CompuServe Messages

Chris, Hmmmm….I hope you didn't get ripped. While I reported what I have hear about Emplant, I do not have any FIRST HAND knowledge of the existence of the product. From what I read, it is interesting but technically I am puzzled. They say that most of the emulation is done on the Emplant hardware, though the Amiga's CPU is used. For an Amiga to run both it's own OS *and* a foreign OS at the same time must be one heck of a strain on the CPU. The Mac OS is quite complicated and the Amiga's is no creampuff either. As for emulating a *color* Mac…I have *serious* doubts. The Mac's color (if I am not mistaken) is handled by QuickDraw or QuickDraw32. The fast boards have ROMs with QuickDraw in them, though it is also available in software (a folder). UU says it has drivers for popular graphics boards to remap and use them for color. Since Mac color is usually 640×400 then that leaves DCTV, Colorburst and HAME out of the picture. The IV-24 board's refresh rate is too slow for anything but buffered still images. The Firecracker might be able to handle it, and I have no question about GVP's EGS, the Rambrandt or DMI Resolver. The statement in the brochure that says the design allows for multiple emulators to use a single board *at the same time* sounds like pure BS. Granted, and Amiga, Mac and Atari ST all use the MC680x0 family and the Mac and ST are technically simple enough to emulate — not at the same time. As for emulating a PC286 or 386…I don't think so. Not with any sort of speed. The stripped price on the Emplant ($149? $199?) is too cheap to have any custom hardware like an 80386, 68030 or RISC processor. Any if it relies on the Amiga's CPU I will remain skeptical. Still, if it works it will be a major breakthrough. I wish them the best and hope to see about getting an evaluation unit. Either way, when they ship AM-Report will cover it.