Emulating OCS, ECS, or AGA chipsets

[doyle86]

Hi every one.
   This may seem like a silly question and I may get flamed for it, but I was wondering if anyone has ever thought about emulating the old chipsets under the new Amiga OS using new hardware.  As I understand it OS4 can run on certain PPC systems or on a PPC enhanced old school Miggy.  On the new hardware it seems that chipset dependant programs won't run.  If there was something like WinUAE working in the background under OS4, wouldn't that take care of those of us unwilling to let go of old software yet still entice us to buy new modern hardware?  Didn't Mac do something similar with their older OS's to get them to work under OSX?  Just thinking outloud here.  Anyone else have any thoughts on this idea? :idea:

[bloodline]

MacOS never allowed programs access to the hardware so Apple could change it and even eliminate it, as they saw fit.

Though you are right, that Apple did sandbox off the old "classic" apps... this allowed them to make a new more powerful system without having to worry about what the old apps expected... AOS4 does not use a sand box.

The Amiga chipset requires very subtle timing, If you need it then use UAE.

[keropi]

it would be GREAT to have classic apps support in OS4/MOS , but in reality u have to choose between amiga and new-amiga-like computers, or just have 2 machines...
Jens of Individual computers (that is in charge of Clone-A project that wants to replicate the original chipset of the amiga in newer technology chips) proposed to make a hardware card for Efika that has the chipset on it, but it was declined... the way I see it, that was the only chance to have hardware-chipset in a new computer...

[doyle86]

    I use WinUAE all the time.   I just thought if The chipsets could be emulated there in a Wintel enviroment it should be possible to do it on a machine that's running OS4, baring lisencing and all that legal stuff.  
I kind of figured that OS4 didn't emplement a sandbox but if something like that could be done I feel that it would  make the transition and pain of moving to new hardware much more easy for most people.

   Keropi,
  In an ideal world a hardware based chipset would be great, but we are a ways away from that yet.  A software emulation of the chipset under OS4 might be a viable short term solution.IMHO
 :-)

[mel_zoom]

Im not sure I understand this - there hasnt been a new chipset released since AGA and that was so long ago now. That means that anything requiring the native chipset must be of a similar age and so probably doesnt require much CPU power either - old games are likely to be the majority. Now I like these as much as anybody but...

What I am trying to say is that any software that is newer and benefits from more power is already OS friendly and ready to run on more modern hardware. Older software that does depend on the chipset directly probably runs just fine under an emulator like UAE running on the same machine. Other than the fact it doesn't appear to be a seamless integration what is wrong with that?

Is there any software that depends on the chipset directly and requires more power than this to be useable?

[AJCopland]

@mel_zoom
Rendering programs, anything using a lot of ram image editors etc, sound editing progs etc. Anything that take things and applies large batch style processes to them etc.

Games etc it won't matter to in most cases, with faster new hardware you'd possibly see less chugging than on a standard amiga chipset, but you also might get the game running at many multiples of the original speed if it hadn't been coded to avoid that.

Then there's compatibility issues with emulated hardware. UAE is pretty good at dealing with most of them but there's still a few.

Andy

[mel_zoom]

"Rendering programs, anything using a lot of ram image editors etc, sound editing progs etc. Anything that take things and applies large batch style processes to them etc."

How many of these depend on the native chipset? Even the oldest version photogenics I remember tinkering with would run on RTG as well as its HAM modes.

"Games etc it won't matter to in most cases, with faster new hardware you'd possibly see less chugging than on a standard amiga chipset, but you also might get the game running at many multiples of the original speed if it hadn't been coded to avoid that. "

UAE has a speed control though doesnt it? Ive seen an option to match A500 speed. Im sure it wouldnt be impossible to do the same for A1200 and some other base models.

"Then there's compatibility issues with emulated hardware. UAE is pretty good at dealing with most of them but there's still a few."

Perhaps but then any new hardware emulation would have some problems too - especially when you have to graft it into a quite alien system. At least we know what UAEs problems are and its also lot easier to fix software than hardware.

[AJCopland]

I disagree with nothing you've said. You just asked so I just pointed it out

Andy

[mel_zoom]

Well not exactly. I asked which applications that depended on the chipset in order to run that in turn would not run adequately enough under emulation in order to require a hardware chipset. Or at least thats what I was trying to ask :-)

The class of applications you listed at first are all mostly not dependent on the chipset and so werent really the examples I was looking for. These programs should run fine with just CPU emulation.

Which brings us back to my original point. What is the real point of such a hardware chipset emulation for newer systems?

What applications are there that must have the chipset present in order to run that will not run perfectly well - if not a lot better - under UAE emulation than they did on the hardware available when they were released?

I agree it would be nice to see UAE-like chipset emulation built into OS4 and so on but I don't see the why it needs to be a hardware based solution.

Actually the main use I can see for hardware chipset emulations are as replacements for ageing amiga classics.

[AJCopland]

Ah I see, then I'd have to hazard a guess at genlocking or other video signal work. Stuff that actually utilised the Amiga's rather unique/oddball video synced hardware for TV work.

Though you can get video editing hardware for the PC/MAC etc it may be that people want to use the Amiga software to do it. Now we'd need someone who's used that kind of stuff to chip in :-D

After all you might be able to emulate it in software but without the hardware there'd actually be nothing to interface too.

(if you hadn't noticed I am just being the devils advocate in this debate ;-))

Andy

[doyle86]

This is great.  I'm glad I started this thread.  I like to see a healthy exchange of ideas.  

I guess my reason for starting this was because of my, maybe wrong, observation that most old school Amigans are reluctant to let go of the old hardware was because of games and the like.  This is a bit of an assumtion, but wasn't one of the problems with the Amithlon and Amiga-one being adopted by the Amiga community the lack of game compatability?  Let's face it, you really can't beat the elegance abd beauty of what the Amiga chipsets could do.  I asked the original question in order to find out what it would take to get the WHOLE Amiga community behind a modern amiga platform.  I agree that OS friendly apps and games would be great for OS4, but currently we don't have a lot of mind blowing software for OS4.  There is a lot of spectacular software designed for the old Amigas.
I guess I would just like to see a smoother transition to new hardware that would allow for a more painless adoption.

The pain of having to start over with a new Amiga without any backward compatability has kept me from buying the new systems that have come out.  

One last thing, when I say new Amiga hardware I am not speeking of new custom chipsets.  I'm talking about things like the Efika, Amiga-one, and so on.

Now I just feel like I am rambling.  Does anything I said make any sense?

[krize]

Its the demo scene! All new demos for Amiga require 060 and AGA.

Thats why I need a classic 060 up and running always.

[doyle86]

If you could have your 060 emulation and AGA under OS4 on new hardware would you be more likely to buy a new system?

[Piru]

Latest WinUAE supports 68060 btw. Frankly, I see absolutely no point in trying to redo UAE from scratch.

Anyhow, the fact is that UAE has JIT only for x86 target. Also, x86 is the most affordable and fast HW around. If you want to run (hw banging) classic stuff, use x86 boxen.

MorphOS will not have any custom hardware emulation.

[Karlos]

It would be nice if a software emulation of the custom chipset were included in OS4/MOS (leaving 680x0 emulation up to Petunia and Trance respectively), but I don't see it as essential. Hardware level emulation looks extremely impractical outside of projects like minimig.

I don't see it being technically straightforward or financially viable to shove a hardware emulator on a PCI card when it would only really be any use on PPC-only amiga compatibles (given x86 boxes have more than enough grunt to do it all in software nowadays).