emulation
Latest stories covering emulation, with summaries and links to related coverage.
4 articles · page 1 of 1
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BeBox is a Haiku application that emulates Be Inc.'s BeBox
tool
13 min read
BeBox is a Haiku application that emulates Be Inc.’s dual-processor BeBox systems and earlier Hobbit-based prototypes. It runs the 66 MHz dual-PowerPC 603 BeBox and the 133 MHz dual-PowerPC 603e model from original boot ROMs, supporting PowerPC BeOS releases from Developer Release 6 through R5.0.3. The emulator includes PowerPC processors, the MPC105 bridge, writable flash ROM, NVRAM, SCSI, IDE, floppy storage, video, sound, serial ports, game ports and NE2000-compatible Ethernet. It displays the BeBox’s two columns of front-panel LEDs and can run both emulated processors on separate host CPU cores. The Hobbit mode emulates two 25 MHz AT&T 92010 processors and hardware used in Be prototypes from 1993-94. Because no Hobbit boot ROM survives, BeBox directly loads the prototype system kernel from a floppy or SCSI disk image. Hobbit emulation includes SCSI, floppy DMA, serial ports, keyboard, mouse and Trident VGA graphics, but not its DSPs, sound, Ethernet, joystick or parallel hardware. BeBox supports raw and QCOW2 disk images, overlays, Haiku shared folders mounted by BeOS as BFS disks, NAT-based networking and port forwarding. Original BeBox ROMs, BeOS media and prototype disk images are required separately and are not included.
I ran Photoshop on a £0.60 computer chip
opinion
8 min read
An Adafruit Fruit Jam board built around Raspberry Pi’s RP2350 chip emulated an old Apple Macintosh and ran early Macintosh versions of Adobe Photoshop and WordPerfect. The RP2350 chip costs about £0.60, although a usable computer also requires components including memory, storage, display output, and input hardware. The emulated system approximates a mid-1990s computer; the chip has two 150 MHz processors and can add 4 MB of RAM and gigabytes of storage. A Macintosh SE comparable to the emulated machine sold for £3,495 in 1989, or about £9,554 in current money using the Bank of England inflation calculator. The Fruit Jam includes Wi-Fi, infrared remote support, HDMI and keyboard terminal capabilities, and a ready-made Mac emulator, but its GPIO and USB design differs from several related RP2350 boards. Photoshop and WordPerfect required an emulator image with additional PSRAM. The author found WordPerfect’s uncluttered interface easier to concentrate with than a modern laptop environment. They suggest that low-power, understandable hardware could support less distracting devices for writing, web reading, messaging, maps, and music, while acknowledging that modern web pages, 4G and 5G networking, high-quality photography, and video present significant limitations. Possible software targets include FUZIX, BBC Micro emulators, Oberon, Smalltalk, Plan 9, and terminal software.
Windows XP 2002 for the Itanium: Unbridled rage
tool
7 min read
A fork of Qemu by Malte Kuhlmann enables workable Itanium Merced emulation that can run Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. The development is based on syunnPC's AI-infused Qemu fork, with ongoing improvements expected.
I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle
tool
6 min read
Arbee is working on Power Macintosh emulation in MAME, facing challenges due to the complexity of debugging code written in PowerPC, emulated 680×0, and compiled FORTH. Claude Code confirmed it can assist in controlling and debugging MAME, albeit with limitations.