Does anyone know of a 'torture test' for 650x emulators that
might be available for download? This would be a really
handy addition to the literature. Programmers familiar with
floating point routines can find a program called 'paranoia'
which is often used to confirm the behavior of floating
point routines. Something similar for emulators would
identify specific problems quickly and aid in debugging
them.
Perhaps someone could suggest a strategy for constructing
such a test and classifying the result. For example, an
emulator may just be 'functionally' equivalent to the CPU
without necessarily being cycle exact. (That would be OK for
just running many 650x programs.) It may also be
cycle-exact, but not supporting unofficial opcodes. It may
also be cycle-exact, with support for unofficial opcodes,
but without support for some of the page-crossing anomalies
of the 650x. It may even get all these right, but without
the spurious reads and writes which the processor actually
does in normal operation.
A report card issued after checking and confirming all these
possibilities would allow emulator writers to set the bar
where they want and confirm their progress at achieving it.
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