Reasons why I don't like emulators - or why xx-UAE is really unusable

[psxphill]

but ignoring the host layout -or- ignoring the client keyboard layout is both not a solution as it means that certain keys are not even reachable.

How can keys not be reachable if every real hardware key is mapped to an emulated hardware key?
 
 Mapping real keyboard scan codes to emulation is the only reliable way to emulate a keyboard in all circumstances and all locales.

[guest11527]

How can keys not be reachable if every real hardware key is mapped to an emulated hardware key?
 
 Mapping real keyboard scan codes to emulation is the only reliable way to emulate a keyboard in all circumstances and all locales.

 Because the German Amiga keyboard has one extra key to the right of the backspace key, with the | and \ symbols printed on it a German PC keyboard does not have. The key does not exist. On the Amiga keyboard, it is cut off from the backspace key which has only half the size of its PC equivalent. Hence, you cannot type backspaces on UAE, neither pipes.

[Thorham]

Because the German Amiga keyboard has one extra key to the right of the backspace key, with the | and \ symbols printed on it a German PC keyboard does not have. The key does not exist. On the Amiga keyboard, it is cut off from the backspace key which has only half the size of its PC equivalent. Hence, you cannot type backspaces on UAE, neither pipes.

Perhaps you should make Toni aware of this issue. He's on EAB regularly, and there's a good chance he has a solution. He may even implement a solution. That is, if you're using WinUae, of course.

[som99]

Because the German Amiga keyboard has one extra key to the right of the backspace key, with the | and \ symbols printed on it a German PC keyboard does not have. The key does not exist. On the Amiga keyboard, it is cut off from the backspace key which has only half the size of its PC equivalent. Hence, you cannot type backspaces on UAE, neither pipes.

What they didn't keep it over the years?
Some Swedish keyboards still have it, even my mechanical QPAD MK80 has it! (love that keyboard, uses blue switches)

[fishy_fiz]

Ah, of course, different regions.
I was a little baffled as to what the problem was for a while. Didn't even consider different keyboards for different regions.

[Minuous]

>The Amiga keyboard has an extra key, the backslash/vertical bar key on the top right that is not present on standard layouts, but this key is still essential for programming.

That key isn't "extra", it has been on every keyboard I have seen in the last 25 years or so. So you bought a keyboard which is defective, as it is missing important keys, then blame the emulator for this!? And anyway this can be easily resolved by changing the keymap.

>VMWare has set the standards (Ctrl+Alt), so why the heck not simply use that. Or, at least, show the mapping how to ungrab as soon as the mouse is grabbed. This should be the minimum standard.

Ctrl+Tab works here for this. Titlebar also explains how to ungrab mouse.

>Provide proper documentation with all options explained, and documentation that is up to date. A man page is fine. A web page is fine. But please, provide it.

I agree, the UAE documentation is atrocious.

>This is here a (old, but not so old) 2.6Ghz Athlon. Yet, emulation speed is probably something in the ball-park of a 68030@25Mhz.

My host system is only 1.6GHz, but the emulation flies, much faster than any 68060 let alone 68030. Probably a configuration issue.

[wawrzon]

My host system is only 1.6GHz, but the emulation flies, much faster than any 68060 let alone 68030. Probably a configuration issue.

psst. dont tell him how fast the emulation really is, he might lose the confidence in gunnars fpga and stop suupporting him. ;P

[Georg]

Because the German Amiga keyboard has one extra key to the right of the backspace key, with the | and \ symbols printed on it a German PC keyboard does not have. The key does not exist. On the Amiga keyboard, it is cut off from the backspace key which has only half the size of its PC equivalent. Hence, you cannot type backspaces on UAE, neither pipes.

So what should UAE do during each of this "stages":

1) User presses ALTGR key
2) User presses "ß ? \" key (UAE can detect this now as host vanilla backspace key)
3) User releases ALTGR key
4) User releases "ß ?`\" key

UAE needs to pass Amiga rawkey codes to the emulated hardware.

On a french PC keyboard the stages would be like this (if I used xkb tools correctly):

1) User presses ALTGR key
2) User presses "_ 8 \" key (UAE can detect this now as host vanilla backspace key)
3) User releases ALTGR key
4) User releases "_ 8 \" key

On an italian PC keyboard it would be:

1) User presses key at the left side of "1" (UAE can detect this now as host vanilla backspace key)
2) User releases key at the left side of "1"

[paolone]

2) Mouse grab. This is really anoying. In the window, you have either two mouse pointers, or you have one mouse pointer and do not know how to leave the window. Even if you enter the configuration menu of FS-UAE, you do not have your mouse. What do you do to regain control? I didn't know the magic word (F12+g) so I killed the emulator from a console. Yuck!

Solution: a) If the user clicks into the window, make the "native" mouse pointer non-intrusive. A single point is good enough. If some configuration menu is shown that requires user interaction, un-grab the mouse to allow configuration. And finally, use a well-accepted key-combination for ungrabbing. VMWare has set the standards (Ctrl+Alt), so why the heck not simply use that. Or, at least, show the mapping how to ungrab as soon as the mouse is grabbed. This should be the minimum standard.

a1 - I'd hate to see that point on the screen. I prefer the current solution  most emultators followed to grab the pointer and leave just the guest one.

a2 - I'd kill anyone placing "ctrl+alt" as mouse release hotkey on a emulator, because I'm almost every time using virtual machines in VMware Player already, resulting in a disturbing, continuated loose of the guests pointer. BTW, the "magic key(s) + G" combination for ungrabbing pointer is already popular thanks to the fact the other virtualizers, for instance QEMU, use that.

Not very much to disagree about the rest...

[guest11527]

That key isn't "extra", it has been on every keyboard I have seen in the last 25 years or so. So you bought a keyboard which is defective, as it is missing important keys, then blame the emulator for this!? And anyway this can be easily resolved by changing the keymap.

Would you please stop the nonsense, please? Go here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_keyboard_layout  This is standard German PC keyboard, you find it on every standard laptop, or keyboard you buy in the stores. It has three keys to the right of the "0" key: The sharp-s key, the accent keys, and the backspace key.  The standard German Amiga keyboard is different. It has *four* keys to the right of the "0" key. The sharp-s, the accent keys, the back-slash and pipe-key and the backspace key. Do I really need to make pictures to convince you? The German Amiga keyboard has *one* extra key compared to a standard German PC keyboard, and that key is essential.  The backslash on a standard PC-keyboard is reachable by AltGr+Sharp-S, and the pipe key is reachable by AltGr+, but none of these alternatives work on xxx-UAE.   Got it?  

Ctrl+Tab works here for this. Titlebar also explains how to ungrab mouse.

No, it doesn't. F12+g does this, and no, the title bar does not say this. Once again, I have no Wind** here, and I don't consider bying one just for the purpose of Amiga emulation. And once again, there are established choices for this, and Ctrl+Tab is not one of them, but anyhow....  

My host system is only 1.6GHz, but the emulation flies, much faster than any 68060 let alone 68030. Probably a configuration issue.

I tested this, if I recompile with i386 code instead of x64 code, I do get the JIT, speed is better, but only half of the speed of my 68060/40, and math is particularly bad. (Not that I need it). The only thing that works good is the memory bandwidth.

[psxphill]

Because the German Amiga keyboard has one extra key to the right of the backspace key, with the | and \ symbols printed on it a German PC keyboard does not have. The key does not exist. On the Amiga keyboard, it is cut off from the backspace key which has only half the size of its PC equivalent. Hence, you cannot type backspaces on UAE, neither pipes.

You can't hate emulators because your german pc keyboard is missing a key on your german amiga keyboard.

Does UAE not allow you to map keys?
 
 It's not an emulator I use often, it isn't really aimed at what I would use it for (and it appears you neither). I'm hoping for continued progress in MESS, but that is aimed at accuracy to real hardware (so hopefully one day it will get accurate chip ram bus contention etc). While WinUAE is also a little bit like amithlon, trying to make software run as fast as possible.
 
 I think a windows version of amithlon that can also run PPC software, with MESS for anything that hits the hardware is where I will end up.

[guest11527]

You can't hate emulators because your german pc keyboard is missing a key on your german amiga keyboard.

It makes xx-UAE unusable because I cannot use it for programming. Try to write a C program without a backslash. Yes, you can probably get used to press meta-hyper-super-alt-x-s to get it, but no, it still doesn't make this a good solution.  

Does UAE not allow you to map keys?

If it does, then the manual does not expose this information. Besides, once you learned to type with ten fingers, any deviation of the keyboard layout is really pretty confusing. AltGr+ß is bad enough for the backslash, but the character is at least available on a PC keyboard. On an emulated Amiga keyboard, I first have to run in circles to get it. On a real Amiga keyboard, it's a dedicated key.

Don't get me wrong. It's a nice program, it's worth for playing an Amiga game once in a while. But it's not a replacement for working, probably because it was never meant to be.

[OlafS3]

You talk about FS-UAE GUI. Indeed FS-UAE GUI is much more simple than WinUAE that exposes almost every feature without you requiring to edit any text file.

[Leffmann]

How come cross-developing is not an option then?

The first thing I noticed when I picked up Amiga after 10 years, was how clunky AmigaOS felt to work in compared to newer systems, but with tools like vbcc and vamos it was relatively easy to move it all out to the host, and for the most part I could automate everything from building to running, so I rarely had to go into the emulated Amiga. And I found that by binding the mouse pointer capture/release to the middle mouse button, having to switch to and from the emulator was pain-free.

[guest11527]

How come cross-developing is not an option then?.

In principle, yes, but how do I get the binaries then back to the Amiga for testing? This machine has no network card (I don't really plan to waste money on that) the CDRW died a couple of years ago, and the only removable medium is the floppy, which is too small for any serious application. The only chance is to use a PC and an emulator on the PC, though I then loose the workflow, i.e. the DevPac assembler and the SAS compiler interface. Both of which is pretty useful for library and systems development. In essence, it would require a completely different workflow. Possible, but inconvenient.

[Minuous]

The German Amiga keyboard has *one* extra key compared to a standard German PC keyboard, and that key is essential.  The backslash on a standard PC-keyboard is reachable by AltGr+Sharp-S

That sounds like a painful way to type such a commonly used key. Anyway, modern PC keyboards have many more keys than Amiga keyboards, so it's just a matter of assigning it to one of the spare keys. Which could be done in the host OS, the guest OS, or the emulator.

No, it doesn't. F12+g does this, and no, the title bar does not say this. Once again, I have no Wind** here, and I don't consider bying one just for the purpose of Amiga emulation. And once again, there are established choices for this, and Ctrl+Tab is not one of them, but anyhow....

Sorry, I meant Alt+Tab. Windows programs can be run under UNIX via WINE, no need to buy/pirate Windows. WinUAE is far advanced compared to other variants.