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
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(a)northernway.net | *not* be your first career choice.
O love emulators so much, I have dedicated 1.4 gig to my bbs