Re: [MiNT] New MiNT distribution is n.. ..pro

[Petr Stehlik <joy@sophics.cz>]

> MR > But x86 means an architecture change.  We could not assume MiNT
> MR > to be m68k-based, anymore.
> 
>         The best solution would be to have a multi-platform support 
> (MiNT-PPC, MiNT-68k, MiNT-x86...). I guess this would be a large overhead ?

what do you mean by MiNT-x86? A port of MiNT to intel platform? For what?
How could you run e.g. Everest or aMAIL (fill in your favourite software)
on it? The only way would be to completely emulate CPU (and a bunch of
other HW we have no devices for) and write new BIOS/XBIOS/VDI plus
hundreds of device drivers for the large number of different motherboards,
graphics and sound cards.

I think that once we abandon the Atari platform we are forced to use an
emulator of m68k/Atari (something like StonX?) running on top of Linux.
This would allow us to run our software on basically any hardware. Though
I would feel like Jo Even said (like using a toy). That's why I will
always prefer to have a real Atari hardware, even if it might be slower
than PIII/K7. Luckily our software usually does not need such horse power.

Petr