Appendix B. Running with Mac OS

Robert Günzel of the Department of Integrated Circuit Design at the Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany has managed to get both the OpenRISC tool chain and the examples in this application note running under Mac OS 10.4.

There are three main issues that affect the Mac OS version

X11 is not running by default.
There is no pseudo-terminal multiplexer
Mac OS does not allow use of the F_SETOWN command on the file descriptor of a pseudo terminal slave. Thus SIGIO cannot be received, and there is thus no way of knowing when the user is typing inside the xterm.

Robert has written a detailed application note explaining how to resolve these issues. At the time of writing it is available from chschroeder.gamiro.de/rg/or1ksim_macOS10.4.pdf. Check on the OpenCores website (under OpenRISC 1000 tool chain) for more recent updates.

Resolving the third of the problems highlighted above required a substantial rewrite of the UART and terminal modules. In making this rewrite, Robert highlights various areas where efficiency of the model can be improved.