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Documentation about the Vampire hardware

Emulation of V2/V4/AMMX/080 System?

Antony Coello

Posts 153
08 Sep 2022 14:36


Are there any future plans for some sort of (Win)UAE fork/patch/update to emulate the v2/4/AMMX/080 vampire systems?

Or should I be asking Bernd Schmidt/Toni Wilen?




DiscreetFX Studios

Posts 140
08 Sep 2022 19:25


LOL, I don’t think that’s possible.


Renaud Schweingruber
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 378
08 Sep 2022 19:54


Toni Wilen often gets this question. His answer has always been no until now.


Eric Gus

Posts 477
09 Sep 2022 00:33


Maybe time to bypass Toni and ask the author of the upcoming vAmiga emulator thats not based on UAE ..


DiscreetFX Studios

Posts 140
09 Sep 2022 01:07


Only remotely possible way might be to blend up a V4 in a blender then take each atom of the V4 and convert it into sub atomic bits of code. Then somehow reassemble bytes maybe using AI on a Quantum Computer for help. Cross fingers and try that way.


Nick Fellows

Posts 176
09 Sep 2022 17:42


Id start by implementing the 60080 instruction set myself.


Antony Coello

Posts 153
10 Sep 2022 11:59


nick fellows wrote:

Id start by implementing the 60080 instruction set myself.

That and the implementation of AMMX, whilst in no way a trivial task, added onto a current Amiga emulator would give you pretty much v2 emulation (with perhaps a bit of remapping here and there) to start with.

Im speculating here, as I have never attempted coding an emulator, but I imagine the 080 with mostly 1 cycle instructions, would be a bit easier to emulate than an 030, with its variable instruction execution times due to caches/instruction bus fetch interleave. (But then, I cant be sure unless I tried it. Perhaps someone with more knowledge of 080 vs classic 68xxx HW can detail any issues which would show different?)

This leads me onto the actual emulation.

Other than starting from scratch, I would imagine Win/UAE would be the most time-wise efficient solution here.

I understand Toni has declined to add Vampire specific emulation in the past, but from what I gleaned (IIRC) reading his posts, the reasoning was rather due to the low user base than anything else.

Perhaps he may re-think that view NOW as there are (supposedly) 10k+ vampire systems out there?

Also, I may be missing an important point, as I dont really do any GNU licence coding, but is there a reason someone else cant fork (Win)UAE?


Sean Sk

Posts 488
10 Sep 2022 14:11


2 things about this:
     
1. You'll never get Toni to do it. He's not interested whatsoever and never will be.
     
2. Why would the Apollo Team even want this to happen? Their core is owned by them, why would they hurt sales of their V4 products by allowing it to be emulated? (Unless they licensed it out.)


Antony Coello

Posts 153
12 Sep 2022 12:50


sean sk wrote:

    2 things about this:
         
    1. You'll never get Toni to do it. He's not interested whatsoever and never will be.
         
    2. Why would the Apollo Team even want this to happen? Their core is owned by them, why would they hurt sales of their V4 products by allowing it to be emulated? (Unless they licensed it out.)
   

   
   
    1. Someone else then? (Ideally, someone with access to the HW level design of the Vampire system).
   
    2. Depends on what you believe...its like downloading an album from an mp3/warez site and then buying the actual CD/vinyl because you liked it. That could be a factor to consider.
   
    Im sure if the emulation software was put out there, it would garner interest to, at least, produce Vampire specific software/games, if not translate into actual Vampire HW sales.
   
    Anyone into the Amiga as a collector, as long as they have the space buys the hardware regardless. They are not really put off because there is a free emulator (well, so far as Amiga Ebay sales/prices seem to tell). At the very least, if the non collector can get an emulator, theres the chance of more SW being produced for the platform too.
   
    Actually, I believe its the Vampire HW itself as one of the main reasons which led to Amiga HW being more sought after. About 6-8 years ago, you could barely give A500s away (e.g. £20-40 on Ebay). That changed after a while of the V2/V4 cards being out (obviously excluding the crazy price ramping effects of COVID/world economy crisis of the last few years).
   
    Well, thats my opinion anyway.
   
    Would be great for me to have something like that 'on tap' so I could work on my game port, rather than having to set up my V2 based A500 to do some coding every time.
   
   


Ville Helin

Posts 9
12 Sep 2022 20:43


sean sk wrote:

  2. Why would the Apollo Team even want this to happen? Their core is owned by them, why would they hurt sales of their V4 products by allowing it to be emulated? (Unless they licensed it out.)

The hard fact is that if anyone decides to write a V2/V4 emulator and bases their work on the public information available on the Internet they don't need to ask permission from anyone to do so...


Nick Fellows

Posts 176
15 Sep 2022 08:46


I think it would be pretty hard to make a case that cpu instructions can be intellectual property. If so then Apollo Team have a problem with the rest of the instruction set that came from motorola. CPU instructions must be public knowledge if we want people to code with them
 
  Without question Apollo own the logic / internals of the FPGA core design.
 
  Implementing those instructions in emulator code can be done with no prior knowledge of whats in the core, only that the end result operation of the instruction is the same.
 
  Apollo Core contains a bunch of other things not present in other motorola designs which could be problematic. Perhaps Gunnar will expand on that aspect.

Emulation i think is a good thing for developers, Id be writing code for vampire today if I could prototype on linux with an emulator.




Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
15 Sep 2022 15:43



It would devaluate Apollo hw if released now.

One day, when V2 and V4 are dead and dudo as CBM, it would make sense. Plus when a lot software and games support 080 MMX.

Too much effort with little sense. Plus I dont see teams interest to support it and without it - its hard reverse engeenering and not accurate, which would ruin current E-UAE/WinUAE name



Eric Gus

Posts 477
15 Sep 2022 16:52


The only real main/primary value I can see in having an Amiga emulator support 080/AMMX/SAGA would be to facilitate software development .. since its a bit easier to code/debug/develop on a modern desktop PC than the old Amiga (though I won't deny coding on the Amiga itself does hold a certain charm) ..
 
  If Toni wont add these extensions to WinUAE as I said before there are alternative Amiga emulators, eg FS-UAE and vAmiga on Mac .. Notable vAmiga on Mac is NOT BASED on UAE, and is free of Toni views and political opinions .. that said vAmiga is still in its early stages and right now just supports A500 class systems, eg no hard drives, no processors beyond vanilla 68000 .. 


Antony Coello

Posts 153
15 Sep 2022 17:15


eric gus wrote:

The only real main/primary value I can see in having an Amiga emulator support 080/AMMX/SAGA would be to facilitate software development .. since its a bit easier to code/debug/develop on a modern desktop PC than the old Amiga

Thats the EXACT reasoning for my wanting this.

At a quick glance, creating a V4 emulator is a bad idea for Apollo, but if you think about it a bit, it can create more momentum for the platform which will surely improve public awareness and therefore HW sales (if the user actually buys HW. See my  reasoning in the post a few above).


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
15 Sep 2022 17:52


eric gus wrote:

The only real main/primary value I can see in having an Amiga emulator support 080/AMMX/SAGA would be to facilitate software development ..

Improved docs, developer systems at reduced price etc. Emulation just sounds like great solution, but to real hardware, it isn`t.


Eric Gus

Posts 477
16 Sep 2022 02:24


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:

eric gus wrote:

  The only real main/primary value I can see in having an Amiga emulator support 080/AMMX/SAGA would be to facilitate software development ..
 

 
  Improved docs, developer systems at reduced price etc. Emulation just sounds like great solution, but to real hardware, it isn`t.

If applied correctly emulation is a fantastic tool .. again, each has its own benefits and features .. I dont see emulation as a negative its just another tool one can wield to accomplish a specific goal.


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
16 Sep 2022 06:46


eric gus wrote:

     
      If applied correctly emulation is a fantastic tool .. again, each has its own benefits and features .. I dont see emulation as a negative its just another tool one can wield to accomplish a specific goal.
     

     
      OK I will go with all of it, if  you will tell me of good emulator of any home computer, avail while it was on active sale. Maybe last Amstrads Speccys and such but that was overextending life cycle. Please dont use SideCar XT and similar as excuse, its hardware :) ST emulators for 020 Amigas and such, but I doubt those where high end models (eg TT Falcon already) etc. PC Task and such are laughable to PC development of time. QL died quickly. Consoles we dont count and I doubt it more there ... (e.g. emulating 8 bit consoles in 16 bit console era) etc.


Eric Gus

Posts 477
17 Sep 2022 06:25


I dont know any of those machines as I live in the USA and we didn't have Speccys, Amstrads, QLs or any of those..
   
    What I am referring to is things like using the insanely fast speeds emulation on modern PCs provide to do mundane things like install and setup workbench, compile binaries, install software, etc since you can easily leverage the speed of the underlying hardware (flash storage , etc) .. you can do things in seconds what would take hours on real hardware. .. take advantage of many of the other capabilities the underlying system can leverage and provide.
   
    I am not talking bout games or anything mundane and pedestrian like that.


Peeri the Sunlight

Posts 71
21 Sep 2022 19:23


Dear Fellows, You must think what is most versatile way.
Somebody talented coder to make "Soft AMMX" to amiga it self. (which works with 68000-68060)
Just trap wrong opt code and then emulate new commands. Just like softFPU worked.
I beleave that if it is done right, coder can use UAE for testing the code. Even users can run the ammx programs, but of course not cycle exact or fast as apollo core, but anyway it should work.
I don't say that it is easy but... think about Gunnar and whole apollo team, they have done it in FPGA level and thats way more complex than just write 68k Code


Cyprian K

Posts 26
22 Sep 2022 08:45


emulation would be cool for development purposes, e.g. easy68k with AMMX

posts 20