www.scitechsoft.com         |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+