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EMULATORS (2)

Amiga

At the moment there is just ONE working amiga emulator (that I know of), it's called UAE. It is written by
Bernd Schmidt, it used to be called Unusable Amiga Emulator (it deserved it's name, I've had all versions in due time...). But now it's called Unix Amiga Emulator, although there are ports done to various other computers/OS's. Rumor has it that there is another project ongoing, but than again, how should I know.
I just love this one, Bernd (and the others) are doing a great job. It's not really all that useable yet (I got a P100 with a Stealth 64 VRAM...), but I am really impressed what can be done by means of emulation. A day will come when our computers are fast enough (just do some thinking and look at the speed computers are developing)(By the way Bernd also wrote a very good CPC emulator). The homepage of the UAE is at www-users.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/~crux/uae.html, a very busy place nowadays, but it really deserves the attention it gets.
Many people have problems even starting uae, 'cause they are lacking the rom-image files that are needed for emulation. I didn't have any problems with that (since I have a real amiga right here at home). Rumor has it that following some links at Bernds page, one might get lucky... (but as this is highly illegal it probably isn't true ;-> ). By the way the inferior (naturally) disk controller of most (if not all) pc's is NOT capable of handling amiga (formatted) disks. There is NO way that any software will ever make it possible to read amiga (formatted) disks (same goes for c64 (formatted) disks). So if you plan to transfer programs to your pc, better dust off that old amiga, or connect to some well sorted BBS's (or sites).
Another interesting UAE page (mirrors...) is at http://www.htw.uni-sb.de/people/mgietzen/uae/uae.html.
For a change, I won't put any links here for the emulator, it's just changing to fast, an up to date copy can be obtained on Bernd's page.

A hompage for the DOS version of the emulator is now available at:
  • http://tinos.pucrs.br/~ggoedert/dosuae.html

  • There is a small WIN95 program which helps transfering disks via serial link. If interested, look at:

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    Macintosh

    There is just one emulator available (that I know of)...

    Executor

    (Executor is a Macintosh emulator for various OS's)
    I really am impressed by this one, it was arround long before people started thinking about writting atari st or amiga emulators (both are 16 bit computers as the mac, and both 680x0 based), this emulator is really fast and in fact useable!
    I don't know much about how to write an emulator (so correct me if I say something totaly stupid), but as far as I get it, this emulator is different to other emulators in the way it 'runs' programms. Mac programms are partially translated 'at runtime' to native PC code, and not 'interpreted'. This technique makes it efficient enough to be equally fast (faster! if you got a fast pc) as a real Mac.
    They are reluctant to release an offical version 2.0, (small bugs keep popping up, System 7 wants to implemented correctly, sound support...), but I think in a short time there will be an actual 2.0 release. Go, get it, if you are at all interested in Macs (and haven't got one allready).
    (The version number story somehow reminds me of Linux 0.99???, as with linux they are at 1.99 they got 'pre beta' relases which are alphabetically ordered (a-q) which in turn have each a minor version number, the last release I know of is 1.99q12!).

    Try contacting
    Ardi's, you can allways get the newest (10 minutes limited) fully working version there (at http://www.ardi.com/).

    Executor FAQ
    There is an online Faq available its home: Executor Online FAQ.

    There is (at least one, I didn't get too envolved with Mac's yet) a 'real' Mac Faq: http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/macintosh/top.html

    NEW:
    Version 2.0 (beta) is out...

    NEW:
    Virtual Macintosh
    Taken from the announcement:
    
    ANNOUNCING THE BEGINNING OF THE VIRTUAL MACINTOSH PROJECT
    
    What is vMac?
    
    vMac at this point is mostly vaporware. The goal is to create a FREE
    portable hardware emulator that will emulate a 68k based Macintosh.  vMac
    will only require the ROM image file from your Macintosh and a copy of
    your
    MacOS. 
    
    ...
    
    
    For more info check out the vMac Project home page at
    http://www.clearlight.com/~jagtech/vmac/index.htm
    Oh, did I say it will be FREE. Come contribute. -Richard Rice

    NEW:
    Eduard corrected some of the stuff I said above, rather than correcting it I thought it might be worth putting the concerning part of his letter on this page. It's not that I'm lazy (which I am too), but I think he summarized my 'mistakes' rather well:
    Hi,
    
    I found an error in you FAQ page (under Macintosh).  Please do
    not get mad I am not critizing, I just thought that this pages
    are good enough to be corrected.
    
    >writting atari st or amiga emulators (both are 16 bit computers
                                                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    This is NOT true, they WERE 16 bit instructions 24 bit addressing,
    (as oppose to DOS which was 16 bit instructions, 16 bit addressing)
    at the very beginning (pre-1988) as a matter of fact both the Atari
    and the Amiga had 32 bit OS before the Windows or OS/2 (DOS is still
    16 bit with extended addressing EMS/XMS).  Now all run (Amiga, Atari,
    and Mac) exclusively 32 bit OS (the Amiga was always 32 bit OS it ran
    in 16 bit because the CPU was a 16 bit CPU (with 32 bit instructions)
    but the OS was always 32 bit.  That is why the old Amiga Dos
    can have 64 Megs of memory (as oppose to <16 Megs the 16 bit max).
    The Mac used to be 16 bit also but like the Atari and the Amiga
    it only runs in 32 bit mode now (there is no 16 bit Power PC)
    Also the Mac now also runs in Power PC and that code can not be
    emulated (yet) with this emulator.  All CPUs were 32 bit instruction
    set capable so the manufacturer (except Apple) wrote their OS with
    this in mind.
    
    To summarize all of them ARE 32 bit computers (for more than 7 years
    now)
    
    >as the mac, and both 68??? based),
                          ^^^^^
    should be Motorola 680x0 based
    
    The CPUs that all of them
    used were:
    Motorola 68000 which was equivalent to the 80286
    Motorola 68010 which was better than 80286 less than 80386
    Motorola 68EC020 which was compared with 80386SX
    Motorola 68020 which was compared with 80386 but had no MMU
    Motorola 68EC030 which was also compared with 80386SX
    Motorola 68030 which was also compared with 80386
    Motorola 68EC040 which was compared to 80486SX
    Motorola 68040 which was compared to 80486
    Motorola 68060 which is compared with Pentiums
    as far as comparisons at the beginning (68000 vs 80286) it was OK
    since the differences from each other was not huge (big but not huge)
    by the time it was (80386 vs 68020) they were so different the
    comparison was as stupid as a dirt bike vs a jet ski (?!?!).
    Anyways, emulations will never be perfect as long as what they are
    emulating is still evolving.  To give you an idea, the new Macs
    which run in Power PC do not run ALL Mac code as fast as the older
    Macs that ran in 68040. 8-o :-)
    
    
    Eduard 
    
    
    
    
    Ooops, perhaps I should open some discussion forum... here is a reaction on the above email:
    
    
    Heya! 
    
    	I just wanted to let you know, (and correct eduard who tried to 
    xplain a few things about the Motorolas)
     If you like computer techhie knowledge read on.. 
     The Mac (GEM), Amiga (WB), And Atari ST (TOS), run on a MC680X0 family
    processor which are 32 bit fully 32bit, with a little exception of the
    68000 it got 24bit adressing, because address pins were left out but
    the address registers are 32bit, but the 68000&68010 have 16 bit 
    external databuss (same idea as the 8088/8086) when the cpu has to get 32 
    bits it does a double fetch (fetches twice then executes) which is 
    totally transparent, the 68008 is exactly the same idea just it's 
    external data bus is 8 bits (4 fetches to mae 32bits).
     so if you program for a 68000 it will run untouched on any other 680X0
     Processor Breakdown:
      comparing Moto's and Intel is like apples and pears, Moto's are more 
    powerful, that's why the mac amiga and atari can emulate and intel much 
    easier then the pc can emulate them.. but here we go
     A motorola 68040 running at 25Mhz outperfoms a 486 at 50Mhz by 20%
     a moto 68060 blows the socks off the pentium pro.. etc..etc..
    
    
    
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    TI 99/4A

    I never had one, but I allways liked this computer. It was one of the first and it was never that successfull. It had been around long before the
    C 64, I think it was available even before the VIC 20 but I'm not sure about that. For his time it had really good technical properties, would you believe that there was a some speech synthesies available for it? (in the beginning of '80ies!). Poor thing, even the emulator-writers seem to have abondened it. I've got no clue where you would get any software for it, but two emulators (both DOS versions) are available. Do you remember that strange BASIC dialect of it (CALL CALL CALL...)? One of these emulators was just recently abondened (well, last year), since february the source code for that emulator is made publically available too.
    A very good source of information is the emulator faq. Both emulators are available with source code, try the following site ftp://ftp.clark.net/systems/ti99, there you will find some stuff related to it. Amongst (a few) other things one of the emulators: ti99emu.zip, and its source code ti99emusrc.zip.
    The other emulator can be found at the (one of?) homesite of it's author, Edward Swartz: ftp://ftp.io.com/pub/usr/edswartz/v9t9, where it is available as v9t9src.zip.
    Some other stuff, including some demos (playable with v9t9src.zip) may be found at ftp://ftp.uni-erlangen.de/pub/pc/msdos/emulators/ti994a/.

    NOTICE! TI doesn't allow distribution of there ROM's, however the first mentioned emulator includes a working (crippled) ROM, how to use it with the other emulator can be read in the emulator faq. If you are lucky you might find an older version of the second emulator, which also has the ROMs included (obvioulsly illegally...). I actually found an older copy on a NIGHT OWL (that's a shareware collection) CD, if you want to get more information about NIGHT OWL CD's (or even a particular one :-)) try contacting me... .

    NEW
    Just got some information about a third commercial emulator:
    PC99
    
    
    They have some well maintained homepage, look at it and follow its links to learn more about that one...:

    They also made a FAQ for TI99/4A...:

    Some files about/for it can be found at:

    Another TI99/4A fans page:

    Some files concerning TI99/4A can be found at:

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    Atari VCS 2600

    There is an atari 2600 emulation project ongoing. So far there are no results seen in the public, but I'm sure they are doing a nice job. Have a look at their hompage:
    http://www.why.net/home/adam/2600/.
    There you can get much information about that console (mostly technical stuff though).

    A sort of overall pool of information is collected at the following site: http://www.sponsor.net/~gchance/.
    They have manuals of various games, instruction on how to build a copy machine and so on.

    Where to find Emulators

    Activision Action Packs (Windows (95))
    There are some Activision Action Packs for windows. Check out the above link for further information.

    X2600 (Linux)
    Written by Alex Hornby. There is actually a beta version of an emulator available, it can be found at the X2600 Homepage.
    Or try a download via link: X2600 (SHIFT, is a binary file...).
    I don't know if the next still holds true, so there is an OLD bracket...
    OLD-ON
    (This one's really strange, I tried downloading it via netscape (SHIFT CLICK), I didn't get a working copy, I was really frustrated. Than (I don't know why) I checked my CACHE directory, all files usually are stored there too. The *.tgz files actually had a different length... and I could unpack them... does someone know why?)
    The emulator is supposed to work under Linux, but I for one am not able to let it run (I can't even unpack it for some reason) but there are screenshots available (at the above site) and people are talking about it (that it works) and I do believe them, a pitty it doesn't work for me!
    (Well it does work, silly me, had problems downloading it with Netscape (look in the cache directory...))
    (Actually that might be a trap for all the stupid AOL users and the like, who don't know a 'sh**' about ftp and using it... since you gotta transfer it it binary mode, and Netscape is pretty stupid about that...)
    OLD-OFF
    There is now a new version available as well (though it's perhaps not as stable, as it is still a beta version). Better look at the above homepage, or try downloading via link:
    http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/ahornby/files/x2600-svga-test.tar.gz (SVGA test version) http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/ahornby/files/x2600src-b2snap3.tar.gz (latest version (beta))

    Virtual 2600 (Linux)
    This emulator is by the same author as the above mentioned. I think it is just a name change or something. Anyway this is more recent than the X2600. Have a look at it att the homepage:
    Or (as usuall) try a download via link:
    http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/ahornby/files/v2600src-0.70.tar.gz Source
    http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/ahornby/files/v2600svga-0.70.tar.gz (SVGA)
    http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/ahornby/files/v2600x11-0.70.tar.gz (X-Windows)

    Virtual VCS (DOS)
    There is now a DOS version available of that emulator, it still is pretty slow, but that might change in due time... Virtual VCS v0.60 copyright 1996 by Daniel Boris, ported from X2600 by Alex Hornbey copyright 1996 GNU Public Licence.
    Actually I think it a pitty that as soon as someone does a DOS port, the sourcecode seems to vanish. Why are all the DOS porters (or very many at least) so concerned about their sources? In fact Daniel is violating the GNU Public Licence, which states that all deriving source code must also be made available. It is not my problem nor am I really that much concerned about it, but I think it sort...
    OOoops
    The might of the page :-)! The source is there now, thanks mate! There is now a homepage for it:
    (and has a link to my page, thanks! ;-)).
    Try downloading it via link to the above page:
    binary.
    or the source.

    Stella (multi)
    Stella, another very good looking VCS emulator (sound support is supposed to be worked on...
    This one is another MULTI PLATFORM emulator, I really like those...
    Have a look at its homepage for further info. If you haven't looked at it for quite some time... be sure to check it out again... they are getting better and better...
    Distribution Site
    ================= 
    
    The Stella 96 distribution can be obtained from the Stella 96 home page at:
    
      http://www4.ncsu.edu/~bwmott/www/2600
    Contacts
    ========
    
    If you have any questions regarding Stella 96 send mail to:
      bwmott@eos.ncsu.edu
    

    NEWER A Stella release, for different platforms, try the follwing links:
    A verified working emulator is the following one: Under Windows 95 Activision Action Pack

    VCS2600 (DOS)
    Another emulator is under its way...
    Written by Thomas Djafari, check out the following page for more information: http://www.micronet.fr/~frogger
    (He asked for BETA testers once, but didn't answer his mail, bad guy :-))
    He also has an own homepage by now:
    You need to register (sort of free, sort of because... read for yourself at his homepage). Actually that emulator looks very good. It is completely written in assembler and it is very fast! It comes with configuration files for nearly all games. Not all of them work yet, but I guess it does a good job on more games than any other emulator. It has sound and joystick support (though keyboard support is still missing). Since the current release is still a beta, the author disabled sprite collisions but many games still work out just fine. There are various updates available so far... some run better than others (at one time there were for example 'exotic' games like Jr Pacman and the Water/Fire/Sword quest, Realsports and others working--- no, not pitfall II, and I guess it never will...). He implemented some small/funny thinks which I like very much, it just gives programs something like the finishing edge. For example you can 'switch off' the the VCS 2600 and a TV screen without a channel appears! You can adjust color and contrast just like on a real TV set. Overall I so far like this emulator the best! For more information look at the above mentioned homepage. Since this emulator requires registering by the author I can't provide any link...
    Oh, by the way, one really annoying thing is the authors obsession against microsoft... He doesn't allow his emulator to run under Win95 :-(. I wonder if it occured to him that MS DOS is a microsoft product too...

    A26 (DOS)
    And Another emulator...
    Written by Paul Robson, check out the following page for more information: http://users.aol.com/autismuk/a26home.htm
    So far I really like that one, written completely in assembler it is the fastest emulator of atari vcs2600 emulator yet. It is still in an early stage, there is no sound yet. Have a look at it, try the follwing link:
    http://users.aol.com/autismuk/a26.zip
    Sourcecode for version 0.15 is released at the above page.

    ??? (DOS)
    ... Just for completeness. A unfinished and not very workable version exits of another DOS emulator. A note from the author says, it is not doing as well as any of the above...
    Still a pitty one can't get its fingers on it, since he also said he got it shelved away and won't touch it again...
    Jeff Vavasour Atari vcs 2600 emulator...

    Where to find ROMs

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    NES

    There now some NES emulators available. None of them work 100%... but they might get better in time. Look at the following site to get some more information. I personally prefer Marat's emulator for now... but who knows what come up next... (Paul?)
    Marat made a page concering NES, some screenshots can be seen ... at:
    iNES
    The windows version now is supposed to have sound (registered). For now I am not registered yet... so I can't say anything about its quality...

    It's there! For Unix/Linux anyway. Marat says about 70% of the games should work, on the other hand in the docs he says he hasn't got a single rom image, I just wonder how he was able to do an emulator... :-)
    A binary version (v0.5) is available at Marats page, no source release yet...
    There is now sound emulation supported (Linux) I couldn't test it yet 'cause my Linux...problem...
    Try a download via link (or don't):

    At the above page you'll also get info on how to procede to get ROM images...

    Marcel de Kogel did a port of the above emulator. No this time it's not for DOS, this time he did a linux port. Including sound and joystick (pitty my linux doesn't) work now, so there is no testing being done yet.
    Look for it at Marcel page for it:
    http://www.komkon.org/~dekogel/ines.html
    or download it directly via link:
    http://www.komkon.org/~dekogel/files/nes/iNES-Linux.tar.gz

    PASOFAMI
    Here we go again, another emulator suddenly appeared. It does look very nice, working under that graphical monster which appeared around 1995. The demos which come with it look quite good (naturally).
    And gone again... the author has withdrawn this emulator as well from the public. Seems like a disease is spreading...
    It is now not available as version V 2.7a. (??!%$"§!??) (Perhaps try a look at the Wild links)

    NESA
    Another emulator of Paul Robson. He sure writes these emulators ...
    This is very fast and compact, written again in assembler. It doesn't support sound yet and does not run as many cartridges as iNES. But so far it is the only NES emulator for DOS, so it certainly is worth a secon look. My personal feelings are sort of doubtfull at this stage. I don't like the way some lines of the screen are not displayed in favour of a common video mode. It looks strange if the score (or something else) is drawn with a few lines missing...
    There is a homepage for it at:
    http://users.aol.com/autismuk/nesa.htm
    Or try a download via link:
    http://users.aol.com/autismuk/nesa.zip

    LandyNES
    Another emulator.
    This one still is very beta. Not as fast as NESA. It still has some problems even displaying even some of the more popular cartridges. As far as I know there is no homepage for it yet. I found a copy at NODE 99.
    Look there at the Nintendo section or try a download via link:
    http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/7712/dc-nes.zip

    Some generell Nintendo Stuff: http://www.voicenet.com/~tsrken/nes
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    Last Updated: 20. September 1996 Malban .