PC Emulation on A1?

[hnl_dk]

huronking wrote:

Didnt NT4.0 have Mips, DECAlpha and PPC versions
on the same CD? I could be wrong on that(its been
a LONG time) but if the PPC version worked on A1 it would make PC emulation beyond DOS moot.

Yep, they where all on the disc, but what would you use it for ... there where only few PPC-Windows aplications!!!

If someone would port WinE to AmigaOS4, then we would anyway be able to use those aplications :-D

[iamaboringperson]

huronking wrote:
Didnt NT4.0 have Mips, DECAlpha and PPC versions
on the same CD? I could be wrong on that(its been
a LONG time) but if the PPC version worked on A1 it would make PC emulation beyond DOS moot.

yep, there was win NT for mips alpha ppc x86 and possibly sparc, all on the same CD, but the ppc version wouldnt work on A1, it only worked on a small number of ppc machines years ago, all manufactured by the same company



i would love to see an ibm-pc emulator for amigaone/aos4 - perhaps the original authors of pc-task & pcx would be interested...
... i would probably be willing to help work on a new ibm-pc emulator in the futre perhaps!

[MarkTime]

Hey I'm in nashville too.....anyway its been covered before, but Windows NT on PPC, is not Windows NT on x86....your regular x86 applications are not going to work, the company would have had to release a PPC version of the software.

This was true for most versions of NT, except for the Alpha version, DEC included a really nice x86 to alpha instruction set converter...I don't know, call it emulation, whatever, but it worked.

I would mostly want pc compatibility to play games and no solution like that is evident, except buying one of those $200 dollar pc's and a kvm switch.

[asian1]

Hello
What about Omnicluster SlotServer products?

This X86 PCI Co-processor card can run DOS + Windows (even XP) at native speed.
Using AmigaDE AMP capability, it is possible to use both X86 + PowerPC together at the same time.

Omnicluster

MS release Windows NT 3.5 for PowerPC for IBM PS/2 850 and IBM Risc 6000. Unfortunately when Apple buy back the clone license, MS drop the PowerPC version.

MS also dropped support for MIPS RISC and Digital Alpha (after Compaq buy Digital).

The binary code translator for converting NT X86 program to NT PowerPC is called FX!32:

FX!32

There is a similar Binary code translator from UK:

Transistive Dynamite translator

Perhaps the most exciting future is:
What happen if MS port their portable WindowsCE OS to PowerPC?
Can AmigaOne run WindowsCE + Amiga DE?
WindowsCE is already ported to ARM, Xscale and AMD RISC CPU.

[Karlos]

x86 emulation on PowerPC should be quite reasonable if using a JIT implementation - I say reasonable in the comparable processor sense. Don't expect AthlonXP performance on a 603e :-) Given that the PPC has more gen purpose registers than the x86, I could forsee a really nice JIT that actually keeps the x86 register set in the PPC during execution of the code - kinda register allocation architecture taken to its logical conclusion.
Perhaps on Altivec systems some clever person might find a way to emulate some of the x86 SIMD stuff [mmx/3dnow].

[samface]

@Felix

Bochs isn't an ordinary emulator, it's more of a box within the box kind of emulation (hence the name "bochs"). It's a tool for dual booting without having to actually reboot. Bochs is more suitable for developing your own bootstrap or that kind of thing rather than to be used as an emulator. You see, it's awfully slow since it emulates the entire hardware setup even if you're running it on the same hardware as the one you're emulating. Even PCTask would do a better job at running Windows and Windows applications than Bochs simply because it's a developer tool rather than a user application.

[ruffneck]

The Omnicluster/Slotserver solution would be interesting. It's pretty pointless, but then we might be able to run x86(Amithlon) versions of Amiga soft with it too. Good commercial emulator in bundle with 700mhz P3 Slotserver...