Writing a new Amiga emulator... well, sort of.

[skurk]

I had this idea a few years ago, but never really had the time to do anything with it.  I barely started writing it, and I thougth I'd check with you guys to see if I'm walking a dead end road or not.

I'm thinking of writing a new Amiga emulator from scratch.

Ok, now, before you all start screaming at me, hear me out. This MIGHT just be something cool.

The idea is to write an Amiga "GUI emulator" that works with 100% system friendly applications only: it executes 68k instructions and translates all library calls to something similar on your current system.

For example, if a call is made to _LVOOpenWindow(), it actually opens a REAL window on your OS.  Applications will appear to be native, and not run inside some emulator window.

So far I figured C++/Qt might be a good combination for this.  Portability is important.

I've written the base and I'm currently able to run some simple DOS programs, like C:Avail.  As soon as I get my head around how ReadArgs work, I'll be able to take it one step further.

So, does this sound plausible?  Maybe I'm unable to see some major show stoppers ahead...?  If others want to help, I can create an SVN repository for it.

[skurk]

tonyyeb wrote:
Sounds like a nice idea. A bit like Wine?

Yes, it'll be exactly like Wine :-)

It would be better if this sort thing was in AROS appearing to run 68k apps natively.

I thought AROS was able to run system-friendly 68k apps already?  (Or am I confusing AROS with MorphOS now?)

[skurk]

Piru wrote:
@skurk

Yes, it'll be exactly like Wine

Except that Wine doesn't emulate the CPU, but oh well... :-)

..and it's not emulating Windows either, but you get my point.

[skurk]

Hans_ wrote:
BTW, I wouldn't call it an emulator; it's really an implementation of the Amiga OS API on another system.

Well, it's somewhere in the middle.  The CPU is emulated, so it's not exactly like Wine.  And since "Wine Is Not an Emulator", I don't know where I'm going with this.

Anyway.

It's a cool project to play with.  It's really easy to get carried away with..  And since I don't have much spare time, then yeah - it will be open source and open for other contributors.  If that is of interest to anyone.