| >1. Is there a action game that uses the 640 x 400 mode????
I'm not sure if this is what you are looking for, but I believe
the public domain version of Asteroids (Asteriods) uses the 640
x 400 mode, but it is only 1 bitplane. (white on black) I think
this was done to imitate the arcade version of the game. I think
it's a rather nice game.
>2. What types of computers can a amiga 500 emulate?
Again, I'm not the best source for this, but it can emulate the
IBM PC for text-only applications, the Commodore 64, and there are
rumored emulators becoming available for Macintosh and full IBM
emulation. It seems to me like there are others, but I'm not sure
what they are.
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| The amiga 500 does a great job of emulating an Amiga 1000 & 2000
for a lot less money :-)
There is a joke emulator of an Atari ST, it looks like a lo-res
GEM screen, it bombs when you click on it (instead of Guru number,
the ST uses multiple bombs symbols to indicate the exception number.
On one of the fish disks is a CP/M emulator.
re: 640x400 games
I've seen title screens that were 640x400, but no games in that
resolution. Most are 640x200 or 320x200.
-dave
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Re: .0 & IBM emulation...
A little history lesson is needed here...
When the Amiga was first announced in the summer of 1985, CBM made
a great deal of ballyhoo to the press about it's capability to emulate
an IBM PC totally in software. While the claim did have some validity,
the 'Transformer' software was late in arriving to market, and never
underwent much post-release development and enhancement.
The Transformer DOES work well on non-graphic software, such as
word processors, spreadsheets (Lotus 1-2-3) and the like. However,
it is slow. Speeds range from 20-50% of a real 8088 based PC.
(Transformer actually rates a .2 using the Norton SI utility).
Once CBM realized that it had shot it's mouth off, it had to deliver
a better way of providing a bridge to the MS-DOS world. The first
hardware effort was the Sidecar for the Amiga 1000. Essentially
a Commodore PC-10 (yes, CBM makes clones) that hung off of the A1000
expansion buss, it had it's own 5 1/4" floppy, RAM, 8088, etc.
Software was included that provided multiprocessing capabilities
so that one could multitask and share data between the two systems.
Sidecar wasn't a big hit; I think fewer than 5,000 units were built.
But CBM DID make good on their promise.
To answer what I suspect may be your question, yes, you can run
MS-DOS on your Amiga 500. The Transformer software has been patched
to run with v1.2 of the Amiga system software, as well as 68010/020
microprocessors. I have a version that runs fine on Amiga 2000s.
The problem is that no one really seems to know the status of the
software. It certainly isn't public domain, but dealers don't seem
to want to give it away or sell it. If you have a friendly dealer,
you may be able to coax a copy from him.
For the person who needs to run MS-DOS about 1% of the time, I think
Transformer is great.
As a footnote, the folks who wrote Transformer (the job was
sub-contracted) grew tired of negotiating with CBM around the middle of
1986. At that time, it appeared that the Atari ST was going to be a
big hit (based on mis-information from the owners of Atari), so they
refined their program, sped it up, added CGA color graphics support,
and ported it to the Atari under the name PC-Ditto. It has sold well
there, and reportedly runs much faster that the original Amiga version.
There have never been any hints that it would be re-ported back to the
Amiga.
Ed,
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| re: .4 footnote
I don't believe Simile Research (the company that did the Transformer)
and Avant Guard (I think that is the company name of the
PC Ditto folk) were ever the same people.
I attend a talk at the Worcester Atarifest by Bill Teal (author
of PC Ditto). He's on leave from an IBM research lab where he was
investigating the feasibility of emulating an 8088 on a 68000.
The company consists of him, his wife, and they had just hired a
secretary. He chose the ST because it was popular and most
importantly, because he didn't have to do anything to get it
to read/write ibmpc floppies.
I've seen it running CGA at reasonable speed. I hope CBM is talking
to this guy, but I suspect that, unless the Atari market suddenly
dies, he has plenty of work to keep him busy (enhancing PC Ditto).
-Dave
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Ah, well, I got my info from the Bandito in an old Amazing Computing.
He must have returned from an Apple drug party or something :^)
Anyway, the Amiga CAN read and write IBM format disks, so that
shouldn't prevent anyone from taking another shot at a faster emulator.
Ed.
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| re: .6
It's a question of cost.
1. the Transformer is slow, but it does work. It comes bundled
with a 5.25 disk drive, or is "obtained" elsewhere. Friendly dealer,
pirate, whatever. But it only does monochrome text.
2. The Bridgeboard & Sidecar give you a real ibmpc, for real ibmpc
prices.
Assume a "free" price for the Transformer. Assume the Bridgeboard
costs about $500. How much would you pay for something that does
what PC-Ditto does? PC-Ditto sells for $89 last time I looked.
I wonder how ReadySoft is doing with their C64 emulator, wasn't
that around $50?
-Dave
p.s. I finally got to see the Atari 8bit emulator running on a
ST. Very nice job, it even runs some pd arcade-style games. I
wonder if there is way to lure the good ST developers to the
Amiga... Tom Hudson has already been lost to the ibmpc world,
I think Dan Moore has gone to AT&T. David Small has his own company
working on Mac emulation for the ST.
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