Improvements on portability

[Dreamcast270mhz]

I know this has been discussed, but fixing the windows only dependencies so the program can either be ported to OSX and linux(X86 of course)or so the code can be better utilized by the e-uae project. Of course, the JIT should be on the back burner. The main piece of WinUAE I want on E-UAE is hard drive support, the JIT would be nice but it seems that will stay put for now.

[alexh]

Start coding now. The source is open and I'm sure that Toni would accept changes back into WinUAE if they didn't break anything.

[Toni Wilen]

You don't simply "port" features that are highly OS specific.

There is nothing to fix. (WinUAE)

Solution is very simple (see previous post too): Do it yourself or find someone who wants to do it and knows the target OS.

[pmc]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

There is nothing to fix. (WinUAE)

LOL. Superb answer.

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Solution is very simple (see previous post too): Do it yourself or find someone who wants to do it and knows the target OS.

Here here. There's far too much of this "Toni do this, Toni do that" goes on around here in my opinion.

[gilgamesh]

Yeah right, but the gap between the E-UAE and WinUAE branch is frustrating (for the Unix side). GnoStiC tried to get E-UAE up to date, and he didn't fare very well. Portability is a nice feature. (Though this does not mean that Toni has to be concerned with every possible nice feature.)

@Dreamcast: Why, there is JIT in E-UAE (for x86).

[Toni Wilen]

This is interesting when I never seen any patches or code that improves portability, I only see some twisted demands for some magical portability and especially lots of useless talk.

Remember that I refuse any kind of lowest common denominator "portability". ("switch to API called <some crossplatform library> because it is more portable", perhaps it is more portable but they usually lack all nice features..)

[Dreamcast270mhz]

Originally Posted by gilgamesh

Yeah right, but the gap between the E-UAE and WinUAE branch is frustrating (for the Unix side). GnoStiC tried to get E-UAE up to date, and he didn't fare very well. Portability is a nice feature. (Though this does not mean that Toni has to be concerned with every possible nice feature.)

@Dreamcast: Why, there is JIT in E-UAE (for x86).

I have never used x86 e-uae i assumed since ppc e-uae doesn't have JIT then x86 didn't either.

@Toni
I'm not the master behind WinUAE, I've used your program many times on windows, but when I switch to my linux and mac boxes it is frustrating to grapple with e-uae. I have begun to think about coding and maybe I will, but believe me I'm far from being able to code an emulator, lots and lots of work to code even a 6502 JIT. I can understand from a devs view it may seem users are asking for magic when they want a new feature when it really takes many nights of headaches, asprin and frustration, but its equally frustrating when users of Mac OS and Linux for PPC are left out because it seems as if windows is only relevant.

[Zetr0]

@dreamy

Its a bit harsh to blame a windows program developer for using dependencies - Everything is open-source so the lack of anything "as decent" as WinUAE on other Operating systems is down to that community not Toni.

MacOS and Linux have their own communities, if there are no developers to take-up the torch then realistically how can you expect Toni to?

Personally I found E-UAE very useable and after I got into its setup I was quite taken by it - its grass roots compared to WinUAE, but still very highly useable =D

[pmc]

Originally Posted by Zetr0

Everything is open-source so the lack of anything "as decent" as WinUAE on other Operating systems is down to that community not Toni.

I couldn't agree more Zetr0.

[gilgamesh]

Oh come on everybody. WinUAE is a cool program, Toni does splendid work, and I don't understand how we get into such predicaments. This section is called wishlist. Wishing to have cool features like cycle exactness on other platforms is not an affront to anyone.

If Toni says: "Fine, but don't bother me with this!" then … well, then someone will ask again anyway.
(Maybe, some ReadMeFirst to this section for things that are rejected or out of question?)

As to patches, how? I had the idea of adding cmake files (for portability etc) and made it run with nmake. Probably not a good idea, and nobody seems even mildly interested, so I won't look into it any further. Same thing with C99 compliance. Is anybody actually interested? Hard to tell. Probably not.

[pmc]

Originally Posted by gilgamesh

Wishing to have cool features like cycle exactness on other platforms is not an affront to anyone.

No, you're right - I completely agree. I didn't mean to suggest that people were trying deliberately in some way to be out of order to Toni by requesting features. Requesting additional features to UAE is entirely appropriate in my opinion.

What I do think's a bit unfair though is to ask Toni for features of WinUAE to be added to ports of UAE that run on other operating systems cos that's not what he does or is interested in doing.

Originally Posted by gilgamesh

This section is called wishlist.

Again, I completely agree. There is a big difference between saying "oh I wish that..." and almost demanding "come on why hasn't this been done yet..." is all I meant.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by pmc

What I do think's a bit unfair though is to ask Toni for features of WinUAE to be added to ports of UAE that run on other operating systems cos that's not what he does or is interested in doing.

Spot on pmc
The source for WinUAE is available, so any Linux or Mac post can just borrow the features (if they aren't Windows specific that is). Anyway, all the best in finding a new maintainer for eUAE.