A question for the emulation authors/programmers

[carmel_andrews]

Following on from the thread about using a Commy Sid in the A8 and using non Atari hardware in an A8 (like VBXE which uses a TI gfx chip unless i am mistaken)

 

It brings my to asking a question to those that program or create software based emulators (like atari800win, atari++, altirra, steem, saint, stella, virtual jaguar etc etc)

 

Since all the hardware that the emulator uses is now represented as 'code' (be it assember/c/vb/java etc etc), would it be feasable or possible to using emulated hardware chip sets from a non atari platform (i.e c64, amiga, st,7800 etc) in an atari 8bit emulator, or conversely using an atari 8bit HCS's in non atari 8bit emulators

 

OK so you'd have to reprogram the hardware registers (to reflect the hardware registers to the new hardware being emulated) and you'd also need to reprogram specific parts of the emulated machines OS to seeing/recognising the new hardware as well as modifying the relevant 'memory maps' for that emulated machine, if that could be done though I am guessing that the principle should work

 

If this is possible/feasable i am guessing that the possibilities would be endless since this could apply to any form of HCS that is being emulated but hasn't been used in say popular computers or games systems (i.e OTS based hardware and coin op hardware)

 

OTS=Off the shelf

Edited January 28, 2013 by carmel_andrews

[thorfdbg]

Since all the hardware that the emulator uses is now represented as 'code' (be it assember/c/vb/java etc etc), would it be feasable or possible to using emulated hardware chip sets from a non atari platform (i.e c64, amiga, st,7800 etc) in an atari 8bit emulator, or conversely using an atari 8bit HCS's in non atari 8bit emulators.

 

Well, it's certainly possible. Functionalities of SID or VID, for example, are known, and could be added. The question just is: What is the purpose, and what is the goal of such an emulation? Surely the emulated machine would be more powerful, but it would also reflect hardware that does not exist in practise, and thus for which no software is available.

 

In the same vain, you could emulate a machine with 16 colors at 320x256 (as the Amiga) integrated in the Atari 8bit world, or a GTIA mode which is 160x96 instead of the (rather unuseful) 80x192. Again, pointless as there is no software for such a machine.

 

Actually, if you want to program a more powerful machine than the A8's, you should probably program your PC directly because it is certainly a lot more powerful than the Ataris and CBMs combined. And there is software for it that uses such capabilities.

 

Greetings from Sydney,

 

Thomas

[+rdemming]

(like VBXE which uses a TI gfx chip unless i am mistaken)

 

VBXE has nothing to do with a TI gfx chip. VBXE has an FGPA that emulates the GTIA. In addition it can add its own graphics modes on top of the standard Atari graphics. For that it uses its own graphics memory. It also has a blitter implemented to copy around graphics data very fast.

 

Robert