Decisions in MAC emulation...

[Retro1234]

JimDrew = Author of Emplant and Fusion

Mistake I always thought he was the Author of A-max but that's wrong just to be clear what emulators did Jim Write?

[JimDrew]

Emulations I wrote all or part of:

EMPLANT's Mac emulation & e586DX, MacLite, Mac1200, FUSION, iFUSION, PCx, Apple2, ACE, FUSION-PC.

[Pheonix]

Do you happen to know where (besides eBay,) I can get Fusion or PCx? I can use the Demo version for testing, but I'll want to get the full version if I like how it works. All the stores that are linked to for getting either of these no longer have them in their list.

One page I went to for Fusion lists it as "Free closed source," now. But only has the PC DOS version, so the "Free" part could be just for that port. I did find quite a few questionable sources for it, but (unless it really has gone Free,) I would rather stay above board. If it has gone free, anyone know a reputable source for the last version?

[Wayne123]

Originally Posted by amiman99

MAC emulation runs full speed on Amiga using dedicated HD or at least SFS or PFS, never use FFS, it's too slow.
For 040 CPU, try to use Quadra ROM.
Fusion and Shapeshifer work great.

I decided to try out my Buddha 20th Anniversary edition board and start from scratch setting up my Amiga, didn't work with my GVP 040 accelerator in but I was able to setup a hard drive with the accelerator removed.

ShapeShifter is working much faster now running on a PFS partition, on a real IDE hard drive, also found out that the Buddha card works much better than using a SCSI2SD board on my GVP 040 accelerators SCSI.

Thanks for the help.

[Pheonix]

Finally got an answer back from H&P concerning Fusion & PCx (all the buy searches lead me there eventually.) Their response: "We imported it from the UK - I don’t remember the companies name." So, that's my current dead end on getting that software. Looks like I'm stuck with the Emplant software itself. Prices people ask for on eBay has reached the point that I rarely even look any more.

I'll try Shapeshifter any way, but IIRC PC-Task is commercial as well, and haven't had much luck finding that either. Just knowing the the owner of the IP so I could contact them would be sufficient (for all of it.)

[drHirudo]

Originally Posted by Pheonix

I'll try Shapeshifter any way, but IIRC PC-Task is commercial as well, and haven't had much luck finding that either. Just knowing the the owner of the IP so I could contact them would be sufficient (for all of it.)

Shapeshifter and PC-Task have nothing in common. One is Mac the other is PC emulator.

PC-Task was released for free some time ago - check this EAB thread

[Pheonix]

Shapeshifter instead of Fusion

PC-Task instead of PCx

I was not trying to say PC-Task for Mac emulation. I was commenting that I couldn't find a confirmed legal copy of Fusion or PCx, so I would need to stick with the Emplant software, or switch to the no longer commercial but dousn't use the hardware emulators. If I have to go that route, might as well pull the Emplant card back out again. I only put it in there for the HW boost to emulation.

[Pheonix]

Well, giving Fusion a try in emulation, and find I cannot test the Emplant SCSI. WinUAE supports it now, but I guess even with SCSI only, you still need the autoboot ROM (tried just using the empscsi.device file, didn't work.) Cant get it to show up in HDD Toolbox. Which could turn out to be moot (in emulation at least,) as I can't get Fusion to detect a hard drive through SCSI emulation regardless of the board I chose (in emulation at least.) It only works if I mount the partition in OS 3.9 then select the drive in Fusion. Going to have to do it on my physical HW I guess. Going to rush together a quick CD with a less than complete install (along with an floppy,) and install the OS on my system and try it out there.

Also going to have to track down better HFS file system handlers, I guess. Half the time directories show up as just one big file, and other files don't show up at all. Going to have to see how Shapeshifter handles copying files back & forth next.

Aside from all that, Fusion seems fairly nice. Going to try the PCx demo next, then Shapeshifter & PC-Task. I was greatly disappointed with Janus an my 2286 Bridgeboard. Hopefully either PCx or PC-Task will be more acceptable. Emulating an old 4-14 Mhz CGA system is all I really need Though, I'd like it better if it handled artifacting correctly.

[JimDrew]

As you have found FUSION and PCx are not free. I sold the distribution rights to the old versions to Blittersoft. I have new versions of both FUSION and PCx that I will be selling sometime in the near future. These new versions offer new features. For FUSION that would be direct ISO support for CD emulation (you can mount an .iso image as a CD-ROM drive), new video driver support for FPGA Arcade Replay, and Vampire boards. For PCx, optimizations for the Vampire board, video modes for the Vampire board, and standard Amiga video... among some other features.

There is a video on YouTube of FUSION vs. Shapeshifter and PCx vs. PC-Task. You can see for yourself just from that video that FUSION and PCx are faster than Shapeshifter and PC-Task.

[Wayne123]

Originally Posted by JimDrew

As you have found FUSION and PCx are not free. I sold the distribution rights to the old versions to Blittersoft. I have new versions of both FUSION and PCx that I will be selling sometime in the near future. These new versions offer new features. For FUSION that would be direct ISO support for CD emulation (you can mount an .iso image as a CD-ROM drive), new video driver support for FPGA Arcade Replay, and Vampire boards. For PCx, optimizations for the Vampire board, video modes for the Vampire board, and standard Amiga video... among some other features.

There is a video on YouTube of FUSION vs. Shapeshifter and PCx vs. PC-Task. You can see for yourself just from that video that FUSION and PCx are faster than Shapeshifter and PC-Task.

Will the new version work well on a stock FPGA Arcade Replay or will it need the 060 board?

What is a good video card to use on a A2000 with Fusion? I have ShapeShifter working pretty well in B&W on my A2000 but I like supporting people who make new stuff better.

Thanks

[JimDrew]

When the last couple of 020+ instructions are completed, you will be able to use Mac emulation on the Replay's soft core. Of course the 060 (clocked at 80Mhz-135MHz) will be really fast, faster than the Vampire is, especially the FPU!

You can use any video card with FUSION. I basically supported everything. The fastest cards are the Cybervision64 and PicassoIV.

[Pheonix]

I'm about to test out ShapeShifter (Basilisk II,) but I have to say, Other than the limited systems emulated, I really like Fusion Officially, I borrowed a friends Fusion since his Amiga is in pieces to test out... I'll stick to that story like glue, sorry. It has now been completely wiped from my system & I deleted to HDF file I had installed it on. PCx, of course has the Demo I can try out

I did find a place that seems to still sell both Fusion & PCx (50 British pounds each, and I don't know if they'll ship to the US or not.) So, if I decide to go that route, I have a source, I hope. Would much rather get the new ones when you finish (any E.T.A. on that??)

A few issues with Fusion, that I'm assuming are emulator related, and hopefully work right on my physical system:

1) Could not get any OS to detect the drive when I used the direct SCSI connect instead of mounting the partition in the Amiga's OS. Could not get the Emplant SCSI to detect even in the Amiga OS (empscsi.device.) So, I'm not counting that. When I'm ready to test on my physical system, I can give this further testing.

2) Could not get any version of Disk Copy (4.02, 6.0, or 6.3.3 - the only ones I could find,) to write back to floppy images. Again, may be emulator related and not Fusion.

3) OS 7.5 caused the HDD (both hardfile & partition,) to become corrupted after a couple of boots. This could be Fusion related, emulator related, or just plain MAC OS 7.5 related. OS 7.5.3 & 7.5.5 didn't have this problem.

Again, all of that could be because I was testing in WinUAE and may not exist on my physical HW. Will find out if I test it there, which is very likely unless ShapeShifter just wow's the total crap out of me.

[Wayne123]

Originally Posted by JimDrew

When the last couple of 020+ instructions are completed, you will be able to use Mac emulation on the Replay's soft core. Of course the 060 (clocked at 80Mhz-135MHz) will be really fast, faster than the Vampire is, especially the FPU!

You can use any video card with FUSION. I basically supported everything. The fastest cards are the Cybervision64 and PicassoIV.

Thanks, sounds great. Will you be selling the 060 boards on your website anytime soon?

[Pheonix]

Well, I have to say, Shapeshifter is turning out to be disappointing It "seems" to want to let me write disks, though, which is a plus, if it will actually work. In Fusion, the option is either greyed out or produces error -17. In Shapeshifter, it crashes the computer. Again, that could be the Amiga emulation. I expect things like this when running an emulation inside another emulation.

That being said, have to use MuEVD to make it run at anything near tolerable speeds. Got it to recognize direct SCSI drives instead of having too mount a drive in Workbench first. But the method of doing that might have worked in fusion too. Going to have to see if I can borrow it again to test that So, for the MAC emulation testing, it looks like, barring something major on the physical HW, Fusion is the winner.

On to PCx & PC-Task....

[Wayne123]

Originally Posted by Pheonix

Well, I have to say, Shapeshifter is turning out to be disappointing It "seems" to want to let me write disks, though, which is a plus, if it will actually work. In Fusion, the option is either greyed out or produces error -17. In Shapeshifter, it crashes the computer. Again, that could be the Amiga emulation. I expect things like this when running an emulation inside another emulation.

That being said, have to use MuEVD to make it run at anything near tolerable speeds. Got it to recognize direct SCSI drives instead of having too mount a drive in Workbench first. But the method of doing that might have worked in fusion too. Going to have to see if I can borrow it again to test that So, for the MAC emulation testing, it looks like, barring something major on the physical HW, Fusion is the winner.

On to PCx & PC-Task....

I don't have Fusion to compare to but ShapeShifter is working well on my real hardware, A2000 with a GVP 040 board, Buddha IDE board and Microway scandoubler.

I don't have a RTG graphics card and am only running 640x400 in B&W but it is pretty fast now. The same hardfile I am using in Shapeshifter is what I use on my Windows machine running BasiliskII, it also works with Daydream Mac Emulator on my NeXT Computer.

[JimDrew]

Originally Posted by Pheonix

A few issues with Fusion, that I'm assuming are emulator related, and hopefully work right on my physical system:

1) Could not get any OS to detect the drive when I used the direct SCSI connect instead of mounting the partition in the Amiga's OS. Could not get the Emplant SCSI to detect even in the Amiga OS (empscsi.device.) So, I'm not counting that. When I'm ready to test on my physical system, I can give this further testing.

Just like any other SCSI controller, you need to setup the hard drive using the appropriate SCSI tool. You can use HDToolBox with empscsi.device

Originally Posted by Pheonix

2) Could not get any version of Disk Copy (4.02, 6.0, or 6.3.3 - the only ones I could find,) to write back to floppy images. Again, may be emulator related and not Fusion.

DiskCopy works fine. Make sure you are selecting the drive in the setup menu. Remember that you can't read or write real Mac disks in Amiga drives (they are not compatible). You can read/write in EMPLANT of AMAX formats, or Mac format if you have my AMIA device and a real Mac drive.

Originally Posted by Pheonix

3) OS 7.5 caused the HDD (both hardfile & partition,) to become corrupted after a couple of boots. This could be Fusion related, emulator related, or just plain MAC OS 7.5 related. OS 7.5.3 & 7.5.5 didn't have this problem.

Again, all of that could be because I was testing in WinUAE and may not exist on my physical HW. Will find out if I test it there, which is very likely unless ShapeShifter just wow's the total crap out of me.

Just like a real Mac, you MUST install the system software specifically for the Mac model (FUSION) you are using. You can NOT ever share hardfiles between FUSION and Shapeshifter - no matter what anyone tells you.

[Pheonix]

I thought using direct SCSI emulation - "Peripherals -> SCSI" configuration - you would use the MAC software HD Setup to partition the drive. This is one area where Shapeshifter did better than Fusion. When I set up a drive as direct SCSI emulation I could then partition & format it with the MAC software, but I can't get any drive connected to the emulated cybscsi.device to be detected on the MAC side of things at all. I can't get a drive connected to emulated emplant scsi (empscsi.device) to be detected by the Amiga, much less Fusion.

The main reason for this is that I would prefer that the MAC HDD not appear on my desktop. I could set up a script file that would automatically mount it, then later dismount it, when I want to run emulation. But I would much prefer if it was completely invisible to the Amiga except through the ICP options. May have to settle for a hardfile to get that, though.

I'm currently testing on my physical HW right now. started out just using the Emplant software as I haven't been able to purchase Fusion yet My mail to Blittersoft have all bounced. So, I cannot find a way to purchase it legally, yet (still looking.) I did discover that the Z85C3008 chip is bad on my Emplant card (according to the diagnotics,) so I have to wait until its replacement gets here to start testing it. It did do some preliminary Fusion testing (since I cannot use the Emplant SW yet,) and it seems to suffer from many of the same issues as it did in emulation.

I seem to recall that using CrossMAC, which I did purchase some time ago, and is installed, that A HD drive (which I have in my A4000,) could read/write any HD mac disk. It was the DD (800K) mac disks that I had to have special HW (AMIA or AMax) to read. Since the disk images in question are all of HD (1.44 MB,) disks, I thought they could be written in MAC format just fine.

As for the OS, I always installed the generic (for all models) versions, instead of whatever version I was emulating. It's just OS 7.5 that has this issue. 7.0.1, 7.5.3, and 7.5.5 all worked just fine without the HDD becoming corrupted after a couple of boots.

One issue I didn't mention, because I just assumed it was emulator related: If I start the emulation, then end it (Shut Down,) then later start it again (without rebooting the Amiga,) the system locks up. This is in both emulation and on my physical Amiga. But only if using an Amiga native screen mode (amirefresh for example.) Use it with an RTG card (in emulation at least,) and this no longer happens. I figure it is Chip RAM related in some way, but haven't been able to figure a fix for it.

That's all I tested before deciding to wait for the chip replacement. I'm wondering if Fusion can use a drive through the A-Max cartridge? Don't remember seeing anything like that in the setting, but I didn't really look for it either. Right now I'm doing a web search on AMIA to see if I can figure out what that is.

[JimDrew]

You can certainly use ANY type of SCSI device connected to EMPLANT's SCSI port. I used SCSI scanners, CD-ROM drives, hard drives, etc. For a Mac formatted hard drive you would need to use the proper Mac driver software for that, which is either installed on a bootable Mac partition (and loaded at boot time) or loaded through an extension to read/write a hard drive. This all functions 100% exactly like a real Macintosh because the EMPLANT board itself is basically a Mac II motherboard. It sounds to me like you don't have the proper Mac SCSI driver. You can optionally select any partition on your Amiga hard drive for use with the Mac emulation, but you will get the NDOS notification as you mentioned - however, that can be suppressed by changing the filesystem type to be anything but AmigaDOS. You can also use any SCSI device besides the EMPLANT's SCSI controller with the SCSI direct support. You just need to make sure that you have the correct SCSI device drivers (like cyberscsi.device) and SCSI ID number for the device you want to use, and also make sure that the DMA mode is selected correctly. Some controllers do not support DMA, so those would need the DMA option turned off.

If you want to use an Amiga formatted drive connected to the EMPLANT's SCSI port you can do that as well, but you need to setup the drive with HDToolBox (via empscsi.device) and create a mountlist entry for it. The EMPLANT's SCSI controller does not support auto-mounting of partitions. If your 53C80 chips shows as BAD then the hard drive controller won't work at all!

AMIA is the Amiga-to-Mac-Interface-Adapter. It is an interface that lets you plug in a real Mac floppy disk drive into the Amiga's floppy port.

The original AMAX hardware was deliberately not supported.

Issues with lockups while booting or a restart (after a successful startup) can all be attributed to using a non-FUSION installed Mac OS. I can't stress this enough... you can NOT use a Mac system installed with AMAX IV or Shapeshifter with FUSION (and vice-versa). You MUST use a brand new system installation for FUSION, with the installation type selected for "ALL MAC MODELS". FUSION is much more advanced than any other Mac emulation and takes advantage of higher-end system resources for all of the various ROMs that were used, regardless of what ROM type you have selected. 99.99999% of all problems with FUSION were due to the fact that someone was trying to use a Shapeshifter installed partition or hardfile with FUSION. This was a serious technical support nightmare for us, and when once someone with these issues finally broke down and installed the Mac OS using FUSION (and never used it with Shapeshifter - which will kill it), FUSION worked perfectly. By the way, this is the exact same behavior for real Macs too, and was a tech support nightmare for Apple as well. You could install the Mac OS on a removable media device like a Syquest cartridge. That cartridge could be booted on different Macs, but typically it will hang, crash, not shutdown, etc. because from the very first version of the Mac OS up to OS7.5.0 Apple made individual MacOS installation setups (disks) for each Mac model. This means if you installed OS7.0.1 on a Quadra 950, that installation would not work on a Quadra 900, Centris 650, Mac IIci, etc. Only that exact model Mac would work. Apple finally got smart when OS7.5.0 was released and started making what they called the "Universal System Installer" CD. That installation CD would install ALL of the system resources for ALL of the Mac models as the default option. At that point, the removable media device could be booted and used on any Mac. Same holds true for FUSION, Shapeshifter, and AMAX IV. So, if you don't have the Universal System Installer CD you need to know what model Mac your system installation disks are for and use the exact same ROM image for that machine and do the installation using that setup and don't try to use it on any other setup or it will have problems and permanently corrupt the media. However, also remember that system resources files are changed to match the exact setup (RAM, ROM, hardware, etc.) So, you still can't share system software between FUSION, Shapeshifter, or Amax IV. One last comment - the "cracked" version I have seen of FUSION 3.2 (and 3.3, which never actually existed) is not actually cracked very well, and it will randomly crash on purpose because of this.

[Pheonix]

OK, maybe it would be best if I went through the steps I followed in setting up...

I used the installer on the disk, accepting the default except main location (put it in an emulators drawer on my apps HDD.) I don't have a real mac, but I do have some ROMs (Quadra 900) which I plan to use the Emplant to dump later. For now I just found one on the web. I put that in the ROM Images directory. I stopped at this point for a reboot, but just powered down instead.

I'm going to skip testing on my Emplant card, as the bad chip makes anything done with that questionable at best. I never tested it "inside" Fusion, as I could never get it to be detected. The chip I ordered should be here by Tuesday, and I'll do more testing with it then, I hope. I'm also seriously looking into what sort of RAM chips it needs, as well as where I can get the Autoboot ROM that socket is currently empty.

I attached a 2 GB drive to my SCSI card (I only have a 2G & a 16G HDD available to me right now,) set up as device 1 (the Amiga HDD - 34 GB - is device 2 and the DVD-ROM is device 3.) Booted up my A4000 and opened HDToolBox to insure the new HDD was detected & present (also to make sure I had set the device number correctly.) I did not, at this time, install or partition the drive.

Opened up Fusion, set the RAM to 64 MB. Binary value, and it won't let me segregate the RAM. I have 128 MB on my CPU card & 16 MB on the MB. But 7 MB is used from the 128 MB, so I can't max out the RAM for the MAC emulation - oh well.

Set the Video to amirefresh. A brief pause here from WinUAE memory, to change overscan to 640x480 (I hated the scrolling MAC desktop.)

Set Internal Floppy 0 to DF1 (my HD drive,) and exclusive, and Floppy 1 to not used.

Selected the mentioned ROM image.

Set CD-Rom to cybscsi.device device 3 and SCSI Unit 0 to emulated, buffered, cybscsi.device device 1.

Set Machine to Quadra 900.

Saved the config, put the MAC OS 7.5.3 CD in the drive & started the emulation. It booted just fine Clicked on Disk Tools the Apple HD SC Setup. No detectable drives. Clicked "shut down" on the menu.

Went back into HDToolBox & "Installed" the drive, but left it unpartitioned. Same thing. Created an Amiga partition, but didn't mount it. Same. A Unix partition. Same. Changed the block size from 1024 to 512 (read that MACs only work with 512 block sizes,) for both. Same both times. Installed the CrossMAC file system on the drive and partitioned it as a MAC drive. Again, same thing. gave up and just partitioned it as an amiga drive & mounted it.

Now, I'm back in with a system drive & booted to the OS 7.5.3 CD. Used the installer on the CD, selecting "Custom" install and the "any MAC" system files leaving the "this MAC" boxes un-checked. Went through and clicked everything else except the Mobility, Printer, & Network options. Finished, and did a "restart" to boot the the HDD instead of the CD. It ended up rebooting my entire Amiga.

Loaded Fusion back up again, and it booted just fine. Opened up the CD-Rom and went to Disk Images and clicked on Disk Copy 4.0.3 - "Will not run on this machine".

"Shut Down" and used CrossMAC to format a HD MAC disk. Started fusion again, only when the control panel appeared it just locked up. LAmiga-N didn't do anything, the mouse wouldn't move, nothing. Rebooted the system manually.

Back into MAC emulation. Inserted the disk, it appeared on the desktop. Yay Clicked on Disk Copy again, and the same message.

Just to note. I forgot to mention I tried it with RAM set to Normal/Normal & no MMU with the same results both times. I'd also like to note that a 2G HDD takes "forever" to initialize with 7.5.3....

Its at this point that I've stopped testing for now. In emulation, when I enabled an RTG card, just for fun, the restart issue didn't occur. I cannot test that on my real HW without tearing apart my A2000 for its Picasso II card. I plan to get a Picasso IV or Cybervision 64/3D card for the 4000 some day, though. Also, the reset issue I'm having with my real HW didn't occur in emulation. I'm going to have to check into maybe I have a bad Fusion install. I really want to buy one... Especially the CD I've given up on on Amibay (been too long with no response.)

[Pheonix]

ACK... OK, I have to make a correction. I have been doing something wrong the entire time without meaning too. For some reason, I been setting Internal Disk 0 to DF0: instead of DF1: this entire time. I switched it to DF1: like I had intended too, and now Disk Copy 4.2 (it's 4.2 on the CD, 4.03 is the one I found somewhere else and never got to unpack.) Now opens up just fine.

I still cannot write an image to disk (it just locks up the machine.) But I tracked that down to a HW issue. I cannot write to a disk on the native Amiga side either. The drive starts to write, but just sits there and the Amiga stops responding. OK, on to another round of HW troubleshooting. Will have to pull the HD floppy from my A2000 and see if it has the same reaction.