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Author Topic: Android? (Read 18313 times)

Offline BruceTanner

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Android?
« on: 2013.March.08. 22:27:13 »
I have noticed using google translate that there have been some discussions in the Hungarian section in the past about the possibility of porting ep128emu to Android. Unfortunately the results of google translate are not that brilliant and I am not able to follow the whole discussion.

Without repeating the whole discussion again...could some kind Hungarian speaker tell me the summary/outcome of the discussion? Is anyone working on this as a project currently?

I guess it would have to be ported from C++ to Java which doesn't sound too bad - from a quick look the "advanced" features of C++ (which I am not a great fan of!) are not used. And I guess the graphics side of things might be a hurdle, although I notice there is an OpenGL version of ep128emu and an OpenGL library for Android.

Were any other potential "show stoppers" identified?
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Offline Zozosoft

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Re: Android?
« Reply #1 on: 2013.March.09. 00:12:12 »
I hope the emulator professional guys will write more!

As I know currently only IOS version is being developed by someone. It also has a "not enough hw" problem, least Ipad3 needed for normal speed.
And the Android has more disadvantages because the programs run on Dalvik virtual machine :-(
« Last Edit: 2015.April.12. 14:17:50 by szipucsu »
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Offline BruceTanner

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Re: Android?
« Reply #2 on: 2013.March.09. 00:29:44 »
Quote from: Zozosoft
If I know right currently only IOS version developed by someone. It is also have a "not enough hw" problem, least Ipad3 needed for normal speed.
Another way of looking at this that the Enterprise is too fast! :ds_icon_cheesygrin:
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Offline Zozosoft

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Re: Android?
« Reply #3 on: 2013.March.09. 00:38:32 »
Quote from: BruceTanner
Another way of looking at this that the Enterprise is too fast! :ds_icon_cheesygrin:
:-) but least too complex. The exact timing emulation (Z80, Nick, Dave, VRAM, RAM Wait States, and synchron all of these) need a lot of CPU power.
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Offline Saint

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Re: Android?
« Reply #4 on: 2013.August.30. 09:56:42 »
I can certainly say it would be possible. I re-wrote my Atari ST emulator SainT some time ago now to run on iOS, and had it running full speed on an iPhone3GS spec (very slow by todays standards!). This is completely cycle accurate emulation of the 68000, YM2149, Shifter, MFP, etc... So I certainly believe it's perfectly possible! However I did re-write everything more or less from scratch, including the 68000 emulation core. So it was quite well optimised. You tend to find community projects are a little more disjoint and difficult to port! :)
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Offline Zozosoft

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Re: Android?
« Reply #5 on: 2013.August.30. 10:47:48 »
Quote from: Saint
I can certainly say it would be possible. I re-wrote my Atari ST emulator SainT
Is it you who wrote the SainT? This is my favorite Atari ST emulator! I especially love the floppy sound emulation! :-)

Quote
some time ago now to run on iOS,
As I know the iOS situation is different from the Android because in Android the programs run on a virtual machnie (Dalvik) so they are slower than iOS.
Beta (or alpha :-) ) version of iOS ep128emu already exists.
« Last Edit: 2013.August.30. 11:17:43 by szipucsu »
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Offline Saint

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Re: Android?
« Reply #6 on: 2013.August.30. 10:57:47 »
Hehe, yes, SainT is my baby! I started work on it about 15 years ago, but I've done very little in the past few years. The work has been continued by Arnaud, who I asked to help me write the sound emulation many many years ago, and he's been keeping it going. I was tying to get it released on iOS, but there are so many legal issues involved with emulators, and Atari aren't interested in licensing the name / rom.

You can actually write native code in Android without a problem. The Java / Dalvik side can be almost entirely bypassed (I know this because I converted out game engine from iOS to Android!). I keep thinking about bring SainT to Android, which would be a lot easier than iOS. I may get the time one day. :)
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Offline lgb

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Re: Android?
« Reply #7 on: 2013.August.30. 15:34:00 »
I am not so familiar (well, not at all) with developing for Android, but the new SDL2 is "advertised" including Android as a platform to be able to target too. I guess, it's quite interesting as a single code base written in C (eg with gcc you can compile for x86 and arm too - if native code is ok on Android), so you can have an emulator to be run natively on your desktop computer (without andorid emulation etc) and on the phone too. As far as I can remember SDL2 supports iOS as well, btw. And SDL also supports Linux, Windows and MacOSX. I don't know how ep128emu is portable though ... Just it was a thought that building on SDL can help to fill the gaps between different platforms (as far as I can remember, ep128emu only uses SDL to have joystick support?).
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Offline IstvanV

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Re: Android?
« Reply #8 on: 2013.August.30. 16:42:28 »
Quote from: lgb
as far as I can remember, ep128emu only uses SDL to have joystick support?
Yes, the video output uses FLTK (software mode) or OpenGL. Also, instead of the limited sound support of SDL, PortAudio is used. However, the video and audio drivers are separated well enough from the actual hardware emulation (which has a programming interface that is intended to be portable and not to depend on FLTK or other libraries) that they are not too difficult to replace. What would take the most work is implementing a new GUI.
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Offline gflorez

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Re: Android?
« Reply #9 on: 2015.April.12. 09:30:50 »
I've managed to load Winxp on my old Android phone(1,4Mhz mono-core) with a PC emulator named Limbo.

In the video description there are links to the needed files.

It works, but very sloooooow. Then I've installed the EP128emu in it(with an ISO image of a CD.

Here I show it  running at 0,0x fps....
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Offline IstvanV

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Re: Android?
« Reply #10 on: 2015.April.12. 10:54:37 »
It could run better if it was possible to install a full Linux OS (or at least one that includes all the dependencies of the emulator) without x86 emulation, which I guess is responsible for a significant overhead.
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Offline szipucsu

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Re: Android?
« Reply #11 on: 2015.April.12. 14:21:26 »
It would be hilarious if I could write IS-BASIC programs on my phone while travelling by train. :ds_icon_cheesygrin:
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100 SOUND SOURCE 2,STYLE 128,PITCH 25.2,SYNC 1
110 SOUND PITCH 25,SYNC 1
120 ! Videos

Offline gflorez

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Re: Android?
« Reply #12 on: 2015.April.12. 14:52:22 »
Limbo is a PC emulator, it does very good emulating it(slowly), but you are right, direct emulation could be better.

I was only playing....

On the other side Android is based on Linux(Arm ) so ep128emu could  be ported coding in C. Doesn't it?
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Offline IstvanV

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Re: Android?
« Reply #13 on: 2015.April.13. 19:30:58 »
Quote from: gflorez on 2015.April.12. 14:52:22
On the other side Android is based on Linux(Arm ) so ep128emu could  be ported coding in C. Doesn't it?

Yes, it should be possible in theory, although some features may need to be removed. With some work the emulator could be modified to have no dependencies other than SDL (which supports Android), and it is not too difficult to port it to SDL if the following limitations are acceptable:
- no GUI at all, configuration is only possible by editing files; this allows for removing the otherwise most problematic FLTK and X11 dependencies
- no debugger, so the Lua dependency can be skipped as well
- no OpenGL support, only SDL software video
- SDL sound output instead of PortAudio
- the dotconf dependency could be removed without too much effort, as the configuration files are just simple INI files
- libsndfile is only needed for saving the audio output to a WAV file; this is not an essential feature, and without it libsndfile would not be required either
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Offline gflorez

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Re: Android?
« Reply #14 on: 2015.April.14. 00:27:33 »
I'm not a programmer, but I've looking at the Android STUDIO and they have done a great effort pro-homogenization and so it seems that all aspects of an Android app are covered.

And you must think that one app must work on every device that has Android, from phones to TVs, with different resolutions and characteristics.

I wish your interest for porting your emulator would grow enough..... Don't worry about menus or configs, they are provided. You must only focus in the core emulators.

I think that Android is the definitive OS.
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