Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!mintaka!geech.ai.mit.edu!rjc From: rjc@geech.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.emulations Subject: Amiga Emulator for the ST. Sounds Bogus. Message-ID: <1991Mar12.022622.25956@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> Date: 12 Mar 91 02:26:22 GMT References: <91070.090306JKT100@psuvm.psu.edu> <3047@mtecv2.mty.itesm.mx> Sender: daemon@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu (Lucifer Maleficius) Organization: The Internet Lines: 66 I received the following in Email. No disrepected intended for the author of this message, but the described product seems bogus, or a hyperbole. ----begin included text---- Received: by minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au Date: Tue, 12 Mar 91 11:03:56 +1000 From: s883334@minyos.xx.rmit.OZ.AU (James Alan Hall) Message-Id: <9103120103.28501@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au> To: rjc@pogo.ai.mit.edu Subject: Emulations. Status: OR In comp.sys.amiga.emulations you posted the following : > Subject: Re: Atari Emulator? > Date: 6 Mar 91 02:47:33 GMT > > [ stuff deleted ] > > What is this Amiga emulator your talking about? Sounds like vaporware > to me. Just consider what's needed, OS Roms, Agnus, Denise and Paula > chip, along with the support circuitry and ram to support them. > This isn't an emulator, it's an Amiga. The only ST emulator I can > imagine is an ENTIRE Amiga motherboard on a card plugged into > what? Does the ST have an expansion slot? > > Nevertheless, this would cost more then the ST or the Amiga itself > to implement. > > The Amiga is one of the only computer that defies to be emulated. Without wishing to start a computer war, a friend of mine has an Amiga emulator for his Atari 1040ST. It is a commercial package, thats been around since 1987, released by Metacomco. The manual states that it runs around 7 times faster than a real amiga, disk drive i/o is much faster, ^^^ but the whole thing slows down when it comes to emulating the specialised chips (some of them not all). It requires the atari blitter to be installed, which runs approx 40 times faster than the amigas blitter which somewhat ^^^^ compensates for the lack of those amiga chips. It also requires an amiga drive, which has to be attached as the second drive on the atari. Keeping in mind his version is from 87, I'm sure there would be improved versions of it around today. James. s883334@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (I would have posted this, but I dont have such privileges, just e-mail) ----end included text---- An 8mhz ST running 7 times faster than an Amiga while emulating Amiga hardware? A blitter that runs 40 times faster than the Amiga blitter? Since the ST has no copper, to emulate it means polling video beam registers constantly. This sounds too unreal considering a 25mhz 68030 only runs 9 times faster than a 7mhz 68000. For the ST's blitter to run 40 times faster than the Amiga's it would need a clock speed of over 100mhz. The ST disk i/o being faster than the Amiga's DMA driven disk seems suspect too(especially when running the fast file system). Can anyone confirm or deny that this Metacomco product really exists? Either someone is exaggerating ALOT, or Metacomco is falsly advertising, because I don't believe this.