[TUHS] Introduction

Oliver Lehmann lehmann at ans-netz.de
Fri Jun 27 00:52:46 AEST 2008


Hi Jose,

first - thanks for taking the time helping me here on this issue.

		s=(char *)(*(long *)adx & 0x7F00FFFF);

in prf.c compiles to:

        ldl     rr2,|_stkseg+~L1+8|(fp)
        ldl     rr4, at rr2
        and     r4,#32512
        ldl     |_stkseg+~L1+12|(fp),rr4

I've some places in the WEGA kernel where this ANDing is done in a
way I need it, but I have no source which compiles to the way I need
it. I've searched all the kernel for it.
I guess the WEGA-developer which replaced some ZEUS objects by his
own implementation didn't found out the real syntax too and so created
basically the same syntax I have now in the sources for the original
ZEUS objects. So some sources (mostly theese with german comments ;)
are containing 7F00FFFF ANDings which are compatible because they are
not the original ZEUS objects where this copying is made. And for
ZEUS I've zero sources...

So the only thing in sys2.c's link() you wanted me to change in your
previous mail was:

	u.u_dirp.l = (caddr_t) ((long *) uap->linkname & 0x7F00FFFF);

right? Tried this, and got:

"sys2.c":305: operands of "&" have incompatible types 
Error in file sys2.c: Error.  No assembly.


> I notice that nsseg in mch.s may return %7F00 on some cases and is used
> in machdep.c as stseg = nsseg(u_state->s_sp); so it seems the stack uses
> segment 0x7F00. Then may be the & is shorthand to make sure the address
> pointed by the ANDed pointer falls within the stack. It would probably
> imply user programs have a maximum stack size of 65536 bytes as well.
> 
> That may explain why some pointers are ANDed and others not. I haven't
> had a thorough look, but if the &0x7F00FFFF usage is consistent, then
> that's is an explanation that may guide source reconstruction.

A memory segment is 64Kbyte of size. The hardware is a bit special here.
The CPU can access the memory in a segmented and a nonsegmented mode. For
this purpose 3(!) MMUs are existing. A special MMU control logic is
implemented which can handle 3 states:
1: segmented OS (CPU works in system mode)
	The segments Code, Data and Stack are managed by MMU1. MMU2 and
	MMU3 are not active
2: userprocess not segmented (CPU works in normal-mode, segmentnumber 63)
	The segments Code, Data and Stack are managed by MMU1. MMU2 and
	MMU3 are not active. This is done by a special break register
3: userprocess segmented (CPU works in normal-mode)
	MMU2 and MMU3 are used to process the 128 possible memory segments
	which can be Code-, Data- or Stack-Segments. MMU2 manages the
	segments 0-63 and MMU3 manages the segments 64-128. The switching
	between both MMUs works hardwarecontrolled in dependence of the
	segmentline. Both MMUs are programmed for segment 0..63.

A colleague of mine wrote about this:
>>>>>
I've looked at your problems site and think I can imagine why the AND 0x7f00ffff
is there. Remember, the Z8000 segmentation concept is flawed the way that a segment
address can wrap around without warning. Now, at a higher level, UNIX uses a flat 
address space and somewhere, this logic address needs to be translated into 
physical addresses. This is done by the MMU - however, if within a pointer arithmetic
an overflow beyond the 64k boundary happens, it can spill over into the segment number
which is - you might remember at bit [30:24]. So as soon as a pointer is created by the
compiler, it is ANDed with 0x7f00 for the upper 16bits to extract the segment number and 
with 0xffff for the lower 16bit address to obtain the real logic address PC.

It would be really interesting to look at the implementation of malloc for memory blocks
greater than 64K byte. My assumption is that the compiler inserts this AND on its own for
any pointer arithmetic.
<<<<<

Maybe this helps...

   Greetings, Oliver

-- 
 Oliver Lehmann
  http://www.pofo.de/
  http://wishlist.ans-netz.de/



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