sicklittlemonkey wrote:
On Mar 29, 4:57 pm, Tristan Mumford <xtristan.xmumf...@xgmail.xcom> wrote:That's where Appalm comes into it for me. It's a port of YAE too. I'd love a Zaurus. I'm a big fan of PalmOS, but I would like a handheld linux device. In spite of my best efforts I can't get Garux/palm linux to work correctly on my Palm.Yeah, both originally ported by the same guy, Hilary Cheng. At one point he said he was going to find the zaurus source for me, but didn't deliver. Doug Kwan will be re-releasing YAE under the GPL which might help.
Actually, PalmApple was a port of YAE. It sort of worked, but took about 30 minutes to boot ProDOS. Yours truly wrote Appalm (a much more clever name that PalmApple, I thought) in 68000 assembly and a little C. The only thing used from YAE was the disk nibblezation and arm stepping logic.
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I liked the conversation on Usenet a while back about high speed emulation of the 6502 on an ARM CPU. I couldn't help thinking about my Palm's Intel XScale CPU, which if I'm not mistaken has an ARM core. That could make for a really nice fast emulator.Yep, XScale is ARM. I co-wrote one for the ARM before, but the particular CPU is not so relevant at today's clockspeeds anyway. It would be great to hijack the zaurus kernel and build an Apple II emulator around it - the ultimate portable Apple II. A nice project for someone with the requisite free time. ;-) Cheers, Nick.
Now this is where I think an Apple II clone would get interesting. My Treo 700 runs Appalm close to native speed of a real Apple II. Appalm has no speed regulation and just runs flat out. So here is an XScale at 312 MHz, emulating a 68000, emulating a 6502. At about the right speed. Note: there are some bugs in the 68000 emulation, as one of the enhanced 65c02 instructions doesn't work on my Treo, but fine on my 68000 based Clie.
Michael said something awhile ago that really rang true. To paraphrase, he said the Apple II was the last of the hobby computers to ship. Being a hobby computer is what made it special.
So, if you were going to make an Apple II clone, clone the hobby aspect of it, not just the hardware implementation. My recommendation would be to build a computer around an ARM core. Nothing like a real 6502 or, heaven forbid, a 65816 (which I *really* dislike). However, build 1 MHz Apple II compatible slots, game port, keyboard connectors so that it will fit in a II or IIe case. Of course VGA, ethernet, USB, IDE, and whatever current peripherals of choice would have to be included. Now you have a computer capable of running Linux (the hobby geek OS of choice) and a cycle accurate emulator. You could even put an emulator in boot ROM so it comes up as an Apple II. You could easily emulate an Apple III as well. Heck, I'd even offer to write the emulation in ARM assembly. Imagine a 200 MHz Apple II.
My thoughts, anyway. Dave...