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Re: Future Questions
>>>>> "Jeff" == Jeff Tupper <mooncake@cs.toronto.edu> writes:
Jeff> After you manage to integrate some form of system 7 into
Jeff> executor, have you considered emulating the PPC? Mixed-mode
Jeff> stuff may be messy, but at first glance it would appear one
Jeff> could emulate PPC code better than 68K code due to
Jeff> arcihtecture differences (the PPC is cleaner, the source
Jeff> code should be more transparent due to more registers, but I
Jeff> guess the x86 limitations may hamper this)
Yes, I've read the PowerPC architecture reference manual (I read arch
ref manuals for fun), and I think the PowerPC would be much easier to
emulate than the 680x0. As for registers, the PowerPC has 32
registers, the 680x0 16, and the 80x86 only has 8! Equally annoying
is that the PowerPC has floating point registers, but the x86 has a
floating point *stack*.
I'm sure we'll end up emulating PowerPC someday, but we've got to work
on getting a solid 680x0 Executor out there first.
Jeff> More pressing to me is if you are considering licensing
Jeff> libraires for Mac emulation?
Long ago Executor was a source-compatible library, but it would be
difficult to resurrect it in that form. There are also some very
difficult issues for developers involving byte ordering; have you
noticed that all platforms supported by Apple (680x0, PowerPC, and
those supported by MAE) are all "big endian"?
As a totally random aside, the Sega Genesis uses a 68000, so we could
use our CPU emulator as the engine for a system that would let you
play/develop Sega games on 80x86-based PC's. Now *that* would be fun.
:-)
-Mat
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