Copyright (C) 2001 Michael Leonhard
Mike Leonhard
mike at tamale dot net
http://tamale.net/


* Introduction

"Because with great wisdom comes great frustration; whoever increases his 
knowledge merely increases his heartache." - Solomon, Ecclesiastes 1:18

Having thorougly explored the computer systems within my reach, I came to the
conclusion that they are all rubbish.  The more I learn about them, the more I
hate them.

Thus, I set out to create a system that is more beautiful and perfect that those
which I have studied.  I call this system, Sebae.

Sebae is a virtual machine.  It does not exist physically.  It is an abstraction
of the fundamental computing device.  The construction and use of a computing
device involves skills from many fields of expertise.  Each of these fields has
a concept of the `ideal' computing device.  These idealized computers each 
exhibit a particular elegance when viewed through the paradigms of their 
respective field.

Some of these elegent features are mutually exclusive.  Sebae is not meant to be
entirely elegant in one area.  I have drawn compromises between the ideals in an
effort to make Sebae a good balance.  These compromises reflect upon my current
level of experience and wisdom.


* Applications

The first useful application for Sebae will be an applet viewer.  The viewer
will provide an API to the bytecode applet.  This API will consist
of an event queue, graphics operations, and piped io.  Originally the graphics 
operations will be the SDL API.  Later I will add support for OpenGL and 
possibly remove the SDL API.  I will use this applet viewer to explore my ideas
about remote application deployment, self-rendering files, and massively
multiplayer online games.

* Technical Details

assembly.txt - Sebae Assembly Language specification
bytecode.txt - Bytecode and Virtual Machine specification
readme.txt - This file
sa.txt - documentation for sa
sd.txt - documentation for sd
svm.txt - documentation for svm

* Projects

The three programs in the Sebae distribution share the same Sebae code.

svm - the Sebae Virtual Machine
sa - the Sebae Assembler
sd - the Sebae Disassembler

TODO
	add #ifdef _SEBAE_H_ to header file
	Decide if API calls should assert() or return -1
	fix memory leaks when fcts return -1
	
CHANGELOG
11-07-01
	Fixed faulty ROTATE code
08-31-01
	Added byte order conversions to LOAD and SAVE
	Created Sebae_Module_InstallMagicDefn()
	Created testmodule
	Tested and it works!!!
08-30-01
	moved build num calculation to sh-compatible script, newbuildnum
	changed PError() to use the more generic strerror() func
	now builds and runs in cygwin =)
08-30-01
	created module.c and MagicDefnFunc
	added SebaeDefn.magic
	Fixed bug where assembly code lacking trailing `;' was not reported
	Implemented LOADCODE -1 to load gateway defn, the module loader
	Fixed bug in JUMP where vector was being incorrectly added
08-28-01
	Fixed order of parameters, struct SebaeVM *vm is always first
	Renamed all functions like Sebae_Assembly_WriteFile()
08-28-01
	Created mempipe and cleaned up pipe.c
	Implemented VECTOR, STACKSIZE, STACKHEIGHT, MEMSIZE
	Implemented LOADCODE
	Changed vm->mem to type int *
	LOADCODE WORKS!!!! WOOHOOO!!!!
	really really really need to address endianness issues
08-28-01
	Merged DirectiveSet into InstructionSet, moved to sebae.c
	Updated sebae.h, assembly.c, and bytecode.c to use new iset
	Updated Sebae_TicK() with new numbering
08-27-01
	Implemented instructions HALT to REMAINDER
	GAH!  glibc is so stupid!  I just spent ten minutes trying to find
	which lib contains fmod()
	#include <math.h> but -lm    m!?!! !@$)&!&!&$))!!!
	
	Implemented instructions FPREMAINDER to XOR
	Removed NOT instruction
	Changed ReadAssembly() to start counting line numbers at 1
	Implemented instructions ROTATE to SAVE
	last four unimplemented instructions will print error
	Fixed iset stack effect for DECIDE
	Phew... 500 lines added to vm.c today to make the core execute
08-27-01
	Created fptest.sa... WORKS GREAT!
	Changed DestroyVM() to check FreePipe return code
	Changed FreePipe() to return int
	Changed api code to check return from FreePipe()
	Change PrintError() to return 1
	Removed calls to PrintError() from API code
	Added calls to PrintError() to apps
	Fixed bug in PrintError()
08-26-01
	Removed SebaePipe.numpipes.  Pipe ids are now reused
	Added Sebae_PipeBytesToRead()
	Added int maxheight to SebaeDefn
	Changed Sebae_Assembly_ProduceNOTIMPLEMENTED() to return an error
	Commented out debugging printf()s
08-26-01
	Changed Makefile to have separate tests
	Added DATA directive to Sebae_WriteAssemblyFile()
	Changed VM.c to allow stack and mem sizes of 0
	Fixed bug in Sebae_FreePipe() where fd wasn't being reset
	Created Sebae_WriteDefn()
	Created Sebae_WriteDefnListLength(),Sebae_WriteBytecode()
	Created Sebae_WriteBytecodeFile(),Sebae_WriteSignature()
	Added assert on flen to Sebae_ReadPipe() and Sebae_WritePipe()
	Added int bytes to struct SebaeDefn
08-25-01
	Added Sebae_PipeToFile() and Sebae_WritePipe
	Changed Sebae_FreePipe() to write uncommitted buffers
08-23-01
	Updated bytecode.c to reflect changes in bytecode.txt
	Created assembly.c, merged files from original sa project
	Assembly functions now read .sa files into the VM
08-20-01
	Removed unneeded #includes
	created Sebae_PError()
	checked assert()s in bytecode.c, pipe.c, sebae.c, vm.c
	moved functions into specific files, bytecode.c, pipe.c, and vm.c
08-18-01
	loads and verifies bytecode
	checks file signature
	created pipes
	created error text
	created svm project