pouët.net

...once all the real hardware for each platform fails permanently. I just don't understand the vicious hatred against emulators at the moment, they should be embraced.

you dont understand!
every kid can download and use an emulator nowadays, having all the old real hardware proves that you are an ELITE OLD FART! ;P

also no emulation can ever be 100% perfect.

Why not cut out the problem of imperfect emulation and build some standard for a virtual demo machine with arbitrary restrictions?

why not play tis-100 instead of making demos??

No, you missed my point. Pretty soon in the future when all the original hardware doesn't work anymore, then there'll be no choice but to use emulation.

Emulators do that already, I'm sure of it.

why not make demos instead of talking about making demos while playing tis-100???

Yes, yes. And also... there will be emulators of human beings in the future.
Perhaps not completely perfect... but nobody is perfect anyway.

As you say, the original hardware will be really rare soon. I remember my own A2k died with the Amiga scene back then. Toast.

I understand why people hate emulators, since it doesn't give a one hundred percent accurate feeling of the original hardware, and some graphical effects might also be lost in an emulator. However, watching a cool demo in an emulator is still better than not seeing it at all, just because you don't have the hardware.

Maybe there should be some screen filters invented for these emulators ;)

I'm mainly asking this because I've recently become interested in the Commodore 64 as a platform - I've known about it but was always put off by the look of the colour palette, especially for UK PAL games where I hear the purple look dominates the start screen.

This is why I'm currently using VICE for the C64 stuff, as it allows me to use custom-made palettes for the system, and I can appreciate the games and demos more when the colours are closer to what the designers intended (yes, I know the Never The Same Colour nonsense that is always spouted).

However, I've been told frequently I should buy the genuine article, but I just can't afford the system, TV and FDD, and frankly I just don't have the room for it. And besides, emulators give me more freedom, especially for the Amiga and Atari XL/XE.

Well, I suggest that to preserve the hardware, you should play with the hardware and note results as much as you can before it dies. Take copious notes and use the video capture hardware available today to back up the notes. Composite, component, HDMI, and VGA capture cards are cheap enough now and readily available to do that. Post it online where others can find it. Write code that plays with the code in specific ways and document what it does. You can't keep it alive forever but you can document it in a technical and historical sense.

I would also recommend writing test code against the hardware so that when you then run it in an emulator, it can show what your emulator is getting wrong. If you want to see your hardware emulated accurately you want to give emulator developers the tools they need to verify it's working correctly.

I'm trying to do the same thing with DOSBox-X and DOSLIB knowing that someday the 486 and Pentium class hardware I develop DOSLIB against will die (instead of just the CMOS battery the BIOS will gripe about every boot). I know I can't 100% accomplish the goal, but I do want DOSBox-X to act as close to that hardware as possible for the same reasons.

I've also written against the hardware that still works a DOSLIB project to preserve what it's like writing software for DOS (before that dies too) against real hardware. This is the other reason I recommend doing this, because real hardware isn't as nice and straightforward as emulators would suggest. I've already made a few test "dry runs" with the documentary concept. These videos suck but it's a start towards what I mean by using the available tools at hand to document what the hardware was like while it was still alive (at least concerning VGA registers and Sound Blaster cards):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rCV4B4ylOs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NCJ3B1NxGg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnQDjGOChoc

emulators suck, only the real thing on crt is the one and only thing. that´s why we watch realtime prods on advertifactube on our cellphonesnowadays.

kauft euch mal 'n fahrrad!

The older hardware will be around for a long time yet, providing no damage is caused. Largely this is because retro hardware does tend usually to be built well, in order to survive these times - even if the internal clocks have gone haywire, either due to the y2k bug or whatever. I'm pretty sure some of this old hardware will survive in museums or so providing we ensure that we create wills that allow this to happen - even if some members of our families would rather prefer to throw all of our kit out to the trash. No - quite a bit of it will be saved by law, to be enjoyed by people from the future who have an interest in the kit that dates from the 1980s and beyond ...... Though I must say, emulators are good for developing new productions on, even if the final version is tested on a real machine. With most retro systems having access to SD-card based loading methods, this will also help too with the process of creating new productions, whether they be demos, diskmags or whatever .....

Thank you. However, it's all well and good having the desire to own real hardware, but not the finances or the physical space, as I told the people over at Lemon64.com.

And I forgot to mention, I've only grown to like the C64 in recent weeks because I've been using an emulator which enables me to use custom colour palettes for it, and I've found an excellent "Sony" one. But if I had to use real hardware, I would probably hate the way it looks on a PAL TV, especially an HD Ready LCD one because I REALLY don't have the space for an extra screen.

the cool thing with using real hardware is that the colors will actually be correct, unlike all those fancy palettes =)

Only in America, it seems. Sorry, but the NTSC palette is closer to what the designers intended. I want to see the C64 startup screen as BLUE, not PURPLISH.

fuck emulators, youtube or GTFO!

may be my eyes but what is purple about the PAL c64 bootscreen??

nothing, just PEBCAK really :)

You'll be dead long before then, so why care? Maybe you can't keep the hardware working, but some of us can.

which one emulators?

Only Hatari emulates Atari ST good.
there are no quality Sinclair QL emulator, only shareware crap.

Well, not quite purple but certainly less blue - more like lilac.

Compare these wildly divergent screenshots of the C64 start screen:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=commodore+64+start+screen&client=ubuntu&hs=irj&channel=fs&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=tvGMVdPeO8L0UoCPv6gH&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1415&bih=880

See the range from blue to lilac? The fact is, there is a larger variation on these colours than with most other computer systems, simply due to the way the C64 processes colour:

Blue:


Lilac:


I prefer the bluer look.

After a big discussion on the Lemon 64 website, here:
http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=56813

...this is the palette I settled on for the VICE emulator:


This is the code for sony.vpl (copy and paste):



I had to do this as the original VICE palette claims to represent many UK C64 owners' personal experience on their TVs, but it's so brown and murky. I say, at least make the colours match their descriptions, like on the MONTEST screenshot above.

I find, with this Sony palette (adapted from real hardware, I might add), I enjoy my C64 experience a whole lot more.

I hate emulators because none of them run 8088 MPH properly!