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Re: [MiNT] EmuTOS for ColdFire


On May 3, 2009, at 7:52 PM, Miro Kropacek wrote:
I see what you mean, but what's the alternative? Let's say we port the OS to ARM I think the important question which should be answered by developers of this new clone is -- if there is even a need for some alternative. For example, take a look at Atari800 guys -- they're doing fantastic hardware addons but nobody speculates about making some clone or, advanced machine with 'some' backward compatibility. That guys simple don't need / want it.
If anybody is ever going to make a 'new atari model', it's not going to be for people like these (whether it's Coldfire or ARM based). There are probably also many who love doing all kinds of stuff with their 1040ST and aren't even interested in a TT or Falcon. The only reason to make any sort of new model, would be to continue the line into some new generation. With that you're always going to loose some backward compatibility (the TT doesn't run all ST software either) and you'll also need new software to make use of the new possibilities (again, compare Falcon and TT).
Nobody will desperately need something like this; we've all got our Macs and Linux boxes (and probably even some WinPC's) ;) by now to do power-hungry stuff or even to emulate an Atari and create a virtual fast TOS machine. But there is still the notion that it'd be nice - and several people including me would probably spend money on it - to have a not-emulated really new ST/TT family member that keeps up with current standards.
Now since such a project will require porting anyway, I think it's more useful to make the big step to *current* processors and not one that's just slightly less old than the 68060. A modern ARM machine with ported TOS/MiNT maybe wouldn't run millions of 1990's ST programs, but a few remaining serious TOS/GEM apps could be ported, it would be an inscentive to create some new stuff, and of course it would help a lot in porting more modern things from the rest of the Unix world to MiNT. After this difficult and expensive step, we'd even be able to easily keep up with new processor family members.
So when it comes to making any new kind of TOS computer, I'd say either do it right or not at all. And indeed there are people who are not interested in a new Atari model at all (as Mikro pointed out, there are people who aren't even interested in 'upgrading' to an ST). ;) But I've seen so many enthousiastic ideas grind to a halt on this list because of either platform limitations or fear of loosing backward compatibility. There is clearly interst in something new, but it's a matter of numbers. However, I wouldn't even consider wasting what little resources and 'purchase potential' there is on porting the system to an already aged processor that's only slightly faster. 

Maurits.