From: Martyn Wilkinson (mgw_at_picdar.co.uk)
Date: Fri Jan 31 2003 - 05:13:33 PST
> Linux has been ported to iPaq and everything else (including the airport
> basestation!), so now all we need is a cross-platform ARM emulator for
> linux and a ROM dump... or not.
This is the conclusion I've come to. The iPaq hardware is ideal and quite
well documented, and there is at least one open-source ARM emulator for
Linux (ArcEm at http://arcem.sourceforge.net/) to get around CPU issues if
we couldn't run the Newton OS natively, so all that would be left to do is
emulate the peripheral hardware :-)
I think it's safe to assume that Apple's custom chips will remain a mystery
(and hence unemulatable), so I'd propose adopting the technique used in
Basilisk II, which is to override the Newton's device drivers. I never knew
the Newton OS well enough to know how Apple allow RAM-based patching (it
might just be simple prototype chain substitution), but I remember
installing OS patches on my old MP100 so I'm assuming that a mechanism
exists.
I'm not saying it would be an easy project, but I can't see another way of
getting the Newton OS on different hardware. In the end, it might just be
simpler to buy Apple...
-- Martyn Wilkinson Picdar - www.picdar.com <http://www.picdar.com> -- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries List FAQ/Etiquette/Terms: http://www.newtontalk.net/faq.html Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Jan 31 2003 - 05:30:01 PST