Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!sun-barr!newstop!sun!pepper!cmcmanis
From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Amiga Emulators
Message-ID: <128510@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 29 Nov 89 02:22:30 GMT
References: <4666@lab.udel.EDU> <21@macuni.mqcc.mq.oz> <128445@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <4120@eagle.wesleyan.edu>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 43

In article <4120@eagle.wesleyan.edu> jtreworgy@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes:
>That's fine... but the Transformer which we claim emulates an IBM doesn't have
>any graphics or sound emulation whatsoever. You wouldn't NEED to emulate HAM
>mode to have a reasonably complete Amiga (the only things that use it are
>digitising & respective paint programs and for looking at pretty pictures).
>Still, though, any Atari ST trying to emulate Amiga graphics (copper etc) would
>be extremely slow...

James you are both correct and incorrect at the same time. The reason the 
Transformer (and PC ditto for that matter) can get away with just emulating
a CGA or MDA card is that a lot of IBM PCs went out the door in that 
configuration and thus most of the PC programs support those graphics adapters.
There is however no Amiga without HAM, nor is there one without stereo sound.
Thus a lot of programs can and do depend on these being available. The sound
system is used by nearly every game and a few mainstream applications as well.
The ability to emulate is directly tied to the ability to emulate the base
configuration. The ST can't do that. Sorry. 

>On the other side of the coin, though, I'm still surprised no-one has released
>an Atari ST emulator commercially. It seems to me like that would be a lot
>easier to copy than a Macintosh, and you wouldn't need any hardware with it
>either.

Wrong again, because it is illegal to make a copy of TOS without Atari's 
permission. You might be able to get an old buggy version of Disk TOS but
it would hardly be worth it.

> Maybe no one thinks there would be any interest, but from what I have
> heard the music software for the ST is far superior to likewise existing 
> on the Amiga (of course you'd need to wire up a MIDI interface).

This is also incorrect, to the extent that Notator(sp?) exists for the ST
and there is no comparable system for the Amiga, the availability of sequencers
is nearly identical (with the exception that you can't get Music-X for an
ST). That is because it is generally only worth writing something to sell
into _both_ markets, at least that way it is almost the size of the Mac 
market.


--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@Eng.Sun.COM
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
"If it didn't have bones in it, it wouldn't be crunchy now would it?!"