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From: Ettore Perazzoli
Date: 1998-05-13
Subject: Re: VICE vs C16

Hi all!

On Wed, 13 May 1998, Lion/Chromance wrote:

> Screen (pixels) and keyboard handling is already implemented in VICE X,
> probably Zsolt can/must use those routines, replacing his own DOS calls.

This is not needed, because we already have MS-DOS keyboard and video routines that can be used on the C16/Plus4 as well. It's just a matter of adding the PC->Plus4 keyboard conversion tables and the TED screen update routines.

For the video, we also have a module that makes the implementation of the video emulation much easier, providing frame buffer access, caching, and support for raster effects. This is all code that can be reused with little effort.

> I don't see any need of recoding it again. I don't know what will happen
> to the CPU emulation, coz now there are 2 different codes for that.

I am not sure about the 7502/6502 differences, but we are not going to have more than one CPU implementation in the emulator. The current one is well tested and fits perfectly in the current setup. Adapting other CPU implementations will probably take more work than it's worth.

Btw, I don't know anything about Zsolt's emulator (I have not tried it yet). Is it cycle-based or line-based?

> Please note that Zsolt wants to finsih his c16 emulator up to version 1.0
> before porting/inpelmenting it into VICE, so it's better to clear some
> statements now. Which ways should be followed to make the port work
> painless. :)

Why? I think it would be better to integrate the Plus4/C16 emulator in VICE immediately, instead of trying to do this later. There will be probably lots of things to change, and it's better to fix them now rather than spending twice the time when the code is twice as big.

As far as I can see, there is nothing to loose on both sides. We gain a new emulator, and Zsolt gets a well-tested cycle-exact CPU emulation,
MS-DOS and X11 ports, ready-to-use UIs, and generic emulation code. And he could then spend all the time in coding a cool emulator instead of spending time with the OS details. :-)

Btw, the code in VICE is currently going under major restructuring to make adding new emulators and porting to different platform much easier.
Zsolt, if you want to check it out, just let me know, and I will send it to you as soon as it becomes somewhat stable.

> I hope the list users are interested in some techincal details about
> these emulators!

I hope this too.

> About sending files: I don't see any problem in sending executable or
> such files over this list, so go on Levente :) I receive files on the
> c64 list weekly, last time the 180 users of that list got the 300KBytes
> Scene+ magazine issue 2. that's normal!

Well, if possible, I'd prefer not to have any big binaries on the list.

Bye Ettore.