Re: IIgs emulation...

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article retromod@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (Tilghman Lesher) writes...

>Dan Yertzell (Dan-Yertzell@worldnet.att.net) wrote:
>: On 26 Nov 1997 04:08:13 GMT, beavis0005@aol.com (Beavis0005) wrote:
> 
>: >I know this is off topic, but I want to know something. Which 
>: >is the best IIgs emulator? If I can get my hands on a copy of 
>: >Gus, Apple's infamous emulator, am I better off? I've got a ROM-1
>: >GS, but I need a ROM-3 with over 1.25 MB of Ram and a 1.44 Mb 
>: >floppy. Will Gus provide this? Does anyone know?
> 
>: Only 1 person here will think this is off topic, so don't worry about
>: it.
> 
>: For IIgs emulation on Windows, DOS, or Unix, XGS is available.  I use
>: the Windows 95 version, it supports ROM 01 and ROM 03, 8 megs, hard
>: drive images, 5.25 and 3.5 disk images.  It's not finished yet
>: (version 0.50) but is quite stable and useable.
> 
>The only problem with XGS (at least on the Mac) is that if you've got
>sound turned on with any decent demo, it slows down to a crawl, even
>compared with a real IIGS.
> 
>And that's on one of the new Mac G3's (233MHz) !
> 
>For example, Modulae is TEN times (10x) faster on an unaccelerated IIGS
>than it is on a 233MHz XGS Mac.

    On a 166 MHz Pentium I found XGS runs faster than a stock Apple IIgs, 
even when a game or demo is doing sound. Overally it is poorly optimized
though, even on my 133 MHz 486 it barely reaches 1 MHz speeds (which is
why I wish someone would do something along the lines of GuS or BTTR for
Intel based machine. You could even have it support 1.44 MB ProDOS disks
directly, the PC reads them just fine since they're MFM encoded). XGS is
little more than a novality in its current form.

>The real answer to the original question is that a IIGS is better than
>an emulator.

    Yep, which is why I keep my Apple IIgs sitting on my desk next to
my PC, hooked up and still running daily. :)

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca