Slashdot Mirror

Does this count?
http://www.ardi.com/exe_lin_hypercard.php
maybe this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveCode

I don't know, just did a quick Google on Hyprecard linux.

It's likely Microsoft is going to need to take a less orthodox route to emulating the XBox than most game emulators take. Emulators fall into two basic categories: Hardware Emulation: Very compatible but also very slow, this is the route almost all game emulators take. The aim is to emulate the system's hardware, chip by chip and run the same software on top of this that the console would have run. API Emulation: Generally very fast, very buggy, and also very complicated. The idea is to intercept all API calls and translate them to native calls. There is usually a hardware emulation layer to fall back to when a call can't be translated. Famous emulators of this type include Wine and Executor It's VERY unlikely Microsoft could simply emulate every chip in the XBox1, the 360's CPU is simply not that powerful. It is impossible to emulate one CPU across multiple cores, so the 360 would be emulating a PIII 733MHz on a single core. The clock speed of the 360 is impressive but the chip is EXTREMELY simplistic, it doesn't even support out of order execution. Microsoft would also need to license a lot of patents from NVidia to emulate the GPU. This leaves Microsoft stuck rewriting Wine from scratch before November, and tweeking the emulator for each and every game.

I will bet you $10US that less than 20 games for the original XBox are officially supported on the XBox 360 by Microsoft when it launches in November.

However, you still need a copy of MacOS and a PowerMac ROM image to use SheepShaver. If you're planning to run SheepShaver on a PowerMac, you probably already have these two items.

Ardi's Executor is nicer solution, but as the GP says, it doesn't run non-68k apps. One has to hope that the sudden market for third party improvements in Classic compatability born from Apple's unwillingness to produce Macs that'll run older software will give Ardi, at least, an incentive to put in the long awaited PowerPC emulation support.

But as of now, I don't think anyone can legitimately say that there are real solutions for running (most) older, non-Carbonized, Mac software on the Intel Macs, sadly.

One of the few companies that has years of experience with dynamic recompiling emulation is ardi (www.ardi.com). Their 68k synthetic cpu was worked on for several years, achieving incredible performance, but alas, only 1/3 cpu speed on average. See http://www.ardi.com/SynPaper/node12.html.

Now of course in theory if you had a lot of cache you could approach native cpu speeds, assuming that you always executed the same code over and over again. Caching certainly is the key to performance here, just like in CPUS. But realistically, you can't always keep every dynamic block in cache. Eventually it will be invalidated and new blocks will have to be translated. Much faster than emulation (orders of magnitude) but still not quite full host cpu speed.

Your point about translating the assembly code is an interesting point, but fails to account for the fact that this has to happen on the fly. Thus the 1/3 bound is not theoretical, but simply a practical one. I'm sure newer techniques will come along to improve this.

Executor is pretty good, though it doesn't run the 'ew fancy schmancy' System 7 stuff. It runs a lot of things really well, including the Apple port of Wolfenstein 3D, Gremlins. And it reads/writes Macintosh floppies and CDs in your regular PC.

damn. Forgot to include the to Executor in above comment.

Actually, we got SDL from Executor

Umm...Executor?

YFI

-uso.

With a PC you can run Windows, *nix, and Mac OS (Through Linux emulators same as running VPC on the Mac.)

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Unless you're talking about Executor which can run an old, old, old, version of Mac OS emulating a 68k cpu, that's complete and utter bullshit. There exists no publically available PPC emulator for x86 PC. None. Why? Because it's too fucking hard/slow to emulate PPC on x86. x86 doesn't have enough registers to do it even remotely fast.

You also forgot gigabit ethernet on the Mac, but I'll admit that not many people use that much. However, if you do need that, expect to pay premium extra bucks to get it in your PC.

Perhaps more non-iPod MP3 players work better with Windows than Mac. Fine. But DigiCams? Give me a fucking break. Unless it's something like BarbieCam, Apple supports just about everything out there. Plug and play, baby.

But you know, tres is right, we can split hairs all day. I agree with some of your other points, and for MOST people's NEEDS (even DESIRES) a PC IS cheaper. My sis-in-law just got her degree in graphic design and wanted a Mac to start her business (obviously). But she didn't have the cashola right away, so she went with a home-built PC running Photoshop on XP. Works well enough until she earns enough to buy a real graphic design machine.

Mainly I just saw that Mac emulator thing and HAD to call bullshit. Everything else was gravy.

While the Mac version of Virtual PC obviously has to emulate the CPU, that isn't necessarily the case with the native Windows and OS/2 x86 versions of that software.

Not all CPU emulation in software is too slow to be useful, BTW. For a good example of that, see Executor here:

Go to http://www.ardi.com/syn68k.php and believe. Oddly or not, despite techical excellence, ARDI does not seem to have been commercially successful, as there has been no updates for years.

Oh, and of course, Classic won't work,

Actually, you'd be amazed at how well the old-school Macintosh can be emulated on an x86 processor.

There's a company called ARDI who produce Executor which is a 680x0 Macintosh emulator for x86 machines. Back in the day I ran the Macintosh version of Wolfenstein 3D under Executor on a Pentium 75.

I am talking about the letter of the law, and you are talking about the spirit of the law.

I am talking about the law that the judge will apply to a case, which is the only law that has any force.

17 USC 102 does not apply if you treat the APIs as atomic

I still do not understand what you mean by "atomic". Look up "idea-expression dichotomy" some time.

Why do you think that there are very few Apple Macintosh clones?

Executor, one of the few Mac emulators, contains a complete clone of Classic Mac OS. Were it illegal, its publisher could not sell it. In addition, ARDI sells Carbonless Copies, a PC-based Mac emulator designed to be linked directly into an application.

I am talking about the letter of the law, and you are talking about the spirit of the law.

I am talking about the law that the judge will apply to a case, which is the only law that has any force.

17 USC 102 does not apply if you treat the APIs as atomic

I still do not understand what you mean by "atomic". Look up "idea-expression dichotomy" some time.

Why do you think that there are very few Apple Macintosh clones?

Executor, one of the few Mac emulators, contains a complete clone of Classic Mac OS. Were it illegal, its publisher could not sell it. In addition, ARDI sells Carbonless Copies, a PC-based Mac emulator designed to be linked directly into an application.

There is a brief description of cleanroom developing here and a million other places. But, the point is that it is not enough to recreat a system without looking at the code when you recreate it. The coders also have to be clean. They can't have seen the code. They have to recreate the system from the specifications. Sometimes these are specifications created by a "dirty" team. Sometimes they are already public. But, clean room engineering doesn't save energy on development and isn't what they are trying to do here. It is just a way of building a compatible product without infringing. The issue here is how many of your skills can you take with you as a "right to work" issue versus how much does the company keep as a property right. The standards I have seen come down to how important the code is to the company. If this insight is the key to the business model for a product, you can't take it. If it is ancillary, you probably can. But, ask your lawyers. Make it their issue now, rather than later.

Ardi produces a solution to that issue that currently works under x86 Linux and Windows. Of course, that would require them to license some 3rd-party clone to do it, but it's been done all the same.

Besides, all we really need is a binary implementation of the Sorenson codec to begin with since we HAVE a Quicktime framework or two that works under X anyway.

Old timers can remember about Executor, made by a little New-Mexican company named ARDI.

It featured a quick 68k emulator, and it was the only 'legal' Mac emulator available on PC: they did re-write most of Apple's code (the ROM and the OS itself), allowing them not only to be free from Apple's code but to make it really fast too, by having rewritten the system calls in native x86 code.

I'd sure love to see this little company putting together a G3/G4 emulator. Wishful thinking, I know.

Anyway, if an iMac emulator appears, I hope those cheap multi-gigahertz AMD boxes will be able to emulate a little G3 on inexpensive hardware: finally all those x86 OS X curious, not wanting to buy a Mac because of its price will have a way to play with OS X... And to upgrade with the real thing!

Take a look at Gemulator 2000. It emulates either a 68000-based Macintosh, Atari ST or Amiga - and it is a free download. There's another company that makes an excellent 68000-based Macintosh emulator for x86 - Ardi. These emulators show what is truly possible with JIT-based emulation. UAE is dreadfully slow by comparison.
The 68000 chip would be a wonderful virtual machine - GCC already targets the chip so you would not need to write a new compiler suite from scratch.
As a side note, I wish people would divorce the notion of "Abstract Virtual Machines = Garbage Collection." An architectural neutral binary distribution format is the most important characteristic of a VM. Garbage collection just slows down the runtime.

The question of porting a non-unix MacOS X application to Linux makes me wonder what the current state of MacOS emulation under Linux is. I see that Basilisk is apparently a GPL'ed 68k Mac emulator under relatively active development, and that the proprietary executor is still available, along with Carbonless Copies from the same company. Also, a couple of others are discussed on emulators.com.

There has been a Mac emulator around for a LONG time.. Executor, from http://www.ardi.com/ runs mac applications. It's available for Linux PPC, but also available for Linux x86.

Never tried this myself, but might be worth looking into:

http://www.ardi.com/executor/index.html

I have an old used Mac IIci, which came with some old version of this SoftPC on it. I just booted it up, and the "About SoftPC" from the "Apple Menu", says "Version 1.4: (EGA/AT) © 1986-1990 Insignia Solutions" I'm not sure if they really sold a product before 1988, but anyone who's going to try and claim a patent on the invention of a virtual machine is going to have a lot of prior art to deal with.

Of course, there are a number of well written, and well moderated (up) posts suggesting that their patents might not be as broad as Rod hinted, and maybe the whole thing is a hoax.... but if anyone's looking for some prior art, I've got an ancient mac that's in danger of being completely replaced with ARDI's Mac Emulator, also some nice Prior Art, perhaps even as old as Insignia's SoftPC, but was only released commercially a couple years ago.

No new demos to add, but some ideas if you have time (and $$$) to make it work.

Get a graphics card with multipul monitor support (or several cards). On one have a full screen linux demo running. On anouther have Wine (see someone else's post) running something, with some obvious unix things on screen. Maybe visit and get a mac program running too (There is an open source version, but i've never played with it). Mame is anouther neat thing to run (have some game with a good looping demo). The gameboy (vgb), nintendo (ines, snes9x), sega (mastergear), 2600 (stella), atari-800, apple// (prodosemu?), and so on.

In other words by not limited yourself to linux you open up a large scene. Just make sure some linux native stuff is running, and you have enough CPU power to do everything.

Well, if Quicken under Wine won't work for you, the Mac emulator Executor is currently shipping with Quicken 6.0 (Mac version, of course). It's a strange way to do it, but not too bad of a deal for $75.

Most people tend to then "if Quicken doesn't run thouse wine, then it won't run". That's not the case. Executor has been running Quicken for MacOS for many moons.

ARDI has beed selling their Linux version for $75 that INCLUDES the MacOS version of Quicken, and says if has full compatbility, with the execption of the online banking options.

No, I don't work for ARDI, or to tell the truth, own Executor. But if GNUCash doesn't quite float your boat, and are stuck in Windows for the sole fact of Quicken, this wouldn't be a bad program to try. And at only $75 including Quicken, not a bad deal. I just don't want to see people not use linux, because they don't know that Quicken will run in linux, and that's the only program that's keeping them in Windows.

Also on a site note, I do use GNUCash. It's served me well in managing what little money a lowly student can make =) I'd give GNUCash a try before you fork over the $75 to run Quicken though Executor.

ARDI would be happy to license Syn68k to Palm. It requires a little effort to add Dragonball support and to write an ARM back-end, but we already have a fast portable back-end. My guess is we'd have apps running quickly and correctly in under two weeks and blazing in under two months.

Connectix's Speed Doubler also has a fast dynamic recompiling synthetic 680x0. Their target is the PPC, not x86. I don't know how much of their code would be useful for such a project, but they clearly have the experience.

I can't speak for Connectix, but if anyone can introduce me via e-mail to anyone appropriate at Palm, I'll make sure ARDI follows up.

ARDI would be happy to license Syn68k to Palm. It requires a little effort to add Dragonball support and to write an ARM back-end, but we already have a fast portable back-end. My guess is we'd have apps running quickly and correctly in under two weeks and blazing in under two months.

Connectix's Speed Doubler also has a fast dynamic recompiling synthetic 680x0. Their target is the PPC, not x86. I don't know how much of their code would be useful for such a project, but they clearly have the experience.

I can't speak for Connectix, but if anyone can introduce me via e-mail to anyone appropriate at Palm, I'll make sure ARDI follows up.

ARDI would be happy to license Syn68k to Palm. It requires a little effort to add Dragonball support and to write an ARM back-end, but we already have a fast portable back-end. My guess is we'd have apps running quickly and correctly in under two weeks and blazing in under two months.

Connectix's Speed Doubler also has a fast dynamic recompiling synthetic 680x0. Their target is the PPC, not x86. I don't know how much of their code would be useful for such a project, but they clearly have the experience.

I can't speak for Connectix, but if anyone can introduce me via e-mail to anyone appropriate at Palm, I'll make sure ARDI follows up.

really? i find your professor's statement hard to believe. my understanding of the way that people teach computer science at major universities (i attend one of the 5 largest universities in the US, and am enrolled in their top-10 CS program) and certainly my direct experience is that you are taught theory: how to program, how to reason, and how to problem solve in different domains. certainly, there are the low-credit "c++" or "lisp" classes where all you are learning is a language, and the professor can (but hasn't, in my direct experience) specify a compiler/IDE for you to use---but mostly one is asked to submit code that complies to the relevant standards so that any compiler can compile them, and that has certainly always included unix compilers. in fact, the only class in which i was required to stray from unix compilers (from "pc" to "gcc/g++" to "clisp") was the assembly languange & computer architecture class, in which we were forced to use an assembler that only barely ran under the Mac emulator executor and forced me to hit the lab to use an actual Mac.

i hate to call your professor wrong without meeting the guy, but CS is more about how to think than how to implement a solution, and there is no good reason to be platform-specific during the learning process. (there are several bad reasons: TA/professor laziness, microsoft has subsidized all of your labs on campus and there are only windows machines available for development, etc)

of course, i could be misreading your post, and you could mean "Windows type development models" to be something completely different than "development required to be under a Windows OS"...if so i hope you'll correct me =)

Someone already mentioned Mac-On-Linux. There are a couple more Mac emu's for LinuxPPC in development, though. SheepShaver is working on a Linux/PPC port of their popular BeOS/PPC product. And ARDI has just released a version of their Executor product for Linux/PPC. Executor doesn't emulate PowerPC, but it does emulate a 68040 quite well, and it doesnt require Macintosh ROM's, a real Macintosh, or MacOS to run Mac software.

~GoRK

As an instruction set, the x86 is pretty bad, however it's easy to code for and easy to optimize for, which are it's biggests strengths. As a mid-layer API for this device, it was probably a good choice -- x86 recompiles well on RISCy machines with lots of registers. PowerPC and others probably wouldn't. They have a lot of registers themselves and are more complex (plus the wide variety of x86 clones means that most people will likely shy away from dangerous instructions, whereas since the PPC is VERY standardized, many software packages could rely on subtle bugs in the silicon of the PPC. Believe me, bugs are the hardest part of any hardware archetecture to emulate.)

ARDI has some fairly interesting whitepapers on their implementation of the 68k instruction set on x86. Keep in mind this is MUCH more difficult to do than the reverse. The 68k CPU has 16 registers, whereas x86 only has 8, etc.

The big problem with C is the same C source file compiled with the same compiler can often produce many wildly different results, and C doesn't solve the problem of hardware accesses, which almost always need to be done in a low-level language. This CPU/software will be beneficial to many companies due to the fact they will be able to reuse existing hardware, drivers and software with this. As long as the prices for the CPU get really low eventually, it could really lower the prices for PDA and hand-held computers. (Imagine playing a 3D accelerated game of Quake III on a hand-held machine)

The mac version runs great under Executor.

As a devout computer user/coder/digital artist, but particularly a mac user since the 512k, I have taken flak after flak from PC/Linux/UNIX users for years for my mac loyalty. (No flames, but also keep reading, I have some valid points!) I believe that this antitrust trial is the turnaround for Apple to be placed on top-of the INTERNET( the future and arguably the point of computing). Let me explain....Notice that Apple is keeping very quiet on this M&%$ antitrust issue. There are no Steve Jobs "MS slamming" comments or interviews. Interesting... But wait there's more. Also remember when Apple was doing "badly" a few years ago and the stock was down to ~16 dollars a share and all of the news media was saying Apple was dead and macs sucked (No flames, attempts at reinforcing a "possible" truth, etc.) and "don't buy macs", etc. crap. Indeed, the popular Media mis/disinformation campaign was in full swing(Maybe most of you don't actually remember that.:->) Well what happened, but Microsoft came and out of a gesture of "good faith" to Apple, helped the "ailing" company via a one time purchase of 150 million in non voting Apple stock (even though Apple at the time had healthy cash reserves of something like a billion dollars or so and was IN NO DANGER OF DYING!!. For more information, please consult Eric Yang's Macevolution site ). All of the sudden, Apple was okay again. Public perception of Apple changed. In other words, Apples MIND share increased in terms of the general public (well, most of em.) See this article for more info, or this article from the Macweek news archives for a refresher or look at Eric Yang's detailed financial models here. Apple's view in the popular media changed, the stock went up, IMAC's came out, not to mention the G4 ( a supercomputer-yes!-who cares about the athlon, Celeron, crapalon, etc.). And now, Apple's stock is projected to get to 115$ a share (Whether you like it or not, your cousin is buying an Imac and so is your mom, talk about market share-oh and it can run LINUX and you can run Windoze 98 and apps via virtual PC!). This is part of MS's plan. They knew this finding of fact would happen- they're guilty as hell and always have been! Microsoft is one of the smartest and most devious companies. That's why they invested in Apple during the time when the Government was starting this whole antitrust effort. Coincidence. NO! The only way to explain MS inept legal defense is that they knew they could't win, so why really try? Microsoft versus the Government, yeah like who would really win?! That's smart-that's reality. What do rats do when the ship is sinking but jump off and find a smaller piece of wood to ride on. Enter Apple-the Imac-not to mention the Quicktime API (THE FUTURE OF THE WEB, A/V/databasehooks/flash/interactivity/Java version. Imagine a whole interface that does all you would want to do in a NC java enabled box for 100 bucks-nuff said--bring on the flames!!). Also remember that according to Steve Jobs, this is the year of Desktop Video which in Apple products is built upon Quicktime! Like Microsoft really could attempt to change the Internet with it's crap ass methodology as opposed to open sourcing, and UNIX(Think, free, extensible-you guys already do). What is the line from "Blade Runner" about the coding of DNA and once it's been sequenced any changes give rise to revertant colonies or a virus like "...rats leaving a sinking ship"? The government can't change Microsoft's ways with this suit. Their gonna get the belt. MS is dead, "...they burned twice as bright and so last half as long" (love that Blade Runner!). All they can do is try and be part of the next wave and still make some money in some form, but Open Source has and will more thoroughly defeat them. Well, to badly misquote Blade Runner again, Microsoft "...wants more life, fucker!". And Apple is the way to do it. In terms of mind share, Apple and the Mac platform are it. I have been able to run any program I needed on my Mac due to the FACT that I can use UNIX, macOS apps, LINUX apps, or Windoze apps via virtual PC on any new mac. This is clearly documented everywhere. What it is is the most advanced computing technology. This technology speaks more "languages" if you will. It is more versatile a platform. Look and see, don't be in denial PC and LINUX users! SO in other words maybe we're finally getting everything that we want-run any app on your desktop-and that desktop happens to be Apple products. Who is the winner? Apple. I am right. You'll see. Now bring on the flames....

If you have a fast enough computer you can run Ambrosia games with executor the Mac emulator from www.ardi.com.
/me goes and plays Apeiron

:D

Apple probably isn't concerned about this move opening the door to clones: their custom ASICs and of course the ROM chips are still firmly under their copyright. Cobbling up something to run the MacOS without those chips will always be flaky at best.

But Apple has invested a great deal of money and image in promoting "their CPU" as superior to Intel. When a salesdroid shows PowerPCs side-by-side, one running MacOS and one Linux (especially with a cool Enlightenment theme), and says "these run the same CPU but the one on the right costs $x less," that's got to make Apple's marketing department groan.

Jamie McCarthy

They claim to have a patent pending... but what?

Sounds like the DOSEMU folks will be getting a C&D letter if they get their patent. Is there anything about this product that isn't just a more compatible version of DOSEMU?

Aside from DOSEMU, there's WABI and that MacOS-on-Solaris program, a little project the NeXT guys did long ago, a dos virtual environment for the macintosh which Apple advertised in the late 80s, and many others, perhaps even older yet?

Did these guys really do anything new that isn't prior art? They'll probably get their patent, even if there is prior art all the way back into the 80s. If they use it to bully DOSEMU (which will be a major competitor if it improves) I hope they get a serious fight.

About the high $300 price, well, take a look at ARDI's Executor which originally appeared at $250 as I recall, but now sells $75 for linux. I doubt the linux market will bear a $300 price, but on the NT side folks are probably used to paying $300 for little add-ons many of which come for free with Linux.