Re: So, what do you think? real IIgs or emulated IIgs?

[Blake Patterson <blake@blakespot.com>]

	Some of the insane fine moment I remember on the GS were looking at
SoundSmith, Nucleus, Modulae, etc. relative to what was out then.  (I
had sold my GS and had an Amiga 2000 at the time--GS-owning friends and
I were always going back and forth about the capabilities of this
machine over that, etc. -- quite the fine memories.)  And as you said,
an emulator just cannot get the timings just right.  The initial
scroll-up of the screen in Modulae is not GLASS smooth like it is on a
real (and unaccelerated) GS.  And the sound glitches--they spoil the fun
as well.  I guess where I got my kicks as far as the GS goes was in the
unique gfx and sound, and emulation does not perfectly represnet these
things.  I think in time they could.  I believe the current versions of
Amiga emulators are pretty close to fully emulating the custom gfx
hardware, and it is significantly more complex than what the GS has
going, so it's definitely possible to get pretty close.  (Not that the
Amiga emulators do it perfectly currently.)

	Part of my excitement of getting into the GS right now is to get into
asm a bit for the 65C816.  I did a decent amount for the x86 back in
'94, but never got much done with the 65C816 or the 68000 (Amiga) in the
past.  I have decided that I just won't ever really have the desire to
code something as "complex" as a PowerPC chip or other modern processor
-- so this is sort-of my last chance, I think.  I do mainly web
programming (primarily PHP3, Perl) currently (day job) but would not
mind some asm (simple little gizmo progs).  BUT - to think of getting
into GS asm on an emulator...I don't know...it just seems so odd and
unappealing to me.  Maybe it's just becuase I'm just getting back into
the GS that I am saying this, but it seems like if I were going to do
that, I may as well just learn a native asm for a modern machine or
something.  I mean--emulation is not perfect, and I'm getting into asm
on this somewhat fuzzy "pseudoplatform."  That's just what's in my head
right now.

	Anyway -- I do have both emu and GS (I'd love to see Sweet 16 -- I wish
Apple had not broken assistance with Be to support the new G3/G4's with
BeOS) and am glad about it.  We'll see where it takes me.  I feel I'll
be with it for a while...  

	(I do wish my Focus drive had gotten here today so I'd have the weekend
to play...oh well!)



bp

Pim Blokland wrote:
> 
> Here's my two cents:
> Some people argue that an emulator is not the same. Simply because it
> runs on another platform. And well, that is largely true for Windows.
> Can't speak for Unix and other platforms, but I've tried XGS on a
> Windows machine, and it simply doesn't FEEL right.
> However, on a Mac, things are different. You have the same keyboard
> (with the Option and Apple keys and so on), the same one-button mouse
> and you can use 800K ProDOS floppies with no problem whatsoever.
> And, you know, a Mac is an Apple.
> 
> But enough of the silly sentimentalism. Then there's the real advantage:
> the speed. You mention 15 MHz, but on the latest Macs an emulated GS
> does much better than that. Plus you can use a portable computer and
> have a portable GS. For me personally, this was the main reason I bought
> a Mac portable. Honestly.
> There are also disadvantages: it's impossible for an emulator to run at
> exactly 1.23 MHz, to execute every machine language instruction in
> precisely same the amount of time it takes on a real Apple. So old sound
> routines (which rely on cycle timing) aren't very accurate. And I've
> never seen emulators which can display all of the Apple IIgs' video
> modes properly. And a Mac cannot be made to display 200 scan lines, or
> even 400. And you cannot hook up most of the Apple II hardware to a Mac.
> So it's always a trade off. The GS can do things an emulated GS cannot
> do and vice versa. For me, the scales are definitely tipped in the
> direction of the emulator, but I can understand people who find the
> disadvantages greater than the advantages.
> 
> Other issues are of less importance to me, like the discussion if it's a
> good idea to have an emulator have more features than the real thing. To
> people who are afraid that there will be programs that can run only on
> emulators I say: but those kind of things have always happened. When the
> //e came out, with its new features, soon afterwards there appeared
> programs that could run only on the //e. Ditto for the //c, with its
> built in serial ports and other stuff, and for the GS, with its new
> standard for memory expansion and so on. So now there's Bernie, an
> emulator with 13.9375 MB of RAM instead of 8 MB. So what? Don't be
> afraid to view GS emulators as the next generation!
> 
> --
> Groetjes, Pim
> 
> Same excuse every time

-- 
"Heisenberg may have slept here."