On Mar 30, 1:45 am, David Schmenk <dschm...@GACH.gmail.com> wrote:
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.
Sorry, Dave, I knew you were involved, but didn't know it was such a
major rewrite since I don't have a Palm device, and don't follow the
project. Nice work, and yes, Appalm is quite clever. ;-) [To be fair
to Hilary, he's obviously a clever guy - it's just that English isn't
his first language.]
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.
See, this is where I rant (and not for the first time) about how well
Acorn did by its BBC Micro users when it released the ARM-based
successor, the Archimedes. It had slots and a modern OS in ROM which
included an emulator for its 6502-based BBC Micro predecessors.
Also in ROM was BBC Basic, which was said by Acorn to be "certainly
the fastest interpreted BASIC in the world". The basic was mostly
backward compatible with BBC Micro Basic, except that the built-in
6502 assembler was replaced with an ARM assembler. It was powerful
enough to implement full GUI applications. Still a hobbyists machine,
but with real grunt.
Imagine what Apple could have done in this vein, and perhaps more
importantly what they would have been able to if they hadn't been
constrained by a Microsoft licensed basic.
Anyway, that's a nice idea for a new Apple II, Dave. I've already got
the emulation in ARM assembly if someone builds it. ;-)
Cheers,
Nick.