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View Full Version : My Big Fat Wish List - To Keep Tony Busy (for a while !)


kfasheldon
15 April 2007, 23:21
First a big thanks Tony for all you hard work on WinUAE, and wishes for much more to come.

Some dreams now, some silly/pointless and some interesting ideas I think.

Official Add On Board Emulation,

A2060 - Arcnet A2065 - Ethernet
(emulate basic hardware interface allowing driver disks to work - translate to built in networking - possible ?? - pointless yea!)

A2091 - A2000HD ScSI - pointless I know but still

Amber Deiterlace A3000 Chip or A2320 A2000 Zoro board

A4091 Fat ScSI - yeah for fun - pointless

"Ariadne" - Ethernet (OK Pointless) Extra Parrell Port - interesting ?

Emplant Zoro Rom Board - for emulatulation of ST and MAC - should not be too hard as I guess it just maps roms to an address. (Also adds 2 more serial ports - Interesting and 2 x ScSI - pointless) but it does need some MMU emulation at 68040 level so Toni here is an excuse to add the ever useless MMU emulation - as that ST emulator has 68040 MMU emulation this should not prove to hard and that ST emu is not so slow !

MultiFaceCard III - 1x Parell and 2x Serial - Nice

Other RTG Boards - Cybergraphics, Retana 24 and those sill DC-HAM or whatever external 24bit add ons ?? - Could be nice - but how hard !

Sidecar / Bridgeboard 8086 and 80286 2nd CPU - PC on a window anyone ! - Could this be kinda faked with a mod of DosBox, Qemu or simular into a window on the Amiga Side ?? I dunno but sound nice idea and silly too. Not sure how pointless as it woudl be OK for playing Old PC games ??

Genlock > Web Cam / PC-TV Card overlays ?? Interesting and could also be usefull

AND MY SILLIEST WISH - Power PC Card emulation - WarpUP / Morph
(As seen as that MAC emu used the UAE cpu emu can't we steal the Power PC from his Power PC emu ??) - Phase 5 boards ??? - OS4 anyone (viable) ???

IDE Partition support - not just Whole drive - is this possible ?

USB Board support ??

PCMCIA - direct support would be good -easy trasfer of big files to real amiga via Flash cards anyone !

Interface IDEA - Floppy Selection Buttons when in window - look at AppleWIN for the kinda thing I'm thinging, with magic mouse this would be nice, just move to edge of screen and click on button to change disk, DF0-DF4 listed and maybe say 4-6 Preset disks - just click the button to put in DF0: - better than the F12 options and cleaner than the quick disk option.

Rollback - history on drives - IE Restore points ??? - Last Success full boot!

Extra Default speed settings - A3000, A4000-30, A4000-40

Capture patched Kickstart option, so we can boot a fully patch install (SetPatch and others etc) and capture the patched Kickstart - then remove patches from boot sequence but of course still have a fully patched system.

Multiscreen Amiga, RTG screen 1 and Amiga Chipset Screen 2 - do-able ?

Amiga on Windows Desktop - for vista just to make that dreamscene look better ?

Echo others and Toni with -
Sound Sampler Support
Fuzzy Tv SUpport
Cheat engine / Trainer

Fully Scalable windowed output ?

Fully networked dual Amiga emulation (2x WinUAE networked on one PC)
(for Lightwave ??)

JIT 68020/10/00 - Why is it not so ?

Dragonball CPU Emulation board

Direct Floppy support - IE DF0: = A: (is that not there ??) OK only FAT support would likly work but the Amiga can read these and dont see that matters also - direct amiga simulated floppy - emulate as much as can be done, the disks would only be usable on WinUAE but so what.

Directory floppy emulation as Hard Disk Folder but for floppy

Toaster Emulation

Copy flooppy to ram buffer option - IE on launch a number of floppy images would be loaded into PC memory and attached to fast switch keyboard shortcuts alowing very fast multi disk gaming ?

Intergrated WHLoad support ??

User plugin support - software extras or hardware emu extras
Hardware - plugin spec for Zoro Card Emulation - Interesting Idea
(needs emulation of external ZoroBus and CPU Bus ??????? maybee poss)
Software - expose in a stadard way usfull internal workings.
I don't know what would come via this route but you never know all those people with ideas and skill ? A standard interface to expand WinUAE could prove good and usefull to the comunity. Any real good plugins could be addapted to the main code easily then.

(IE: A CPU Card plugin for Power PC - could be merged to main code once stable and fast enough to work well ??)

Advanced Cutomize Settings Page - change anything that can poss be changed so you can totaly screw up the emu - no support at all on this option and a big fat warning page shoudl precede it.

Oh well that will do
Keep Up the Fab work Tony

Karl

Toni Wilen
16 April 2007, 11:26
A2060 - Arcnet A2065 - Ethernet

"Someday"

If someone tells how to create virtual NIC in Windows (like VirtualPC or VMWare does). This can't be done with winsock.

And emulated card will be most likely NE2000 compatible PCMCIA, easy to emulate, very documented.


(emulate basic hardware interface allowing driver disks to work - translate to built in networking - possible ?? - pointless yea!)

There is no basic hardware inteface. (except autoconfig but it is perhaps 1% of required hardware)


A2091 - A2000HD ScSI - pointless I know but still

A590/A2091 SCSI HD, "someday".


Amber Deiterlace A3000 Chip or A2320 A2000 Zoro board


Huh? There is already "deinterlacer".


A4091 Fat ScSI - yeah for fun - pointless


Unlikely


Extra Parrell Port - interesting ?

No. PC parallel port limitations and parallel ports are disappearing quickly.


Emplant Zoro Rom Board!

No, and MMU and JIT is still 100% incompatible. Implementing MMU without JIT would only result in stupid comments about it being too slow.


MultiFaceCard III - 1x Parell and 2x Serial - Nice

Pointless. There is already uaeserial.device.


Other RTG Boards - Cybergraphics, Retana 24 and those sill DC-HAM or whatever external 24bit add ons ?? - Could be nice - but how hard !


If someone is interested, not me.


Sidecar / Bridgeboard 8086 and 80286 2nd CPU - PC on a window anyone ! - Could this be kinda faked with a mod of DosBox, Qemu or simular into a window on the Amiga Side ?? I dunno but sound nice idea and silly too. Not sure how pointless as it woudl be OK for playing Old PC games ??

Pointless and stupid.


Genlock > Web Cam / PC-TV Card overlays ?? Interesting and could also be usefull

I don't agree.


AND MY SILLIEST WISH - Power PC Card emulation - WarpUP / Morph
(As seen as that MAC emu used the UAE cpu emu can't we steal the Power PC from his Power PC emu ??) - Phase 5 boards ??? - OS4 anyone (viable) ???


Go away.


IDE Partition support - not just Whole drive - is this possible ?


Huh? Impossible.


USB Board support ??


No. Direct USB access under Windows is impossible. (or would conflict with everything)


PCMCIA - direct support would be good -easy trasfer of big files to real amiga via Flash cards anyone !


Someday. But why not mount it as a harddrive (uaehf.device)?


Interface IDEA - Floppy Selection Buttons when in window - look at AppleWIN for the kinda thing I'm thinging, with magic mouse this would be nice, just move to edge of screen and click on button to change disk, DF0-DF4 listed and maybe say 4-6 Preset disks - just click the button to put in DF0: - better than the F12 options and cleaner than the quick disk option.


Try left/right clicking on floppy leds, power led etc...


Rollback - history on drives - IE Restore points ??? - Last Success full boot!


Too complex.


Extra Default speed settings - A3000, A4000-30, A4000-40


Not possible with JIT. Explained 10x already.


Capture patched Kickstart option, so we can boot a fully patch install (SetPatch and others etc) and capture the patched Kickstart - then remove patches from boot sequence but of course still have a fully patched system.


Use already available ROM patch utilities to create your own KS ROM/image.


Multiscreen Amiga, RTG screen 1 and Amiga Chipset Screen 2 - do-able ?


Possible but why?


Amiga on Windows Desktop - for vista just to make that dreamscene look better ?

There is borderless windowed mode already (need manual config option)


Fully Scalable windowed output ?

What do you mean?


Fully networked dual Amiga emulation (2x WinUAE networked on one PC)
(for Lightwave ??)

Just run two WinUAE instances?


JIT 68020/10/00 - Why is it not so ?

68020 is supported. 24-bit 68020 is not (68ec020). Why? Program requiring 68000 would be most likely incompatible with JIT, 68000 or not..


Dragonball CPU Emulation board


No comments.

Direct Floppy support - IE DF0: = A: (is that not there ??) OK only FAT support would likly work but the Amiga can read these and dont see that matters also - direct amiga simulated floppy - emulate as much as can be done, the disks would only be usable on WinUAE but so what.

Stupid

Directory floppy emulation as Hard Disk Folder but for floppy

wtf?

Toaster Emulation

..

Copy flooppy to ram buffer option - IE on launch a number of floppy images would be loaded into PC memory and attached to fast switch keyboard shortcuts alowing very fast multi disk gaming ?

Eh? What has buffering to do with it? Disk Swapper already has shortcuts.

Intergrated WHLoad support ??

Whats the point?

User plugin support

No. If someone else wants to do but it would not stay stable and would also make some optimization tricks impossible. No.


(IE: A CPU Card plugin for Power PC - could be merged to main code once stable and fast enough to work well ??)

NO. NEVER. (and see above)

Advanced Cutomize Settings Page - change anything that can poss be changed so you can totaly screw up the emu - no support at all on this option and a big fat warning page shoudl precede it.

Use debugger or source :)

Chain
16 April 2007, 11:36
what is he smokin?

keropi
16 April 2007, 12:08
I don't agree.
Go away.
No comments.
Stupid.
wtf?
Whats the point?
NO. NEVER. (and see above)


ROFL :lol :lol :lol

kfasheldon
17 April 2007, 01:59
Thanks for the time Tony, hope you didn't mind the silly ideas.

Hey I said they was silly and stupid, just throwing out ideas, something might grow. As it is a awesome emulator already it don't help to have a wish list.

USB Support is offered with things like VMWare in some Pseduo way so its kinda do-able.

Webcam/TV Card to Genlock I still think would be nice, use some nice Titling software to overlay and output from TV out on PC just like the old days - pointless today in the digital world I know.

Don't see why a PowerPC cpu card can't be emulated, as seen as Sheepshaver is a PowerPC Mac emulator and its not too slow.

Also MMU I know you feel people would complain about it being slow and have had this concern for a while, but newer pc's is much faster than when that argument started and I am sure your could only enable it with a speed spec check or very big fat warning, Have your tried ARAnyM with MMU its not slow at all and I have a clapped out P4 2.8 with 512Mb - I understand your comments about usefulness and the feedback you would get from idiots - but I really feel many of WinUAE's fans are a bit older and wiser now, maybe an Advanced Version - only available from this board and see how it is received.

This is a time I really wish I could code as I would love to help with some silly ideas and things.

Keep up the brilliant good work Tony - I really enjoy the open and flexible way the program works and is developed.

Karl

Zetr0
17 April 2007, 03:00
@kfasheldon

I thought some of our ideas where pretty cool :)

especially the plugin idea.. not to sure how one would implement it other than to have like an official WinUAE distro of plugins that have been tested and re-tested, having a council of members vetting plugin submissions.

I would like to see themes / skins, some for advanced or simple drag'n'drop an amiga / component would be cool! even if a little pointless LOL

Lol i do belive you caught tony on a bad day with all the requests LOL but hey... he wants to bring out more rapid versions, its best to give him somthing to think about once he has it all perfect :D

*not going to mention NOT 060 emu... i am not NOT mentioning it (hehe)*

meh... the world needs more thinkers / do-ers.... and then some guns to kill all the poloticians... the lawyers wont like that so we kill them too.... except CFOU he's working for us... on the inside :D (kinda like the marquis!)

Toni Wilen
17 April 2007, 08:34
I didn't have a bad day. You are taking me too seriously. I replied my opinions, nothing else.

Plugins are big no. Don't try to argue if you don't know UAE internals well enough. It would only make developing even more hard because it will limit source level flexibility (have to keep compatibility) and it would also be huge support problem.

MMU: I checked Aranym's MMU, it appears to be quite nicely done (but not JIT compatible either) and should be easily merged because its CPU emulator is based on UAE emulation. But WHY? Linux is stupid answer. Virtual memory is stupid answer. Enforcer has a replacement.

USB: Ok, I guess they have full USB stack emulation.. Hard work..

"Partition" IDE: I was stupid, of course this is possible and it will be implemented soon.. (of course possible modifications done to "virtual" RDB area will be lost after reboot and using partitioning utilities can do something unexpected but it is not my problem..)

PPC: Please, STOP. No technical reasons here. I have said this too many times already: NO PPC. NEVER. Over my dead body. Repeating again: UAE is "CLASSIC" AMIGA EMULATOR. I have never had a PPC Amiga, I never wanted a PPC Amiga, I know nothing about PPC CPUs (and I don't want to know), "Classic" 680x0-based Amigas are the only real Amigas. You can do your own PPC fork if you want.

Request: please, no PPC yes/no discussion in this thread. Thanks.

keropi
17 April 2007, 08:51
to add to the no-ppc-emu points, on a classic amiga the ppc is just used to do _some_ hard work , like image decoding, mp3 playing, etc... well the emulated 68k cpu of winuae can do that way faster than a real cs-ppc...

Toni Wilen
18 April 2007, 18:08
[aranym mmu status report]

I took a closer look. There is "interesting" try/longjmp/catch trick (it is C++ source) in MMU exception handling and I don't know how to rewrite that part. yet...

btw, aranym also appears to have updated uae fpu code. There is even some bug fix comments from 1999 but most of the bugs are still in current uae fpu...

thor
18 April 2007, 18:36
If you want to look at try/catch for plain C, you can use http://cexcept.sourceforge.net/ and the other links there, if it can't be rewritten another way.

For Toni only: Had no time/was away so my coding hasn't progressed, will continue on weekend. Good thing: I fetched my freezer cartridges, so if you're interested, mail me.

Awesome progress on WinUAE btw. :bowdown

kfasheldon
18 April 2007, 18:41
Cheers Tony,

PPC= No Ok Just a thought, but true the speed is so good with KIT it would have no point and also its not a real Amiga then, I'm with you on this !!

MMU and FPU = glad you've found some useful stuff in Aranym code, the only real reason for MMU is completeness, Winuae is so gooood now that the small items it lacks are all anyone can focus on and this MMU has been a focus for so long I really am surprised its never been done just for the sake of it, but as these guys have done the hard work well it seems it might as well be mered into the real thing and hey we can start teh Amiga - ST wars again from the old days, he he, no seriously just for completeness and fun realy.

OK USB could take a looong time - but one day you might just be at that level of comfort with Windows Programing that you just sit one weekend and add real USB Stack, and who knows what other stacks for something to do. Hey wish I could do half what you do - I am trying to learn but really anything more than good old Basic just don't stick in me head.

Keep up the great work and keep moving forward this wonderful Emu.

.. oh and the Partition thing is realy so I can keep a complete partition as an Amiga drive - easy to access and out of the way from my PC stuff that always gets in a mess.

Thanks again Tony

kfasheldon
18 April 2007, 18:47
Oh and Tony I did not think you were having a bad day at all - just your opinion I appreciate that fact you bothered to read and took the time to reply - honest as I can't code I realy can't argue for any addons, features just throw out ideas.

I can just about follow the code a little when I read it though so and do understand the tech stuff well - (dont ask why I can't code I just cant get it to stick.) - so I know how hard some thing would be and I understand your reasoning on many things now and in the past.

Cheers

Sune Salminen
18 April 2007, 19:08
About the Virtual Networking Device - Doesn't Basilisk II have something like this? It comes with a Network driver that you have to install in Windows.

I'm not sure if it's the same thing that the OP was talking about.

Marcuz
18 April 2007, 20:02
I prefer not to enter in a discussion i pretty much don't understand anything of, i just wanted to add that i've tryed aranym some years ago and, any comparison aside, as unapplicable, i was quite impressed by the content creation speed of the GUI and the environment.

kfasheldon
19 April 2007, 16:09
Tony, just a thought on the MMU, as we now have IDE hardware emulation, if you add MMU then Linux would be viable, it would be interesting to see how it fares with comparison to native linux on a virtual machine, most pc vm's have extreamly high overhead, esp on Vista, try Virtual PC 2007 for example on 512Mb PC it wont allow you to set Ram for vm, defaults to 4Mb on launch but shows 0 on option screen, Qemu, Bor etc are awkward to use and so running Linux on Ami would be a cool option, plus it might just spark some development too, 68K is also way easier also the Amiga hardware nicer even under Linux this would still be so - Not needed but a cool idea.

Ultron
19 April 2007, 17:25
If you're using WinUAE you're using a PC, if you're using a PC you can use Linux, what's the point?

If you want to try Linux there are Live distributions, in CD, Floppy and DVD. Even DVD-RWs.

Toni Wilen
19 April 2007, 21:23
Linux under UAE: "go away"+"stupid"+"pointless"+"wtf"

Seriously, no MMU and FPU changes until 1.4.2 has been released.

kfasheldon
20 April 2007, 17:59
Hey Tony no rush, MMU & The FPU Fixes can come in time - It would most def be better to wait and have them done right that rushed, messed up and such. So take your time Tony, play with the code, sort out understanding in new areas and make the MMU and FPU better than others. 1.4.2 has zillions of extra features anyway, Like the IDE stuff nice !! Anyway you have enough to play with Cheers, Karl

Calgor
01 May 2007, 12:06
@Toni Wilen
MMU: I checked Aranym's MMU, it appears to be quite nicely done (but not JIT compatible either) and should be easily merged because its CPU emulator is based on UAE emulation. But WHY? Linux is stupid answer. Virtual memory is stupid answer. Enforcer has a replacement.

What is the enforcer replacement? I did a search on Aminet:

http://aminet.net/search?query=enforcer

To reveal 3 tools claiming to be enforcer-like without mmu:
aguard01.lha
apurify_v1.5.lha
MemSniff.lha

Although as it says in memsniff readme it doesn't provide the full functionality of enforcer without mmu. :) It can't protect memory *already* allocated without mmu.

Is this what you meant by the enforcer replacement, or is there some other tool? Someone was asking who uses the non-windows UAE. I would like to know as it might be useful for programming in WinUAE, as I can't use Enforcer :)

kfasheldon
04 May 2007, 05:03
This would be the built in debugger in WinUAE, no real need for enforcer at all as it works real well (or so I am told)

MMU Emulation would really be for ;

a) Freaks
b) Nutters
c) Both
d) Fun
e) Authenticity and Completeness
f) Because there has been so many requests for many years
g) Because its possible

Nice work Tony !

Calgor
04 May 2007, 08:19
ok thanks, i might learn how to try and use it. I have never used debuggers much before, as I can always seem to find the bugs myself in quick enough time.

Is there some guide somewhere?

Toni Wilen
04 May 2007, 08:33
@Toni Wilen


What is the enforcer replacement? I did a search on Aminet:


Because it is WinUAE-specific, it comes with WinUAE, check "Amiga Programs" directory.