Amiga.org

Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: asian1 on March 30, 2004, 05:22:48 PM

Title: Porting WB, various apps to Linux 64bit
Post by: asian1 on March 30, 2004, 05:22:48 PM

Hello
If a company get license to Workbench and other AmigaOS based application source code, is it possible to port Workbench and the applications to Linux 64bit or BSD 64bit?
What classic Amiga applications should be ported to Linux 64 or BSD 64?
Thx.

Title: Re: Porting WB, various apps to Linux 64bit
Post by: Piru on March 30, 2004, 05:37:57 PM

Quote

If a company get license to Workbench and other AmigaOS based application source code, is it possible to port Workbench and the applications to Linux 64bit or BSD 64bit?

In short: No.

Probably it would mean throwing away all the original code is it is AmigaOS dependant and relies on 32bit addressing (taglist, casting addresses to LONG, dos.library limitations). The whole AmigaOS API is limited to 32bit.

You'd be better off by rewriting the code from scratch.

You would not get binary compatibility anyway, so the questions arises: What's the point? Linux and BSD have tons of way better desktop and software already.

Title: Re: Porting WB, various apps to Linux 64bit
Post by: Piru on March 30, 2004, 05:38:20 PM

[dupe]

Title: Re: Porting WB, various apps to Linux 64bit
Post by: ksk on March 30, 2004, 05:57:56 PM

I agree with piru that 68K WB is not portable.

AOS4.1/AOS4.2 new WB might be portable but it surely will not be Linux(posix) compatible or anything like that.

And when the underlying OS is different, the user experience would also be (a little bit) different. And applications would need to be partly rewritten as well.

The doable way is via emulation. Take Amithlon as an example or UAE ("more boxed" emulation).