16 Jul
2000
16 Jul
'00
12:24 p.m.
I was just thinking...Would it be possible in 2000 to
write a Xerox Alto
emulator and SmallTalk OS (assuming binaries are available). Is there any
Writing a simulator is certainly possible, but I don't see why you'd want
to write a Smalltalk OS. I mean, if you want to write a new OS, you might
as well target it for modern hardware.
What makes it difficult to write an emulator for this
machine?
It doesn't have a single instruction set. Each language/environment uses
a different instruction set implemented by different microcode.
Simulating the microcode level shouldn't be terribly difficult, but not
many people have sufficient information to do it.