AOS 4.1 on Windows : Why using classic version

[ccapublic]

Stupid (?) question that comes to my mind : OS 4.1 really has no dependency left on original Amiga hw... it does not even use real 68k to run old apps but emulates it instead (!!). it even requires uae to run old games. So pretty much its NOT Amiga any more.

So I'm curious : why installing classic version, which has many limitations, instead of any of the other versions ? Of course, even though I guess WinUAE could be updated to support this mode of operation, it would really make it move (even further) away from an Amiga Hw emulator to become more a PPC Mac hw emulator (which I guess is not acceptable for Toni)...

But would it be technically easily feasible and would it actually make os41 more efficient and usable ?

Your thoughts ?

[Romanujan]

Probably because this is even more not-Amiga I suppose it would be easier to adapt the QEMU and totally forget about the UAE...

[ccapublic]

Originally Posted by Romanujan

Probably because this is even more not-Amiga I suppose it would be easier to adapt the QEMU and totally forget about the UAE...

For some, so called "modern Amigas" are NOT Amiga at all. For some they are part of the story and deserve interest even if they lost this magic hw/os symbiosis and innovation...

But for sure, such an emulator would be no more Amiga emulator... Still I am under *the impression* there are plenty of smart things in winuae (graphics rendering, hardisks management, native extensions... for example) that are really well designed and efficient that may make it a better candidate as a basis than qemu, sheepshaver,... Making it emulate a standard ppc machine would probably be a big "winuae spirit" issue, but probably not a big technical deal... Plus it could be declared emulating all generations of Amiga, from the very first A1ks to the last-less-Amiga ones

I did not play with hundreds of emulators but WinUAE is imho the most complete, efficient, flexible, impressive (add more superlatives here) I ever got to see...

[Toni Wilen]

OS 4.1 really has no dependency left on original Amiga hw

Of course it has. Not much but Amiga mainboard still works as a IO/interrupt controller

I have replied to this topic few times already: Just take QEMU, hack it until it starts to work. It should not be too difficult.

I won't touch it: It has absolute nothing to do with Amiga hardware, it is more or less a crap/obsolete PC mainboard with a PPC CPU. Uninteresting and boring.

[ccapublic]

A

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Of course it has. Not much but Amiga mainboard still works as a IO/interrupt controller

I have replied to this topic few times already: Just take QEMU, hack it until it starts to work. It should not be too difficult.

I won't touch it: It has absolute nothing to do with Amiga hardware, it is more or less a crap/obsolete PC mainboard with a PPC CPU. Uninteresting and boring.

As stated above, it was obvious you would reply this if asked, and I actually did not exactly ask I understand that emulating amiga hw was probably fun. Emulating a basic / not that smart / pretty obsolete architecture would not.

That being said there are plenty of features you swore you'd never implement which are now there or about to be there. ppc and os41 extensions are probably the most famous ones as IMHO they have 95% nothing to do with amiga, still you implemented them

So who knows ? Maybe one day you'll decide that this would complete winue by supporting """modern""" amiga hw even if it is not a challenge nor initial winuae spirit...

[Toni Wilen]

Originally Posted by ccapublic

That being said there are plenty of features you swore you'd never implement which are now there or about to be there. ppc and os41 extensions are probably the most famous ones as IMHO they have 95% nothing to do with amiga, still you implemented them

You are wrong. There is nothing OS4 or PPC only specific here (except the QEMU emulator which already existed). All features are usable in OS3, even new "OS4 UAE" extension support works in OS3 and can be useful with programs that use MMU, for example virtual memory or debugging programs.

I still don't do OS4 only features. All features must be usable with OS3 or older too.

So who knows ? Maybe one day you'll decide that this would complete winue by supporting """modern""" amiga hw even if it is not a challenge nor initial winuae spirit...

No. PPC emulation was quite simple, just bolt some black box PPC emulator and it is done. There was no need for me to know how PPC works (except basics). 90% of PPC support was interface and CSPPC features.

Moving to totally unknown emulation "platform" (qemu) would mean starting from the beginning. Everything would be totally unfamiliar to me vs UAE which I know inside out.

[ccapublic]

You are wrong.

This one too was expected

The important thing is not me being right or wrong though, but that what was once a big and definitive NO is now real (even if because context has changed or whatever reason).

[Toni Wilen]

You are still wrong

You seriously expect me to drop everything and start from scratch with some boring platform I have no knowledge at all?

It is totally different to bolt some black box expansion to already existing emulator that I fully know.

---

--

-

Hmm.. It probably would be easier and faster to just bolt whole PC platform chips to UAE (after all, there is already parts of dosbox included, used by PC bridgeboard emulation) than to use QEMU as is

[ccapublic]

Toni, I didn't ask for anything, and I am not expecting anything. I just asked if it was technically feasible and then said "who knows, maybe one day". That's all. Please allow me to IMAGINE, whether I'm right or wrong !

PS: I use winuae and amikit (so 68k 3.x) from time to time because amiga was my first serious machine, when I was still a teenager, fond of electronics and computing (started on a 6809 in something like 1984), and obviously loved it (as well for playing, surfing the net or programing). It was great because at that time no other machine was so smartly designed, with such tight integration of innovative hw and os, with an amazing community of devs. Winuae and amikit make me "live this period again". So you know, 4.x, apart from (strong) curiosity, I totally don't care. If I did, I would simply buy the HW.

[AnnaWu]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

I still don't do OS4 only features. All features must be usable with OS3 or older too.

Thank you for this clear statement.

[ccapublic]

Originally Posted by AnnaWu

Thank you for this clear statement.

We have a French popular expression for these.