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Executor port to NeXTSTEP 486
Dear Folks,
Yes, there will be a port of Executor to NeXTSTEP 486. I don't think
it will be ready by the time that NeXTSTEP 486 ships, but it should
be ready within the first six months of when NS486 ships.
Joe Freeman is right that writing a synthetic CPU is a time-consuming
task, however, it is not anywhere near the task of rewriting the
Apple ROMs and System file, from scratch, using no disassembly of
same. Reverse engineering the MacOS is like putting together a
jig-saw puzzle, with a blindfold on, when you're drunk. Writing a
synthetic CPU is *much* easier; it's just like putting together a
(fairly large) jig-saw puzzle. I'd say that producing a quick
synthetic MC68000 is about a tenth as hard as doing what ARDI's done
so far, but since our synthetic CPU is not yet completed, I could be
slightly underestimating the level of difficulty.
All of the design of our synthetic CPU has been done as has much of
the implementation. We use dynamic recompilation into interpretive
code, but with some extra work, we could probably have different
"back-ends" for different architectures and then be doing dynamic
recompilation into *native* code. It's too early to give timing
estimates, but because all of the "system calls" will be running in
native mode anyway, performance should be very good.
--Cliff