A Report: "Why I Like Emulators"

From: steve <steve_at_kennard.keme.co.uk>
Date: Thu Jun 19 15:38:13 1997

At 16:31 19/06/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Due to massive amounts of caffeine & sleep deprivation, A.R. Duell said:
>
>>> >I really don't see the interest in emulators if the real hardware still
>>> >exists. I'd much rather have the real thing.....
>
>>I think we're rather missing each other's points here. There's nothing at
>>all 'wrong' with using an emulator as an aid to writing software or
>>whatever to run on a classic computer. I know plenty of people who've used
>>the PDP11 emulator to do just that. And I used one of the PDP8 emulators
>>to try things on when I was rebuilding some bits of my 8/e.
>
>Ah. Now I see... your first comments on that were a bit vague and I didn't
>know that was the point you were trying to make.
>
>>But too many people (not on this list, thankfully :-)) seem to regard the
>>emualtor as a _replacement_ for preserving the hardware. This is what I
>>commenting on...
>
>Yes, for that, I do agree... emulators are an augmentation and a tool, not
>a replacement.
>
>>> Also, I plan on getting a CD-RW (that's re-writable!) within the next two
>>> weeks, and I plan on archiving all my software on CD-R... cain't do
that on
>>> a CoCo! ;^>
>>
>>Give me one good reason why not? It should be _trivial_ to use a 5380 or
>>something like it to make a SCSI cartridge for the CoCo. Add an OS-9
>>device driver and you should be able to burn CDs....
>
>Reason? OK. 2 words: Buffer Underrun. If you can't keep the buffer of the
>CD-ROM recorder full, you now have an instant "5-inch Digital Dog
>Frisbee"(TM) and I don't think a CoCo (8-bit, 1.78Mhz) has enough bandwidth
>to keep the buffer full -- remember, the CoCo would have to pull the data
>from a hard drive to put on the CD-R at the same time, plus OS-9's
>overhead, etc.
>
>It would require a dedicated box with lotsa memory & a fast hard drive for
>the CoCo to send the data to, so the CD-R drive would have data fast enough
>to burn one... Uhhhh, can you say '486+? (or '040+ for you Mac aficionados)
>
>_Reading_ a CD-ROM would be trivial... personally, if there's such a thing
>as "impossible for a CoCo" burning a functional CD-R is the closest I've
>ever encountered.
>
>HTH,
>"Merch"
>--
>Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed,
>Programmer, NorthernWay | nuclear warhead disarmament should
>zmerch_at_northernway.net | *not* be your first career choice.
>
>O love emulators so much, I have dedicated 1.4 gig to my bbs
Emulator BBS
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Received on Thu Jun 19 1997 - 15:38:13 BST