Date : Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:52:40 +0100
From : <peter.3.edwards@...>
Subject: Re: Fragmented Emulators was RE: BeebEm under Linux?(or any BBC emulator under Linux? :-)
> Presumably because people generally like to 'own' a project, because
> emulating a machine is a challenge, and because if you get something
> that semi-works it's a natural reaction to release it into
> the community
> and say "hey, look at what I've done".
>
> Nothing wrong with that either. Anyone writing an emulator
> has reason to
> be proud of their effort in my book.
Certainly. I was not, in any way, attempting to disparage anyone's
work. I'm frankly amazed at the quality of what's currently available
for free.
> I recall the Spectrum having quite a few emulators last time I checked
> (a few years ago now), and I can imagine other popular platforms being
> the same (Apple ][ springs to mind, and the C64)
Yep, the other emulation communities seem to be in situations similar to
the Acorn scene.
> The shame is that looking around it seems that BeebEm is
> considered one
> of the greats - personally I find it a pity (particularly as
> I could use
> an emulator for serious projects right now!) that nobody's
> kept up with
> support for non-PC platforms though.
Exactly. There seems to be a lot of re-inventing the wheel and
virtually no support for anything but windows (minimal linux, if you
follow the original thread). I was promoting the MESS idea, because if
development was resumed on that, the cross-platform stuff comes as
standard with little need for anyone in the BBC community to have to
work on it. That part would be provided by the core MESS fanatics.
> The fact that BeebEm regards itself as cross-platform implies that the
> code was designed from the ground up to be portable to different
> environments too, with only (I assume) changes in I/O devices for
> display, sound, keyboard etc.
>
> > Would it not make sense, then, to combine the efforts of these
> > into one, definitive, emulator?
>
> Maybe there's too many options in terms of hardware spec to
> consider it
> though? What minimum hardware spec works for one person
> doesn't work for
> another.
Not sure what you mean here. I thought the great advantage of the 80's
home computer market was the standard hardware. There's only one BBC B.
Only one BBC B+. Only one Master 128 etc. If you mean how you would
choose to have say a 6502 co-processor emulated or not, I couldn't be
sure off the top of my head, not being a MESS driver developer but I'm
fairly certain the way to do it is to add another driver. I believe
MESS already has drivers for a BBC A, BBC B, BBC B+ and BBC +128. There
might be a way to configure a specific driver but I wouldn't really
know.
> I expect ego does play a part though. People *generally* don't want to
> be a little part of somebody else's project, they want to own it
> themselves or not bother at all. That's just human nature.
Very true, and when it's your own work, I guess there's nothing wrong
with wanting to take the full credit for it. I do think, though, that
the community itself would benefit far more from, say, five coders
working on one driver than for those five to come up with five separate
emulators, each of which implements various parts of different Acorn
machines to varying degrees and which become abandonware when the author
is forced to quit developing.
There could still be scope to give ppl their proper credit for their
individual contributions to a team project. There's no reason a
development site couldn't spring up around it, for example. Hell, if
it's credit that needs to be handed out, I'll be happy to host a Beeb
party when v1.0 is released. :)
> Yes, I agree, an emulator with a well-defined core, and extensibility
> and portability as a foundation of the design would seem like a good
> idea (I can't comment on how good Mess is, or how much
> overhead the MAME
> environment imposes). There are probably Windows-only emulators out
> there that already go a long way toward the extensibility side of
> things, but how tied to the Windows platform they are I don't know.
>
> Unfortunately I don't know what I could contribute - my C++
> is virtually
> non-existant, and my C (and assembler, which is less relevant here
> anyway) skills are slightly on the rusty side. I've spent a good few
> years doing server-side Java work, so could possibly help
> with a lot of
> the concepts behind the design - but presumably integration with MAME
> dictates how all of that must work anyway.
>
> Problem is, all we might end up achieving is increasing the number of
> BBC emulators to 26 :-)
>
> cheers
>
> Jules
Well, the latter at least we're safe on. As the MESS driver is already
mentioned in the list on The BBC Lives! emulator page. :)
I guess I'd be happy to try and help with co-ordination or on the web
side of things but what you'd really need for something like this to
take off are the core emulator developers to jump on-board ...
Sam.