View source

This guide is a description on how to simulate Zet with '''Modelsim''' in '''Linux''', as this is the OS used for Zet development. You don't need to be root at any moment.

== Downloading and installing Modelsim ==
First, we need to get Modelsim for Linux from the Altera website, which is free of charge and doesn't need any license. To do this:
# Go to [http://www.altera.com altera.com] and then click on the upper right link "Download Center". 
# Under the section ''Altera Edition Third-Party Software'' click on the first '''ModelSim®-Altera®''' link.
# There, we are going to download the latest version of ''ModelSim-Altera Starter Edition'', the left most column, upper link named '''6.5b''', which is the latest at this time.
# We search for the '''Linux (ModelSim-Altera Starter Edition)''' and click on '''Download Service Pack'''.
# Now, we can create a one-time access, by entering an email address (any address will work) and the download will start. It's a 540 Mb file :) We choose to download it at ~/Downloads for example.
# Once downloaded, we untar it. So we open a terminal window:
 cd ~/Downloads
 tar xvf 91sp2_modelsim_ase_linux.tar
 cd modelsim_ase/
 ./install_st   # we need csh installed to get it running
Now we press '''intro''' for accepting the default LINUX installation and we write '''/home/user/opt/altera9.1sp2''' as the default target directory. After a while, the installation will finish. We can delete now the installation files:
 cd ..
 rm -fR 91sp2_modelsim_ase_linux.tar modelsim_ase/

== Downloading and simulating Zet ==
# First download the source for the latest version from the [[Zet processor|main page]]. Let's say we take the .tar.bz2 version. Let's place it under the '''~/Downloads''' directory.
# Untar the archive with: '''cd ~; tar xjvf Downloads/Zet-1.1.1.tar.bz2''' considering that v1.1.1 is the latest version.
# We need to have a working BIOS for simulation. We are going to use a stub test as a BIOS. To do that: '''cd zet-1.1.1/tests; make 00_stub.de1; cd ~''' and it will assemble the test and place it under the simulation folder.
# Everything is ready now, so we can launch Modelsim by executing: '''~/opt/altera9.1sp2/modelsim_ase/linux/vsim'''
# Now a graphic screen will appear. We can close the welcome dialog. Now to start the simulation, we enter the following commands inside the ''Transcript'' window in Modelsim:
 cd zet-1.1.1/boards/altera-de1/sim
 do t.do

And if everything goes well, you will have a 5us simulation showing the program behaviour.

===Notes===
To be able to run it from the graphical desktop such as Gnome without opening a terminal, we can create a script like this and place it under '''/home/user/bin/sim-zet''':
 #!/bin/bash
 cd /home/user/zet/cores/zet/sim
 screen -d -m /home/user/opt/altera9.1sp2/modelsim_ase/linux/vsim
And make this scrip executable: '''chmod 755 /home/user/bin/sim-zet'''. Now we can create a custom panel launcher with an icon. When clicking the icon, Modelsim will launch automatically inside the Zet simulation folder, so only a '''do t.do''' is needed :)