[avernus]

I know people have been talking about dos emulation for a while but has anybody thought of using FreeDos? The specs say it should run on a 386... dont know if it would work but just though I would bring it up and see if anybody would take on the challege...

[moz]

avernus, on Apr 2 2005, 03:55 PM, said:

I know people have been talking about dos emulation for a while but has anybody thought of using FreeDos? The specs say it should run on a 386... dont know if it would work but just though I would bring it up and see if anybody would take on the challege...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

think we would need a x86 emulator.

[Tinnus]

FreeDOS is a replacement for DOS that only runs on a x86 computer. It's not an emulator per se.

[dmitrygr]

I do not know how many times this must be said to get people to stop asking for DOS emulation.

You want to emulate dos, so you need i386 emulation. This is where your idea stops. What you're talkign about is emulating a CISC processor on a RISC processor. Even if somebody did this, it would:

1. Be huge
2. Be slow


huge because there are myriads of command to emulate
slow for the same reason.

For example if you got this to run on a 400 MHz T|T3 then MAYBE if it is very optimized this will equal a 1 MHz i386, if you are lucky!!! On a 200 MHZ zodiac it will be unbearably slow. And not only will you be unable to play games, you'd wait hours for it to boot up.

Now next topic, beside i386 you must emulate a few other things lika the VGA graphics card, with scaling (yes Zodiac has advantage here with the ATI chip)

To say it shortly:
YES, it can be done.
NO, it will not be because it would be useless!

So please stop asking this and move on!

NOTE: bolded by Prophet.

This post has been edited by Prophet: 02 April 2005 - 07:43 PM

[Prophet]

dmitrygr, very well stated.

I'm pinning this so people can read dmitrygr's reply.

[MetaView]

dmitrygr, you're right when you say it makes no sense, but, I believe, an 8086 emulator should be possible on a decent speed. Have you ever seen the DOS-emulators on Amiga? This was 7.14 MHz or what ever and it could emulate an 8086 with something less than 1MHz. So we could get a IBM PC1 for sure...

BTW: What about a PoPC emulation like Wine does it? Reprogramming the API and emulation the external HW around the processor?

Regards
Henk

[Perry Gonzalez]

What about wine?!?!

[Slasher]

Wine (Recursive acronim of Wine Is Not Emulator) is an API for Linux that lets you run windows applications (since they are not compatible). Wine runs applications at ~80% speed, at least that's my observation. I belive the question was, is it possible to make something like that for the Zod. It seems that it may be possible but Wine uses OpenGL for graphics and I don't think the Zod has that available (so I have little hope that something like this could be made, and less that it will). Feel free to prove me wrong on any point.

[dmitrygr]

WINE, if you noticed, runs only on x86 processors! It does not do any hardware emulation. It SIMULATES windows environment for programs, allowing them to use a given list of DLLs. You cannot do this on Zodiac because zodiac does not run on an x86 processor. Sorry.

As for 8086 emulation, well yeah, sure It can be done, but most games require i386 minimum, as well as a resonable speed so that 8086 will do you no good! I mean sure it would be a great show-off point to show a dos prompt on your zodiac but that is as far as it would get.



Usually I do not quote myself, but now I will make an exceprtion.

"me said:

"FORGET IT PEOPLE, AND MOVE ON"
      -Dmitry Grinberg

This post has been edited by dmitrygr: 03 April 2005 - 04:29 AM

[SHoe]

Bah! Unpin this thread, unbold that text, and take back that attitude!!

http://www.pocketdos.com/


...and if you are wondering whether an emu that does xt running an ms-doc 6.1 compatible dos can run any actual games, then look at the screenies on this site( check the games at the bottom):

http://www.pocketdos...creenshots/PPC/

This runs on h/pc and pocket pc devices. That includes the older, slower ce models that ran on sh3 and mips processors - as well as ARM processor models The zod is ARM and could do this too if it was ported.

And what about speed? From the FAQ:

Quote

PocketDOS emulates an 80186 processor in software. On a 206Mhz ARM processor, it reaches the equivalent speed of a 20Mhz 80186 (or 10Mhz 80386) processor. 

...so when this came out it was running on slow-ish 206mhz strongARM processors and still does the deed at 20mhz 80186 and 10mhz 80386. Yr point stands that it won't be fast - but this is a pretty big difference (and a crucial difference) from what you stated.

This post has been edited by SHoe: 04 April 2005 - 12:27 AM

[skeezix]

OKay, lets go over this again..

Most emulator authors are not writing the emus; they're doing ports.

If you do write a custom x86 emu, then you've got some options; ie: An 8086 emu could well be fast enough, but theres not a hell of a lot worth running, except for amusement value. (For that, just run PcDitto DOS emu inside of CaSTaway, fo rthe extra satisfaction of running an emu in an emu) Getting a 286 to run would be useful of course since lots of things were out for that. In theory it should be doable to do a 286 at a useful speed since of course 286-10's and such did exist.. For the real goods, you want a 386 or later, and thats not going to happen on a Zodiac.

But as I say, most people are just doing ports and not writing from scratch. (Writing an 8086 from scratch is not a big deal, but writing a 386 will take some time investment.) Now, just doing a port leaves you with few options. FreeDOS isn't an emu.. its DOS to run in emus or real machines. But theres DosBox which is very good... but it runs pretty darned slow except on beefier hardware than a Zodiac has. (But on a T|T3 overclocked to 600.. maybe.)

PocketDOS actually uses Bochs and othe roptions for the 386 and other emus if memory serves, and its not really fast, but its playable on my 600MHz PoPC.

So really 400-600Mhz is the breaking point for this sort of thing, unless someone invests a pile of time to write it all up themselves.

So its not too likely, though getting something basic and amusing and not really useful is doable. Whose signing pu to do that? Not me, I've got better uses for my time

(BTW, of course, an 8086 isn't a big deal.. its not much different thna a Z80 which we've all done to death. So writing up a really basic XT emu is actually only a few nights work, but again, its not really worth it is it?

(Or do you really wnat to run Lotus 1-2-3 on your Zodiac?)

(And if you do, just use the ST and Amiga and other versions, since until the 586, PC versions of games/apps usually stunk compared to other versions

jeff

[Slasher]

I agree it wouldn't be realy worth it but how nifty would it be to run qBasic and Windows 1.0 on a Palm?

[skeezix]

Windows 1.0 isn't even a GUI.. its just a memory manager, and I think it requires a 286 or later .. an 8086 didn't have "protected mode" or the like

But its a lot of work to be unimpressed by qbasic

As I always say .. theres not a lot of us around, let alone enough with so much free time they can just throw it away like that

jeff

[Prophet]

SHoe, on Apr 4 2005, 12:17 AM, said:

Bah! Unpin this thread, unbold that text, and take back that attitude!!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No. You've been owned by Skeezix regarding PocketDOS.

So the thread stays as is. For the precise purpose of ending the DOS/x86 emulator questions/requests.

It's simply not worth the effort to get it going on the Zodiac. And PC's didn't get interesting (IMO) for games until the 386 came along.

[SHoe]

I think emulating dos is totally useless - but its a'nifty-ness factor' kind of thing. As far as games go - dos wasn't the best at gaming in its day (not in the early days that is) - so people are probably better served using the many console emus for that.

BTW - a year or so back it was reported that somebody got win95 & 98 to run on their Pocketpc using dosbox i believe. Here's a link to some images of win95 on ppc:

http://www.pocketgam...p?threadid=3660

This post has been edited by SHoe: 04 April 2005 - 06:05 AM