nschultz@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Ned W. Schultz) (11/17/88)
I was a little surprised to hear from my father that he had seen a
Mac emulator for the Amiga at the World of Commodore show held in
Philadelphia. Finally tracked down the company from the show program
and discovered that it is ReadySoft, the folks who have a 64 Emulator
(and the folks marketing Dragon's Lair). I called them yesterday to
confirm this and the girl on the phone said, yes, we have an emulator
and it will ship the first week of February (1989, I am guessing). She
is sending a flyer or brochure.
So, anybody back East see this beast in action? I am curious that it
could appear so suddenly with no mention of it here. Has anyone seen
or heard performance specs? They told my dad that you would have to
supply your own Apple ROMs.
I'll post more when and if the flyer arrives. Meanwhile if anyone else
was at that show and learned something, I'd like to hear about it.
Also...did anyone there see Gold Disk's demo of Professional Draw?
Ned Schultz {csun, sdsu}!polyslo!nschultzmanes@xanth.cs.odu.edu (Mark Manes) (11/18/88)
In article <5817@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> nschultz@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Ned W. Schultz) writes: > > >I was a little surprised to hear from my father that he had seen a >Mac emulator for the Amiga at the World of Commodore show held in >Philadelphia. Finally tracked down the company from the show program I was amazed and greatly surprised, when I saw it and talked to the folks at ReadySoft at the World of Commodore >and discovered that it is ReadySoft, the folks who have a 64 Emulator >(and the folks marketing Dragon's Lair). I called them yesterday to >confirm this and the girl on the phone said, yes, we have an emulator >and it will ship the first week of February (1989, I am guessing). She >is sending a flyer or brochure. > >So, anybody back East see this beast in action? I am curious that it >could appear so suddenly with no mention of it here. Has anyone seen >or heard performance specs? They told my dad that you would have to >supply your own Apple ROMs. They demo'd throughout the show. They ran Mac Paint, Mac Draw and they said it would run Excel. It uses the interlace mode of the Amiga, or the 640x200 mode (they scroll the screen). The mac floppy disks are not readable by the emulator, however they created a work around, where you can move 227k from a mac disk to a amiga disk. They wrote a special program that with a mac and a amiga you can transfer a disk in 3 passes. The ROM chips are contained on a board that is connected to the end of your drive daisy chain. If you have one of the older externals it must be one that provides power (some did not). The emulator seemed fast, and pretty darn good. It will use 64k ROMS or 128k ROMS. How did they get around the memory problem? Well, they said that the first thing they do in a Amiga 1000 is kick-out kickstart. This provides an additional 256k, and this memory is contiquous. You would therefore have a 512k Mac. On the Amiga 500/2000 they are looking for the new custom chips to solve the problem. It appears on a Amiga 500/2000 you can only have a 256k Mac. There theory is a 256k mac is better than no mac at all :-) > >I'll post more when and if the flyer arrives. Meanwhile if anyone else >was at that show and learned something, I'd like to hear about it. >Also...did anyone there see Gold Disk's demo of Professional Draw? > I will post more as I learn more... > >Ned Schultz {csun, sdsu}!polyslo!nschultz --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark D. Manes "In Amiga We Trust" Programmer of Fortune, have compiler will travel "Only Amiga makes it Possible, but with 1 meg its hell!" ===========================================================================
dlm@druhi.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) (11/22/88)
in article <5817@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>, nschultz@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Ned W. Schultz) says: > I was a little surprised to hear from my father that he had seen a > Mac emulator for the Amiga at the World of Commodore show held in > Philadelphia. Finally tracked down the company from the show program > and discovered that it is ReadySoft, the folks who have a 64 Emulator > (and the folks marketing Dragon's Lair). I called them yesterday to > confirm this and the girl on the phone said, yes, we have an emulator > and it will ship the first week of February (1989, I am guessing). She > is sending a flyer or brochure. The ReadySoft emulator was developed by a programmer in New Zealand. He talked to several companies before deciding to use ReadySoft as his publisher. The product supports both the 64K and 128K ROMs from the Mac. The 64K ROMs are currently selling for about $25 to $50 per set (2 chips), the 128K ROMs are about $100 per set. With the 128K ROMs almost all Mac software will run, the only failures will be due to hardware differences (ie. the Mac program went directly to the Mac hardware instead of using the standard ROM routines). The biggest limitation is memory, the Mac OS doesn't support non-contiguous RAM. So on a 1000 you can have 512K Mac since the support code is loaded in the WCS. On the 500/2000 you are currently limited to 256K or so since the emulator code is loaded in the first 512K along with the "Mac's" memory. By moving the emulator code out of the first 512K you could have a 512K Mac. With the 1 meg of chip RAM (whenver that becomes available) you will be able to have 800K to 1 Meg Macs, depending on where the emulator code is loaded. Unfortunately HyperCard, the program most people want off the Mac, requires 750K to run. Until more memory is available to the Mac the emulator won't be able to run it, or some of the other large Mac programs. The emulator can read part (about 30 tracks) directly off a Mac disk. The data rate on the other tracks is too high for the Amiga floppy controller to handle (you are trying to read a track written at 350 to 600 RPM in a drive spinning at 300 RPM). This gives a reasonable way to transfer programs and data from a Mac to the Amiga. The emulator will either run in interlace mode (640x400) or non-interlaced mode (640x200). In non-interlace mode you see only half of the actual screen. Moving the mouse from one half to the other causes the display to change. NOTE: Some of the above is almost positively wrong. It is based on my use of an early version before the programmer contacted ReadySoft. Some/all of the limitations may have been removed or changed. If the programmer has found a way around the memory limitations it is going to be a great product. Dan Moore AT&T Bell Labs Denver dlm@druhi.ATT.COM
ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) (11/24/88)
In article <3729@druhi.ATT.COM> dlm@druhi.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) writes: > The biggest limitation is memory, the Mac OS doesn't support >non-contiguous RAM. So on a 1000 you can have 512K Mac since the >support code is loaded in the WCS. On the 500/2000 you are currently >limited to 256K or so since the emulator code is loaded in the first >512K along with the "Mac's" memory. By moving the emulator code out of >the first 512K you could have a 512K Mac. With the 1 meg of chip RAM >(whenver that becomes available) you will be able to have 800K to 1 Meg >Macs, depending on where the emulator code is loaded. > Hmmmm... I know ReadySoft isn't on the Net, so consider this a rhetorical question. Suppose some clever person with a 68030 accelerator card were to program the MMU to map memory to appear as though it were contiguous with CHIP RAM. Would this permit larger Mac applications to run, or does ReadySoft's emulator do something "clever"? If this were to work, the implications could be very interesting. Can you say, "Mac IIx emulator?" _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape INET: well!ewhac@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU \_ -_ Recumbent Bikes: UUCP: pacbell > !{well,unicom}!ewhac O----^o The Only Way To Fly. hplabs / (pronounced "AE-wack") "Work FOR? I don't work FOR anybody! I'm just having fun." -- The Doctor
peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (11/26/88)
Can't it be made to ignore chip RAM except for the graphics screen? I know the Mac can handle non-contiguous graphics memory. If this can be done, load the emulator into chip and have it pretend that you've got a 4 meg desk accessory in the unused gap....? Fool dem ROMs into just using FAST...? -- Peter da Silva `-_-' peter@sugar.uu.net Have you hugged U your wolf today? Disclaimer: My typos are my own damn busines#!rne