When they see me running AmigaOS anywhere, most people ask "What version of Windows is that?", and I tell them it isn't.
And they see it doing everything they do with their machine, and things they'll never do with their machine, all at the same time, and they ask "Can I have this on my computer?".
Because techHeadz don't ask silly questions like these, I save them some trouble and tell them that yes, they sort of can.
Then, they invariably ask "Does it run Windows programs?".
Of course, if I suggest WinUAE, it can, but running full-screen and switching back to Windows to use something is a pain, because the monitor usually looses sync while the screen is 'changed', even if its the same screen-mode. I assume this is Windows' problem, and to hell if I'm going to help Them out, or maybe it was the Matrox graphics cards they had at Uni....
Even Alt-Tab'ing annoys me (it's just not the same as Amiga-[N|M] and FKey, is it?)
So, I was wondering if their was any way of imitating Windows objects with BOOPSI complements through WinUAE, something like the local partition support? Such as passing Windows messages and trapping responses?
Or maybe just instructing the Windows window to appear on UAE and in informing Intuitution layers and Windows of logical window crosses, ie. window defined and clipped, but invisible for alternate OS' display?
Is this feasable, and could this be used to encourage people to check out AmigaOS, without interupting there usual Windows use. Then they could even run Windows hosted AmigaDE applications on Amiga OS(ish) before 2005! :-D
What I'm really asking is, even if this was a separate source and a script to download, compile and install WinUAE with this modification (Hmmm... that pretty much restricts it to developers, anyway...), would this be ethical? Would it affect the many authors of UAE legally? Would it affect Hyperion or AInc legally? Would people ditch Windows in droves, even though they'd be leaving their Windows programs behind (unless they run on the intent platform, of course)? Is it worth the effort?
This slow ass PC I'm using here has trouble opening a requester if there's a full-screen layer, and forget about browsing multiple file listers (opening a window is like opening PPaint when it does its 'Auto-configure' start-up because there's no PPaint: assign on my 68000).
Yet, WinUAE running on this P2 166 only really has slowdown during boot or application boot. Layers flit around like wild-fire in comparison (a bit like the difference between an A500 640x256x4 and an B1230 640x256x4
And its a 68K JIT with some custom chip emulation. UAE resembles a free version of intent, on a limited scale.
Yet, its an unlimited scale. :-o Choosing the scope is the difficult part.
benJamin
"Todays world, it seems, tends to say eff-it when asked to put in effort."
