ArcEm Archimedes emulator - 68k version

Anybody fancy a play? You can download here and you will need a ROM image as described here.

I ran it on my A1200 (68030@40MHz) and it took about half an hour to boot (and I'm still waiting for the contents of HostFS to show on screen), so I'd be interested to hear how it runs on anything beefier.

I've included !SICK in the HostFS dir for benchmarking purposes, please post your results if you don't die of old age before it completes.

Oh, and don't bother running it on OS4; it's dog slow there too - use the native PPC version (due an update - the current CVS is much faster - but that one is still quicker than the quick one under 68k emulation)

Huh?? That's another computer, I didn't know anything about! Sure I will give it a go.

BTW just got around to testing your QSimpleSheet port, it actually runs, but the startup time is just horrendously slow! It is by far the slowest start I have experienced yet with Qt apps. And I can see the problem with the >>... Strange!

EDIT: Tried it (QSS) again, and this time it opens very quickly. I think it must be something with fontconfig, possible influenced by MUI-OWB.

EDITEDIT: I cannot seem to find the roms very easily on google. Do you have a link??

Found a file that at least pretends to be a RISC OS 3.10 ROM, but all I get is a grey screen and no reaction from kb or mouse. Is this normal behavior?? How long do I have to wait for things to happen??

I'm using the OS4 version because my old A1200 is a mess to set up.

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Read further down the link I posted, past the export and join instructions to the "alternate sources".

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Hmm, no that's not right.

What should happen is a black screen with a flashing cursor in the top-left corner for a second or two, followed by the text:
RISC OS 4096K (... or whatever memory config)
Acorn ADFS (... or ArcEm Host Filing System .. or RPCEmu Host Filing System.. it depends)

and a beep.

If there are is no !Boot file it should then quickly proceed to a grey screen with the Acorn logo and RISC OS 3 (c) Acorn Computers 1992 written underneath.

After that you get the desktop.

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OK, it definitely shouldn't take long to boot then. I'll see if I can rustle up a copy of the latest build for you (unless you fancy compiling yourself, as I can't do anything until tomorrow - make sure you grab from the arcem-fast branch), it runs at around the speed of an (Acorn) A3010 on my SAM440 @ 600MHz, whereas the old version is a bit sluggish.

Once up and running, it's worth grabbing the Universal Boot Sequence from here and chucking it in HostFS - some things won't work properly without !System and !Scrap. Extract it under RISC OS using !SparkPlug.

Edit: This is the old slow version but the beginning shows the RISC OS splash screen which appears a couple of seconds after the text mode bit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l14GC5ZJJD0 Unfortunately the very start of the boot has been chopped off the video so you don't get to see the entire boot sequence.

Right, I'm running the 68k version right now.
It's not fast. :) This on a 68060@50 on my CS-PPC.

Once it booted I ran !SICK and it's still running.

Note the basic install opened the screen on an AGA screen, not an RTG one, so make sure you have a monitor on the RGB port.

Incidentally, it fails to open audio: if your AHI preferences are wrong. I'm using a USB soundcard.

I may not have time to complete the benchmark but will try to get results at some point.

@alfkil

Update to the OS4 version is here (edited dead link to release ver). I'll do a proper release once I'm sure it has stabilised.

@Spirantho

The important value is the clock rate !SICK thinks the processor is running at. I might be able to force it to use a particular video card, at the moment it does a blanket BestModeID against the emulated system's requested mode.

@Chris

Thanks for the update, I just went for a spin, and it works very snappy on os4. Not a lot of stuff to do, but hey it's fun .

Funny thing happened while trying this on my Sam440@600 (the OS3 version, just for the heck of it).

When I downloaded it, installed it, and ran it, it ran quite well. In fact, even on my little Sam, it was noticeably faster, probably twice as fast, as my 68060@50 in my 4000. It booted, I opened the !SICK window, I ran the app... and nothing. After about 3 minutes (takes about 20 seconds I think on the 4000) it opened the window, started to measure timers... and hung solid.
Tried rebooting, and it wouldn't run, just a black screen.
Have never been able to run it since. Weeeeird.

As for my 4000, it bombed out with a badly synced screen, but I think it's a hardware failure. My keyboard keeps on locking up too, so I'm going to change all the capacitors next week, as that'll probably help (and it needs doing anyway).

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Next to the OS4 version it is dead slow!

For it to run at twice the speed of an 060 on a Sam 440, though.. that's not bad. :)

I try the last version of ArcEm for the OS4, and i think it's fast.

I found some games and apps, and copy to HostFs, but all of them say the same error "!run not found". I'm sure that all the directorys have their !run.oby file.

I read somewhere that I need to assign the file type, or something similar. How make this ?

How I can install the Universal Boot Sequence ?.

And finally, I don't found your !SICK file in the arcem archives.

Thanks Chris

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If yo hold Shift and double-click on the application it will open it up. You can then middle-click on !Run and select File '!Run' => Filetype. Type "Obey" in the box and click on it or press return and it will set it to be an Obey file (which is most likely what it is).

However, it's much better to avoid all this and instead copy the original archive into HostFS and extract it there (using !SparkPlug). That will preserve the filetypes.

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Visit http://acorn.riscos.com/acornftp.htm

Download self-extracting !SparkPlug and filetype it to BASIC (using the same method as I described above). Run it and it will extract. Run it again and it will pop up on the taskbar.

If you now download Universal Boot Sequence from the above site, you can drag it over the running !SparkPlug icon and it will show the contents in a new window. Drag !Boot from there to the root of HostFS.

There are some updates to this available elsewhere. In fact, I've just found UniBoot2 which might be a better starting point.

I think I've already set HostFS to be the primary filesystem with booting on in the default ArcEm config. If not there's a couple of commands required, but I can't remember them off-hand. You will soon know if it is running as you'll get an extra "VProtect" message on the RISC OS 3 boot screen.

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You can download it from here:
http://www.software-evolutions.de/download/free/
Extract in the same way as above.

Thanks again, Chris.

Now I have a RiscOS started, and run some games and apps.