Emulation or the real thing?

From: Huw Davies <H.Davies_at_latrobe.edu.au>
Date: Mon Oct 26 02:02:39 1998

At 02:08 PM 21-10-98 -0500, John Foust wrote:

>Today's Alpha/MIPS/PPC Windows machines contain an x86 emulation
>in ROM, used at boot-time to jump into and init the start-up ROMs of
>Wintel-market add-on cards for video, networking, etc. DEC/Compaq
>gives away an Intel emulator called FX!32 for Alpha boxes that can
>run Windows x86 binaries as-is.

Well, FX!32 isn't an emulator, it's a binary level incremental translator.
Intel code in, alpha code out. For those of you with a long memory (or who
like reading CACMs from the '60s) will see that this is one of the "holy
grails" of computing at that time. One of the things that really irritates
me with the old Digital is that they had technology like this (and VEST and
mx) and didn't bother to tell anyone about it....

 Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies_at_latrobe.edu.au
 Information Technology Services | Phone: +61 3 9479 1550 Fax: +61 3 9479 1999
 La Trobe University | "If God had wanted soccer played in the
 Melbourne Australia 3083 | air, the sky would be painted green"
Received on Mon Oct 26 1998 - 02:02:39 GMT