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From: dltaylor@cns.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Dan Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.emulations,comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXT emulation?
Message-ID: <905@cns.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Date: 22 Apr 91 21:00:26 GMT
References: <9104190943.12.2494@INSIDER>
Distribution: comp
Organization: NCR Corp. SE-San Diego
Lines: 32

In <9104190943.12.2494@INSIDER> sysop@insider.zer.sub.org writes:

>The NeXT's hardware is about the same to the Amiga's hardware as the Amiga 
>is to those machines. So: NO WAY...

Actually, the ONLY thing hard to emulate on a NeXT is the DSP.  The CPU
may be an '040 on some models, but I can run the binaries on my '030 and
'882.  What are a pain to "emulate" are the NeXTOS system calls.  However,
just as NeXT provided a Sun 3 translator, we could have a NeXT translator,
use one of the PD Postscript interpreters (for a commercial project, get
an Adobe license) and run all of the non-dsp applications.  With an adapter
board, we could even do those.

A NeXT has LESS hardware than an Amiga.  There are no graphics accelerators
to speak of, just the DSP, and I've already listed that.  We have a very
powerful blitter that performs graphics on its own, including boolean
operations on regions of memory.  We have sound output, not as many bits,
but more channels.  '040 opcodes could be emulated with traps on the
68000 Amigas, but I wouldn't recommend it.

I'm constantly amazed by the ignorance of the NeXT posters who "cross over".
Not only do they not know anything about Amigas, but they often know
EXTREMELY little about their own computers.  What "hardware" is this
poster refering to?  The only thing in there is an '040 and 56001.  The
former is mostly an '030 core + parts of an '881 + 8k cache.  The 56001
is nice, but, these days, a 96001 is real power (no we don't have one
either).  Perhaps the knowledgable NeXT owners don't have to pester us,
since they're comfortable with their purchase, suspect that we are, too,
and don't have to try to convince themselves by blasting us.

Dan Taylor
/* My opinions, not NCR's. */