Date   : Fri, 18 Jun 2004 14:37:43 +0100
From   : <peter.3.edwards@...>
Subject: Fragmented Emulators was RE: BeebEm under Linux? (or any BBC emulator under Linux? :-)

> What other alternatives are there for Linux / UNIX? I get the
impression
> that Xbeeb isn't under active development and there are lots of bits
> missing?

Hi,

I've been lurking on this list for a while and have been trying to keep
up with the beeb community.  Since teaching myself to program on an
Acorn Electron and, later, a BBC B and, finally, a Master, I've always
had a soft spot for the Acorn family.

In answer your question, the one emulator I think should work without
much hassle (tho I haven't tried the linux version, specifically) is the
oft-omitted MESS:

http://www.mess.org/

Mess has had a working BBC driver for ages but it's not been updated in
many years:

http://mamerominfo.retrogames.com/messbbc/

Which leads me to ask some questions I've been thinking about for some
time.  I hope this isn't considered flame-bait but I'd like to hear
other people's thoughts on the matter.

Why are there *so* many different BBC emulators which all work to
varying degrees?

http://bbc.nvg.org/emulators.php3 currently lists over 25 emulators, and
that's just the BBC B section!

>From listening to the posts on this list, it's clear there are still a
number of top quality coders out there in the Beeb community.  Would it
not make sense, then, to combine the efforts of these into one,
definitive, emulator?  For example, MESS seems to me to be a highly
popular system which links out to many other projects including MAME.  I
think it would be fantastic if the beeb coders we have combined their
efforts into a single driver, say for MESS.  This could be released
under a suitable open source license and hosted on something like
sourceforge.net which provides web-hosting facilities as well as CVS
storage to allow multiple developers to work on the same project with
minimal disruption.  The advantages of a definitive BBC MESS driver
include the fact that it automatically opens up the emulator to any
platform MESS is ported to, which at the moment covers DOS, Win32, Unix,
MacOS, Amiga and even partial support for RiscOS!

If the community were to get behind a single emulator, it would focus
both the developers and even the testers to creating the best emulator
out there.  Once the general emulation side of things was taken care of,
it would be simple to move on to emulating the more esoteric parts of
the Beeb - such as econet, the varying DFS's, all the numerous hardware
add-ons that were released etc.  It would also make it easier for coders
to step in and work on the specific areas they're interested in, and be
able to pass the developer mantle on so that the driver doesn't die when
the lead coder finds his/her spare time encroached on.

Meanwhile, this could lead the users to sorting out the software
catalogue.  A definitive library of software titles could be created
with specific names and checksums, like the MAME ROMs are distributed
today.  That way you could see at a glance what versions of titles are
available, which are missing from your set and a database such as the
classic mame.dk archive could, perhaps, be setup.  I appreciate there
are online HTTP/FTP archives already but there are a lot of duplicates
and there isn't exactly a naming or even file format convention.  This
part of the project is something I'd be happy to contribute to and I'm
sure, over time, many others would be happy to get involved with as
well.

So, there it is.  If I had the coding expertise to set this up, I'd've
brought this up a while ago but, unfortunately, my experience is mainly
web-programming and there seems to be a plethora of beeb sites out
there, so I haven't thus far felt the need to add my own Sam's Beeb
Page.  :)

Thoughts, anyone?

Sam.