Author: LST of LaserForce (195.115.40.97)
Date: 01-14-2001 21:31
Hi all,
This night, I had a dream. Just like Martin Luther King... ;-)
Well, looking back to this thread, we are "divided" between those who want a
real Motorola-powered clone and those who just want to run their apps whatever
the hardware is.
So my question for today is the following : why not making a complete OS which
could run on EVERY machine (I mean Atari clones, Amiga clones, PC and Mac
or anything else) and would run any application.
Imagine that you can run your old ST programs in native code on Motorola
processors, and emulated on x86 or other non-Motorola CPUs. Developper could
use the same language (C for instance) which could be compiled in 68k, PPC or
Intel and so on, with no change in the source code, since all system calls would
be exactly the same on any machine.
The biggest difficulties are the following :
- make several versions of the compiler, one for each processor
- make several versions of the OS, also one for each processor
- make a cross-platform code emulator, so an old application could run on any
CPU
If developpers don't use any byte of assembler, it could work. They would only
have to write standard GEM calls, all other functions would be driven by the OS
itself (example: a program just have to know the screen resolution and could
adapt its window according to it, etc..). Of course, demos won't work very well
but look at Magic Mac or PC today: well-coded, GEM-based programs work
pretty well (I've coded some apps in GfA Basic on my MSTe and they run perfectly on MagicPC).
I'd like to develop this idea a bit further but I'm limited by my english, so if french
Atarians want to talk with me about this idea, just go to my website's forum
at http://lst.laserforce.org (then go to Services and Forum). We could then
translate all posts in english for all friends at Atari.org...
Have a nice day,
LST
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