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Run states

Emulator “life” is a state machine. A state machine reacts on asynchronous events, which make the machine to transition the current state to another state. In emuStudio, whole emulation “state” depends on CPU run state. The run state is a name for the following states: breakpoint (starting state), running, stopped (more variants).

The state machine, how it should work, can be seen in the following diagram:

runstate

The states of the state machine are encoded into an enum CPU.RunState in emuLib:

public static enum RunState {
    STATE_STOPPED_NORMAL("stopped"),
    STATE_STOPPED_BREAK("breakpoint"),
    STATE_STOPPED_ADDR_FALLOUT("stopped (address fallout)"),
    STATE_STOPPED_BAD_INSTR("stopped (instruction fallout)"),
    STATE_RUNNING("running");

    ...
}

Implementation of the state machine is a sole responsibility of CPU plugin. emuStudio has some expectations of it, like:

  • initial run state should be STATE_STOPPED_BREAK
  • calling reset() should set the run state to STATE_STOPPED_BREAK
  • calling pause() if the current state is not one of STATE_STOPPED_(how) variant, it should set the run state to STATE_STOPPED_BREAK. Otherwise, do nothing.
  • calling step() if the current state is one of STATE_STOPPED_(how) (except STATE_STOPPED_BREAK), it should do nothing. Otherwise, it should set the run state to:
    • STATE_STOPPED_BREAK, if the execution of the current instruction did not cause error, or it wasn’t a “halt” instruction.
    • STATE_STOPPED_(how) state, where (how) should be replaced by:
      • BAD_INSTR - if unknown instruction was encountered
      • ADDR_FALLOUT - if instruction pointed to unknown or forbidden memory location
      • NORMAL - if the instruction was “halt” causing CPU to “halt”
  • calling run() should set the state to STATE_RUNNING and run instructions “infinitely”, upon external event or some error, in which case it should set the state to:
    • STATE_STOPPED_BREAK - if external call pause() method
    • STATE_STOPPED_(how) state, where (how) should be replaced by:
      • BAD_INSTR - if unknown instruction was encountered
      • ADDR_FALLOUT - if instruction pointed to unknown or forbidden memory location
      • NORMAL - if the instruction was “halt” causing CPU to “halt”
  • calling stop() if the current state is one of STATE_STOPPED_(how) (except STATE_STOPPED_BREAK), it should do nothing. Otherwise, it should set the state to STATE_STOPPED_NORMAL.

If the CPU plugin root class implements CPU interface, it is its responsibility to notify CPU run state changes and manage run state “listeners”. But if the plugin root class extends AbstractCPU, it does not have care about listeners and run state notifications, because the class implements it.