Time has come to look into boosting software base of 64-bit system with some of the 32-bit software. On one hand, the emulator prototype I did a year ago showed us that it is possible. On the other hand, thanks to efforts of many of you, the software based of 64-bit system has already grown a lot this year and many functionalities are available in native builds.
Since developing a full emulator could easily take a year and eat up all time for all other developments, I decided to time-box this activity to next 2.5 months. This means I'm asking you to be really focused on the most important missing parts. I'm interested in enabling software that you are actually using "everyday" on your 32-bit installations you now miss on 64-bit or lack of which is stopping you from migrating from 32-bit to 64-bit.
Now for technical aspects. You will need a 20250418-1 release with Update 2 applied. Additionally if you are going to be testing this under hosted, you need to update your kernel from here:
https://axrt.org/development/hosted_kernel.x86_64-aros.zip
The emulator package can be downloaded from here:
https://axrt.org/development/EmuV0-0.10.x86_64-aros-v11.zip
Below are instructions intructions (available also in README file inside the archive).
Note1: 32-bit ZuneArc that comes with emulator hangs on AROS One 1.2 while it works on base hosted system. This will be further invastigated.
Note2: 32-bit software that is already recompiled for 64-bit is outside the scope for emulator.
Have fun with it. When reporting error/missing emulation be sure to take screen shots showing what's wrong or how to cause a give crash/issue.
*IMPORTANT*
This is an early alpha version of prototype of emulator for running ABIv0
programs under 64-bit AROS. At this point it is expected that only a few
programs other than included will even start. For programs that start, it is
expected that only a few of their functions will work.
Emulator is at this moment only an early alpha version. When emulator executes
functions that have not yet been made supported, it will crash and stop.
EmuV0 v0.10
1. Usage
There are two separate binaries, one for running under Linux-hosted AROS,
(EmuV0-linux) other for running under native AROS(EmuV0-pc). Using
Linux-hosted binary on native and vice versa will result in a crash.
From Shell type:
EmuV0-linux <path-to-abiv0-program>
Notes:
- it is not possible to pass argument to ABIv0 programs at this time
2. Dependecies
Emulator will try to load ABIv0 libraries from LIBSV0:. If emulator is
installed in default location, the Package-Startup script will take care
of creating the needed assigns.
ABIv0 programs included with emulator are located in SYS:ProgramsV0. ABIv0
programs can be placed anywhere on disk.
If the program requires additional 32-bit library, copy it from ABIv0 build
to LIBSV0. Other dependencies, like datatypes or Zune classes, also
follow standard paths, but starting at EmuV0:
3. Known issues
- codesets.libary will crash emulator
- sound and network are not supported at this time