****************************************************************************
//& 
//& Copyright (C) 2005 HP-GCC Development Team
//&
//& ****************************************************************************
//&
//&
//& This file is part of HP-GCC.
//&
//& HP-GCC is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
//& it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
//& the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
//& any later version.
//& 
//& HP-GCC is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
//& but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
//& MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
//& GNU General Public License for more details.
//& 
//& You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
//& along with HP-GCC; see the file COPYING. 
//&
//& As a special exception, you may use this file as part of a free software
//& library without restriction.  Specifically, if other files instantiate
//& templates or use macros or inline functions from this file, or you compile
//& this file and link it with other files to produce an executable, this
//& file does not by itself cause the resulting executable to be covered by
//& the GNU General Public License.  This exception does not however
//& invalidate any other reasons why the executable file might be covered by
//& the GNU General Public License.
//&
//& ****************************************************************************


**********************
* HP-GCC version 2.0 *
**********************


The release of the 2.0 version focuses mainly on significant
enhancements to the technological infrastructure of the libraries
and the ARM toolbox.

This includes the default generation of Thumb instructions, which reduces the
executable code size by 20-30 percent on average.

Furthermore HP-GCC 2.0 introduces the so called "VC" (= virtual code) technology, which
allows for code in virtual memory. This finally moves the runtime system again closer towards
full standard C compliance, since it's now possible to assign static (compile time) pointers to
code locations (function pointers).

The change from "MMU" to "VC" technology introduces a new binary format for executables, therefore
it requires a new version of the ARM Toolbox.
The new Toolbox version 3.1 supports the new VC technology and is backwards compatible with the old format.
Please make sure, to update your calculator to the new Toolbox version 3.1.

There is a also a new library "decNumber", which implements arbitrary precision BCD arithmetics.
This high performance lib was donated by IBM Corporation to the Free Software Foundation.
The HP-GCC team managed to port it to the HP49G+ calculator.
This is work in progress, since it's not yet fully integrated into the math framework.
But it's already included for the technically interested user and a field for experimentation.

In this context please note, that the binary exception of the HP-GCC license does not apply,
if parts of this library are linked to an executable or parts of the library sources are integrated
into user code.
All usage of the "decNumber" library binds the user to the pure GPL, without exception.
That means, (s)he is obligated to publish the source code on request.

The Windows distribution now comes per default with a graphical UI and a basic IDE (Programmers Notepad).

The support for the "small" models 39G and 48II has been discontinued.
The reason for this is twofold.
On one side there was very low resonance and feedback compared to the maintenance effort and on the other are the future plans for HP-GCC
contradicting "low resource" devices, especially without mass storage.

The usage of HP-GCC implies, that you have read this document and agree with it's content, in particular
with the license terms.

December 6th, 2005
The HP-GCC Development Team