Is It Emulation or Not -- the Dilemma

[danbeaver]

OK,

Here is the thread, so go at it: When you run software written for one computer (let us say an Amiga) on another computer (for instance a PC, MAC, or DEC PDP 11/40), what is it?

[danbeaver]

If it runs well...fun.

"Fun" isn't an option on an Apple or a PC (a PDP 11/40, maybe).

[danbeaver]

Can someone help me?  What does it mean "to run software natively?"

WikiPedia: In computing, the "native" adjective refers to software or data formats supported by a certain system with minimal computational overhead and additional components. This word is used in such terms as native mode or native code.

Would not an "API" be an additional component?

[danbeaver]

Uh, does it run in another form than "binary?" Yes, the ENIAC ran in base 10, oh Nevermind...

Excluding programs like JAVA which "aim" to run across platforms from their "inception," running software written for one OS and one "hardware set" is not like recompiling Linux to run on various "hardware sets." The AmigaOS was written poorly at first and "banged the hardware" initially.  They then learned to make system calls as the various hardware improved; BUT these system calls were not meant to be to Apple hardware.  The AmigaOS was not written to be recompiled to run on Intel or ARM cpu's.  From the initial A1000 to the A4000, there is a fundamentally shared set of custom hardware chips that describe an Amiga.

Any secondary level of modification that runs it on other hardware is emulation.  Even the folks with the new PPC hardware have the grace to call them "AmigaNG."

[danbeaver]

When the system used to run the emulation is significantly more powerful then the original hardware and the emulation runs.

Thank you, it is emulation.  By the way, you can not argue a point by using a non-comparative example.  Fire (except by malfeasance on your systems) is not remotely similar to what is being discussed.

An Amiga running 68K Apple code of a Mac (ShapeShifter or whatever), is emulation of an non-Amiga operating system on dissimilar hardware. The OS I am running (OS 4.1) is emulating a 68K Amiga.  It is not a "PPC Amiga," as the Amiga was never designed to use a PPC processor; it might have been in past future connotations... What?  I sound like a Dr. Who episode!

In any event, it is emulating an Amiga on an Amiga; as long as it doesn't cross its own timeline, we should be safe.  It is like the folks with "OS 4.1 on a Classic Amiga" who get excited about Update 4 & 5's RuninUAE; they miss the Big Picture -- who would emulate an Amiga on an Amiga?

[danbeaver]

As an aside, I think it's fascinating that IBM basically invented virtual machines in the 1960s; that was when the Hypervisor was first created.  Running a copy of the then-new S360 on the S360.

Alan Turing has that beat by 30 years, he wrote a virtual computer language without a machine to run it.  In fact Charles Babbage beat them both by 200 years by inventing a virtual machine without a virtual operating system.

[danbeaver]

In the case of 68K Mac OS this isn't completely true, because much of that operating system runs directly on the Amiga's 68K CPU. In fact, it might be the case that all the Aple specific hardware code has been replaced with Amiga equivalents, in which case there isn't any emulation going on at all (but I don't know that).


Don't you mean that Babbage designed the Analytical Engine (first Turing complete computer), which he wasn't able to build due to being unable to raise the finances for it's construction?

First, the CPU alone does not define the computer; I've got a 68000 CPU stored in a shoe box, that doesn't make the shoe box an Amiga nor an Apple.

B) Alan Turing proposed his design for an instruction set in 1938 long before Bletchley Park and hardware to run it.  That is virtual

[danbeaver]

Well some people agree with me; that does not make them "Right or Wrong."  I am afraid that "Branding" does muddle the issue, but as I see it a 68K Mac is a 68K Mac produced by Apple and called a "Mac."  An Intel Mac, produced by Apple and called a "Mac" is a Mac.  Unfortunely (for this discussion), Apple "muddled" this line of thinking, since current "Macs" use a standard "PC" hardware set (of chips).

I stand by what I said/typed earlier, since the Amiga team did not produce a PPC based Amiga, I am using an "Amiga-like" operating system (OS 4.1) on a "modified" Amiga.  I also use real Amiga OS on the same hardware; however the OS 4.1 "emulates" a "Classic" Amiga operating system.  The "Next Generation" Amigas are a new breed of hardware running an Emulated Amiga Operating System (or EAOS for short).  "Its not a question of where he grips it!  It's a simple question of weight ratios!  A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut."

Non-Amiga hardware running an Amiga-like operating system does not make it an Amiga. It is "Zeros" and "Ones;" major binary here: Software vs Hardware.   Amiga software = Amiga Software; Amiga Hardware = Amiga.  You cannot dissolve away the Amiga design team; they designed "Amiga Hardare" first; they designed it when they were called, "High Toro," and the hardware was called, "Lorraine."  Apple designed the G4 PPC Apple Mac among other "Apple Macs,"  and like Amiga, Microsoft, et al, they ALL ripped off the Xerox PARC Star GUI of Windows, Icons, Mouse and Pointers.  Xerox acted stupidly by not copyrighting their invention, read "Dealers of Lightning" by Michael Hiltzik.

In the end, the Amiga is a designed hardware set, its software is software (yes, binary, zero and ones, blah, blah, blah).  If the hardware runs Linux, it does not become "Linux;"  Microsoft started out selling software; if the hardware ran it, then the hardware did not become DOS 6.22 or Windows 3.11.

[danbeaver]

Weirdly they seem to have taken over the term PC (i.e. the "I'm a PC" adverts). Even more odd is that it was Apple that started it with the Get a Mac adverts.
 
So if it runs Windows then it's a PC, if it runs MacOS then it's a Mac. If it runs Linux, well I'm not sure what it is as Linux runs on my phone, my NAS, my TV but not one computer I own.
 
Running windows on a macbook air makes it ?

It looks like you may be unfamiliar with the English I used; I said, "Microsoft started out selling software; if the hardware ran it, then the hardware did NOT become DOS 6.22 or Windows 3.11." In essence for the non-english speaking readers, the hardware defines the computer, not the OS, UNTIL Apple started BRANDING anything THEY SOLD as a MAC.  As long as they, Apple, called it a Mac it was a Mac.  If it was a computer not sold as a Mac, but ran Apple software, I have no idea what Apple calls it, probably "lost profit." Read the Steve Jobs biography, he sold concepts and looks; he was a marketer; he was not an engineer, hardware nor software; he had no computer science education; he took a high school electronics course.  He sold Apple's -- I's, II's, III's, Lisa's and Mac's, Airs Books, and the like.  That's all he did, sell concepts and looks and an occasional computer.

 That advertisment you reference was an Apple campaign to show that PC's were more like John Hodgman, not like Justin Long.  It tried to sell the look of Justin Long versus the look of John Hodgman.

[danbeaver]

@persia

That's funny because when I run OSX 10.8 on my Dell D630 or my desktop PC, the Apple fanboys call it criminal.

Aye, there's the rub. Because it runs OS X 10.8 does not make it a Mac. Apple changed the way we look at computers and they did it twice; they changed to a new Linux core OS AND changed to a standard industrial based set of hardware known to run the Windows operating system. Now what it that computer now sold by Apple?  When they sell it with their OS they call it a Mac; if they sold it with the Windows OS it would still be an Apple in the same way a Dell is a Dell; but it now can be called  a  Mac too as a simple software install works on the same Apple hardware because it is  THEIR standard. Not the world's.

How many Apple engineers does it take to change a light bulb?  Only one, but all he has to do is redefine the meaning of darkness and then upgrades the customer.

[danbeaver]

It's not Linux, it's CMU's Mach kernel plus BSD Unix, with Apple's own custom software and toolkits on top of that./QUOTE]
You are missing the forest for the trees, "It's not a question of where he grips it! It's a simple question of weight ratios! A five ounce bird could not carry a one pound coconut."  The Mac OS X uses a core from #?nix land to run on Intel hardware; Apple's original core only ran on Motorola based CPUs. Ergo, they changed both the OS and hardware, but because of its "look and feel" Apple stilled calls it a Mac. They may as well buy out Etch-a-Sketch and call it the Mac Air Book Lite.

[danbeaver]

I'm not arguing that point, just that it is not, in fact, Linux.

I am sorry that I said it was; well, now that we've settled the issue of what is and what is not emulation by just correcting my quite serious mistake on the actual non-Linux core of Apple's OS X, I  suppose we can close this thread. This i suppose also solves the question of "Life, the Universe and Everything."  Oh, thanks for all the fish.

[danbeaver]

Sorry, but the hardware has always defined the computer and the owners of said hardware design get to name it. An Amiga is the hardware that Commodore sold. The operating system is superficial. If MorphOS (as in v 1.45) ran on an Amiga, that computer does not become a Morph computer; it is an Amiga running MorphOS.

[danbeaver]

Sorry, but the hardware has always defined the computer and the owners of said hardware design get to name it. An Amiga is the hardware that Commodore sold. The operating system is superficial. If MorphOS (as in v 1.45) ran on an Amiga, that computer does not become a Morph computer; it is an Amiga running MorphOS.

[danbeaver]

@danbeaver

Then you are saying that C=USA's Amiga is the true Amiga since they have the legal right to name it?

Hmm, BRANDING?  Let's use my logic: Did CUSA design their hardware? Uh... No.  It is a frickin' Intel based chipset oft called a "PC."  Did they buy the name to sell stuff?    Uh...  yes, I suppose.  Is the stuff they sell original.  Well they are "copying" the case design one of the previous BRAND name owners.  Is their software an emulation? Yep.

And "Native" code?  Does the code define the hardware design?  Well, which came first the hardware or the code?  In the case of an ORIGINAL design, I vote that the hardware came first.  Heck, the Amiga team "emulated" Jay Miner's chip design on a Mac to work on the Amiga OS software, only to find that when the actual chips arrived, they did not behave like the "emulated" ones.  "Native code" means as much as "binary code."  It is a tree that blocks your view of the forest.  If "whatever software" runs on the designed hardware, the computer does not become a "whatever software" computer.  It doesn't matter were he grips it, the coconut does not become the swallow [vida supra].

P.S., Dilemma from Greek "Di" = two and "Lemma" = assumption, proposition, argument or theme.