FINKEL@TAUNOS.BITNET (02/15/88)
Since I was asked to post more details about 808X emulators on 680X0, Here is what I have: ( taked from 'COMPUTER DESIGN' Jan 15, If you want the whole article ) There are 3 software products that enable 808X MSDOS software to run on 680X0: 1) SoftPC - by Insignia Solutions ( San Francisco, CA ).It runs on 68030,68020 and the Clipper from Intergraph ( Huntsville Al ). ( Clipper, is a 32 bit processor made by Fairchild, if I'm not wrong ). SoftPC is available for MAC II from Apple, for the Sun-3 series from Sun, and for the Tek 43XX from Tektronix, and for Intergraph InterPro32C machine. Execution speed is: 330 Dhrystone/s on a Sun3/160 at 16.67 MHz vs 331 on XT. Norton SI: just over 1.0 ( But according to insignia, this is sensitive to test conditons ). 2) The Software Co-Processor - Phoenix Technologies. ( Norwood, MA ) runs on 68020,68030, a version for RISC processors is available, but yet unannounced. Target is Unix or Apollo's Aegis. So far, it's available only with Sun and Apollo. Files can be stored as one big file ( A pseudo Volume ), for faster access, or as Unix Files, each file individualy. The system also handles CR/LF conversions. Execution speed is: 3.1~3.3 ( According to Phoenix ). 3) XDOS - Hunter Systems ( Mountain View, CA ) This is an MSDOS COMPILER, not an emulator. XDOS reads a binary MSDOS file, convert it into an intermediate form, and then compiles it into fast 680X0 code. Hunter claims that XDOS uses global optimization techniques. The compiler can map all the PC's IO into Unix system calls. Since the compiler sonstructs a flow tree for the program, it is able to decide which condition codes has to be computed for each instruction in the program, and thereby, create a more efficent program. Execution speed: 2000 Dhrystones on a Sun3/160, 16.67MHz. ( vs 331 on XT ). Hunter has another benchmark, based on the Game of Life, to measure video performance. A PC program which generates and displays 100 Generation of Life took 130 Seconds. With XDOS on a Sun, it took 20 S. Someone sent me a letter, asking if any of the emulators will work with his Unix PC (68010). I don't know if there is such emulator for the UnixPc. I know it can be done since there are such emulators for the Amiga and ST. ( althrough slow ). Udi Finkelstein finkel@math.tau.ac.il or finkel@taurus.BITNET