[llvm-dev] [RFC] Backend for Motorola 6800 series CPU (M68k)

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz via llvm-dev]

Hi Min!

On 1/26/21 6:37 AM, Min-Yih Hsu wrote:
> After nearly a year of efforts trying to bring the M68k LLVM backend upstream. I’m glad to see the goal is within our reach now :-)

Awesome news! Congrats and kudos for the very hatd work!

> Currently there are only two open patches: D88390 and D88391. They only received minor styling feedbacks in the past few days and
> I’ve already fixed them. I think they’re in good shape. After the `release/12.x` branch is cut (which is just couple of hours away)
> and all the patches are approved, I will commit all 9 patches to the ToT at once.

That's really exciting to hear. I can't wait to spread the news once the code has been merged.

> So I think this is good time to talk about some future plan about bringing M68k into an official target.
> 
> First of all, I would like to use bugzilla to track all the milestones in M68k target, in replacement of the Github Project
> (https://github.com/M680x0/M680x0-mono-repo/projects <https://github.com/M680x0/M680x0-mono-repo/projects> ) using now. In
> order to be more centralized and make it easier to notify people in this community for any updates. Currently there is an
> umbrella bug (Bug 48791 <https://bugs.llvm.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48791>) as the blocker of graduating M68k from experimental
> target. Any milestones will be depended by this bug. Feel free to link to this umbrella bug too if you feel a bug is crucial
> for M68k being a mature backend.

That was my plan as well. I will create copies of the remaining issues from Github in Bugzilla once the 9 patches have been
merged.

> Second, I will collect more M68k toolchain use cases. On one hand they’re precious (compiler) test cases; on the other hand,
> we can get to know what are the most wanted features nowadays, in addition to those that are already in our mind.
> Currently we already had connections with the M68k retro-computing community (m68k.info <http://m68k.info/>), Clang Built Linux (https://clangbuiltlinux.github.io/ <https://clangbuiltlinux.github.io/> ), and the project to bring Rust compiler — which uses
> LLVM under the hood — to M68k. Please spread the words if you know anyone that is interested in this topic!

The NetBSD folks will certainly be interested. I'm CC'ing them in my answer. I'm very confident we will attract more developers
once the code has been merged. I'm very much looking forward to what the community will deliver. I know that people are very
enthusiastic in the community.

> These are basically my thoughts on the future plan. Last but not the least, this backend will never go this far without the helps
> from this community.
> 
> I especially want to shout out to people CC-ed in this email, they spent time reviewing the patches and discussing with us on how
> to make the backend better. Thank you very much!

Thanks a lot for your work and don't forget to claim your Bounty once the code has been merged.

Also, let's discuss the Patreon later this week.

Adrian

-- 
 .''`.  John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
: :' :  Debian Developer - glaubitz at debian.org
`. `'   Freie Universitaet Berlin - glaubitz at physik.fu-berlin.de
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