MicroAPL and Motorola offer new 68K to ColdFire® microprocessor migration solution
15th October 1998 -- MicroAPL Ltd and Motorola Inc today announced the availability of CF68KLib, a new emulation library to assist in migrating 68K family code to ColdFire® devices. CF68KLib is available for download free of charge from the internet.
Motorola's ColdFire architecture is derived from the 68K family, but with a simplified set of instructions and addressing modes in order to provide high performance at low cost and low power consumption. CF68KLib allows 68K, CPU32 and CPU32+ object code to run on ColdFire cores (Version 3 and later), by emulating unimplemented instructions and addressing modes in software. It can be configured to emulate the instructions sets of all the main 68K and CPU32 processors, in both user- and supervisor-modes. It thus provides a bridge for Motorola clients with an existing 68000-family code base who are evaluating ColdFire devices or migrating their code to the newer architecture.
Under a special agreement between Motorola and MicroAPL, CF68KLib will be distributed free of charge to Motorola's customer base. It is also available for downloading from the MicroAPL web site (http://www.microapl.com), or through Motorola's ColdFire web-site (http://www.motorola.com/ColdFire). MicroAPL also provides an internet-based support service for the product.
CF68KLib is the second 68K to ColdFire family migration solution to be developed by MicroAPL in partnership with Motorola. Last year, MicroAPL released PortAsm/68K for ColdFire, an assembler source-code translation tool which largely automates the process of translating 68K assembly-language code to efficient ColdFire code. The two solutions are complementary to each other; CF68KLib assists developers who are evaluating the ColdFire architecture, and shortens development times by allowing legacy code to be run with little or no modification irrespective of the language in which it was originally written.
"The response to last year's launch of PortAsm/68K for ColdFire has been excellent", commented Richard Nabavi, Managing Director of MicroAPL Ltd. "CF68KLib builds on that success by making it even easier to re-target almost any 68K family code to ColdFire."
"Customers who have large investments in 68K code can now immediately re-link their code and have an instant estimate of code performance in a ColdFire processor system", stated Pete Highton, Marketing and System Engineering Manager at Motorola.
MicroAPL Ltd was founded in 1979, and is based in London, England. It specializes in translation tools for moving existing software to the new generation of RISC processors, as well as providing consultancy services in systems development and cross-platform porting. Further information on CF68KLib, PortAsm, and other MicroAPL products and services can be found on the company's web site: http://www.microapl.com
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