Executor 2.0/executorv2.0.iso/pc/linux/extra/docs/maillist/text/archive.95/text1485.txt

Text File | 1996-04-02 | 3.5 KB | 69 lines

>>>>> "Jonathan" == Jonathan Wahlstrüm <[e-mail]> writes:

    Jonathan> Does anyone know any Amiga emulator that actually works
    Jonathan> (as good or almost as good as executor). I've tried two
    Jonathan> emulators but they really didn't run anything.

I do not believe that there is such an emulator, and I pay fairly
close attention to the world of emulation.  See below.

    Jonathan> P.S. There isn't any reason why Mac should be easier to
    Jonathan> emulate than the Amiga, is there?

Emulating the Mac is non-trivial.  So far, the only applications that
emulate a Mac on a machine without a 68k processor are: Liken, MAE and
Executor.  Both Liken and MAE *only* work on "big-endian" processors,
leaving Executor as the *only* Mac emulator that can run on a PC
(hardware solutions ignored).  Furthermore, both Liken and MAE require
system software from Apple.  Executor once again is the *only*
application that allows many Mac applications to run in the total
absence of Apple software.

ARDI has been working on Executor for almost nine years.  Liken isn't
made anymore and MAE is produced by Apple themselves.  There were two
other companies that worked on Mac emulation: Quorum and NuTek; they
both had severe compatibility problems and Quorum had severe
performance problems as well.  NuTek was a hardware solution, but even
it had performance problems, since it was based on the 68030.  Quorum
and NewTek both had much more funding than ARDI did, yet they still
failed.

To do a decent Amiga emulator would require a substantial amount of
manpower.  If companies (other than ARDI, and it remains to be seen
for ARDI) can't make money making a *Macintosh* emulator, there is no
reason for the business world to believe that a company could make
money by making an Amiga emulator.  This translates into no funding.
Without funding, it's very unlikely that anyone will make an Amiga
emulator -- doing so simply requires too much work.

In comp.emulators.misc this topic comes up frequently.  People there
prattle on about how it is impossible to make an Amiga emulator
because of all the hardware emulation that would have to be done.  It
is true that doing emulation of various other hardware components
other than the CPU would require more work, but it wouldn't make it
impossible, or even make it as hard as writing Executor was (if you
assume that you can license the OS side of things).  Remember,
Executor's synthetic CPU *is* an emulation of hardware, in fact it's
an emulation of very complex hardware, a mc68ec040, and yet compared
to the rest of Executor, very little time was spent creating
Executor's synthetic CPU.

So, although there are technical challenges to writing an Amiga
emulator, the largest obstacle isn't technical, per-se, but is
economic.  BTW, some people are bound to want to tell me that an Amiga
emulator would make tons of money.  I've heard it before, but I'm not
going to put nine years of *my* life into such a scheme; if anyone is
really convinced that there's a market for such a thing, go ahead,
prepare a business plan and seek funding; please don't let me stand in
your way, but please also don't waste my time telling me about it.  In
fact, I have gone out of my way to write this letter with enough
details to hopefully prevent a discussion from starting on this list
and alienating this list's recipients.  Please do *not* continue this
discussion on this mailing list.  Take it to comp.emulators.misc if
you're tempted to reply.

    --Cliff
    [e-mail]