Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    
    The product is called AMAX and is made by ReadySoft, the company
    that has produced a decent Commodore 64 emulator and the game Dragons'
    Lair.  I don't think it's shipping, but people have seen it working
    at the last few industry shows.
    
    My mind is sketchy on the details, but it involves supplying your
    own Macintosh ROMS, either 64K or 128K, and connects to the parallel
    port, which it passes thru.
    
    You can connect a Mac floppy, or using a software based scheme,
    read about 1/3 or a Macintosh floppy using the Amiga floppy.
    
    Ed.

    If I understand the messages flying by on USENET there are actually two
    seperate emulators available.  One is supposed to be good the other
    bad.  Don't ask me which, but if I come across it, I'll post it here.
    
    -tl

I just read the article in Amiga Plus about the AMAX Mac emulator.  It looks
pretty good.  One of the things the article mentioned was that there is a
problem with the way the Mac OS does memory management.  Namely the Mac OS
expects the memory to be in one contiguous chunk and it can only handle 4MB.
I have an Amiga 1000 with 2 1/2 MB of memory.  The way the AMAX software gets
around the memory problem is that it runs a program that permanently allocates
the holes in the amiga address space so the the Mac OS doesn't allocate memory
there.  So this is fine as long as all my memory (holes and all) is under the
4MB limit.  Can someone tell me how to find out what section of memory address
space my real memory is in?

For those interested AMAX is made by ReadySoft.  The first version will not
support hard disks.  Everything in note .1 is accurate.  The article listed
some of the software that ReadySoft has already tried which worked.  Here is
the list they gave; HyperCard, MicroSoft Word, Excel, MacPaint( all versions)
MacWrite(includeing v4.5), PageMaker, FullPaint, MacDrawII, LightSpeed Pascal
(that would be a tough one to test), LightSpeed C, SuperPaint, TMON, and all
system disks up to 6.0.  I  thought I saw somewhere in the article that it runs
6.02 of MultiFinder, but now I can't seem to find it.

If this turns out to be a good product that would be great!  Amiga kicka__
graphics with the Mac's seasoned software.

One other point of interest.  There are two video modes interlace, which will
give you the entire Mac screen at once, or (from what I understood) you can
run in noninterlace mode and you have to page to get the top or bottom half
of the screen. Some day I'm going to get a high persistence phosphor monitor
for all this interlace stuff.

				Dean Cromack

> 4MB limit.  Can someone tell me how to find out what section of memory address
> space my real memory is in?


In WJG::AMIGA:FIND.ARC there is a small utility I wrote awhile back called
 show. It basically displays the various EXEC list's (one being the memory
list).

1> show -m  

will give you this informaton.


John

    Readysoft is scheduled to appear at the BCS Amiga Users' Group meeting
    tomorrow, March 14.  One hopes they'll bring AMAX.
    
    Meeting is at 7:30 PM at the Department of Transportation Bldg,
    Kendall Square, Cambridge.  Detailed directions in past notes titled
    "BCS" or "Boston Computer Society."
    

re     < Note 2263.1 by LEDS::ACCIARDI >

>    My mind is sketchy on the details, but it involves supplying your
>    own Macintosh ROMS, either 64K or 128K, and connects to the parallel
>    port, which it passes thru.
    
>    Ed.


	Does this mean that I wouldn't be able to use any mac software 
which itself uses the parallel port, i.e. MIDI ?

	R

     RE: -1. As I recall, the roms/hardware attach to the Amiga disk drive
     and include at least a connection for a MAC drive. However, MIDI
     support has been a problem with these emulators and I think I remember
     no support for MIDI on the first release.
     
     Dave

This sounds like a real interesting product, especially for the price.
The problem is, where do you get MAC ROMS? If you have to find MAC
owners that have old copies of the ROMS laying around, thats a pain.

Frank

    There is a good interview with the developer of AMAX in Amiga Plus
    magazine.  It answered a lot of questions of how they got around
    the limitations that stopped David Small & Co.
    
    If I recall correctly, no MIDI support because most applications
    go to the hardware, would take too much effort to add that for the
    first release.  Sound will just be Sysbeep, due to the complexity
    of the way the mac does sounds, vs. the way the amiga does it.
    
    Seems like a very nice implementation.  AmigoTimes v1.4 has a picture
    of the board and a screen shot of it running.  This puppy looks
    real, not vapor.
    
    -dave
    

The BCS meeting is NEXT week the 21st at 7:30.

re  < Note 2263.10 by PIAC::CROMACK >
>                                -< BCS Meeting >-

>  The BCS meeting is NEXT week the 21st at 7:30.

and .5

	I discovered that,  at 7:25  THIS  tuesday:-^)

	R

    Oops.  Mea culpa.  As the author of several notes about BCS saying
    that Amiga general meetings are on the _third_ Tuesday of the month,
    I certainly should have known better.
    
    Sorry for the confusion, and hope you at least hung around Cambridge
    to sample the diverse pleasures there.
    
    Wes

    Has anyone actually seen the Emulator run yet? What about any printed
    reviews?
    
      Thanks..AL

    Still looking forward to any personal experiences with the A-MAX
    mac emulator before rushing out to purchase.
    
    Maurice