Re: [Qemu-devel] A dream of mine: the ability to run m68k NeXT applications

[Eagle]

On May 19, 2009, at 16:10, François Revol wrote:
> > Greetings, all.
> >
> > I have a dream.  Well, several actually, but two that are applicable
> > here.
> >
> > The first is: I am interested in having the ability to run m68k NeXT
> > applications.  There are potentially several ways to do this, but two
> > come to mind:
> > 1- a CPU-only emulator that runs on i386 NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP, similar
> > to
> > what Apple used during the transition from m68k to PPC.
>
> It should be possible to port qemu to *STEP and add the needed syscall
> translations, I suppose.

That's a nice concise explanation of what might need to be done, but I  
have no idea how to do it. :)  Once upon a time, I was familiar with  
porting applications, but never something like QEMU.  And, I wouldn't  
know the first thing about syscall translations.  Maybe some other  
knowledgeable soul would be interested in doing something like this...

> > 2- a full-blown NeXT hardware emulator.
>
> This would help porting other OSes too...
> I'd really like to add NeXT to the possible targets of my m68k Haiku
> port...
> Though I admit it's only just for fun :)
>
> AFAIK the m68k support in QEMU is not finished, and is mostly coldfire
> only.
>
> Another option is to start from an existing 68k emulator.
> There is UAE, ARAnyM...
>
> ARAnyM is based on UAE cpu code, but has 040 mmu support (it has now
> been backported to UAE as a patch).
>
> > The second dream that I have is: I am interested in a PPC Mac
> > emulator
> > that is capable of running OS X Server v1.2 (AKA Rhapsody).  I am
> > interested in this because I no longer have a PPC Mac that is capable
> > of running OS X Server.
>
> Tried PearPC ?

I did try PearPC, but unfortunately it does not boot a Mac OS X Server  
v1.2 CD.

Laurent's idea of trying Mac-On-Linux on Linux-PPC in QEMU-PPC sounds  
interesting - I'm going to try that in the next week or so, if I have  
the time.

Daniel