What Needs to be done for a NeXT Emulator

[andreas_g]

@marvin
Thank you very much for testing! The result on the non-Turbo machine is surprsing. I'll have to investigate this.

If it is not too much effort could you redo the test but replace eb 0201a000 with eb 0211a000 (everything else unchanged)?

[marvin]

Hi @andreas_g ,

here are the new values from my non-turbo NeXTcube (ROM monitor 2.1 v59) with Pyro-card installed, so the values may be not standard:

Code Select Expand

NeXT>eb 0211a000
211a000: 10? 0
211a001: ff? .
NeXT>eb 0211a000
211a000:  6d?
211a001:  6d?
211a002:  66?
211a003:  a3?  .
NeXT>eb 0211a000
211a000:  d6?
211a001:  d6?
211a002:  d1?
211a003:  01?  .
Here are the new values from my Turbo-Color slab (ROM monitor 3.1 v71) for the sake of completeness:

Code Select Expand

NeXT>eb 0211a000
211a000: 00? 0
211a001: 0a? .
NeXT>eb 0211a000
211a000:  00?
211a001:  0e?
211a002:  2e?
211a003:  a5?  .
NeXT>eb 0211a000
211a000:  00?
211a001:  01?
211a002:  e5?
211a003:  c9?  .

[marvin]

Can confirm Previous 4.0 (r1755) is running fine with Debian 12 (x86-64) and SDL3.

I had to install my own version of SDL3.

Code Select Expand

## unzip source code into src/ folder
cd /usr/local/Software/libs/x86_64/src/SDL3-3.4.0/

## https://wiki.libsdl.org/SDL3/README-cmake
cmake -S . -B build -DSDL_SHARED=ON -DSDL_STATIC=ON -DSDL_TESTS=ON
cmake --build build

mkdir /usr/local/Software/libs/x86_64/SDL3-3.4.0
cmake --install build --prefix /usr/local/Software/libs/x86_64/SDL3-3.4.0
Then compile Previous:

Code Select Expand

cd /usr/local/Software/Previous/previous-code-r1755-trunk/
setenv SDL3_DIR /usr/local/Software/libs/x86_64/SDL3-3.4.0/lib/cmake/SDL3/ ; ./configure
make

[andreas_g]

@marvin
Thank you very much for testing again! The values on the Turbo make sense while those on the non-Turbo are still strange. Pyro does not affect this.

The event counter is a mystery to me. I think it should reset to zero if being written but it is unclear if it continues counting immediately after write or only if read afterwards.

[ramalhais]

Hi all, first post here.
How do i get to the serial console(s) in previous? Is there any branch that has this functionality?
Thanks!

[ptek]

Hi all, first post here.
How do i get to the serial console(s) in previous? Is there any branch that has this functionality?
Thanks!

Is this the one where at the login screen you use username "console" and it boots to the terminal and asks for your username and password?

[ramalhais]

Hi all, first post here.
How do i get to the serial console(s) in previous? Is there any branch that has this functionality?
Thanks!

Is this the one where at the login screen you use username "console" and it boots to the terminal and asks for your username and password?

i mean the emulator equivalent of the serial port on the back of a next machine 

[andreas_g]

How do i get to the serial console(s) in previous? Is there any branch that has this functionality?
Thanks!

Unfortunately I have not yet been able to add this. The problem is that I have no idea how to connect the simulated serial port to the console or some other text input/output interface of the host.

The appended patch demonstrates serial console output but does nothing useful.

alt_cons.diff

[andreas_g]

Hello all,

I am happy to announce the release of Previous v4.1! I have updated the timing system. It should be a bit more efficient and much more accurate in variable speed mode.

It also includes some minor stability improvements and bug fixes.

As usual I have compiled a binary for macOS v10.13 and later (Intel and Apple Silicon). You can load the binary here.

Have fun and feel free to report any issues.

[Rhetorica]

Great! Confirmed that all the important stuff still works just fine:



Sound playback is smoother than ever, and NFS works like a gem. And I think my cycle count is higher than usual (a more comfortable hovering around 75-80 MHz!)

The build posted above and a MinGW build from the same source are up on the Previous page here: https://previous.nextcommunity.net/

[jeffburg]

@andreas_g thanks! I can't wait to try performance improvements
@Rhetorica what is that little CPU monitor utility in the Dock you have there?

[Rhetorica]

@Rhetorica what is that little CPU monitor utility in the Dock you have there?

That is KPerfMon 1.3C, which you can exhume from here. It spawned a whole family of clones for WindowMaker and AfterStep (see here), but there were only really a couple noteworthy specimens of this proto-Rainmeter "display all the system status widgets!" trend on NeXT proper. Intriguingly its predecessor was likely written by a NeXT employee (based on a Sun widget...)

[andreas_g]

@andreas_g thanks! I can't wait to try performance improvements

The performance improvement is not that big. You can measure it but I don't think you will notice it under normal conditions. The update is more about improved accuracy.

[wmlive]

The Previous packages at wmlive.rumbero.org/repo/pool/main/p/previous/ have been updated to version 4.1-r1777.
The binary packages were built for target release Debian/Trixie and CPU architectures i386, amd64, and arm64.

[Rhetorica]

The Previous packages at wmlive.rumbero.org/repo/pool/main/p/previous/ have been updated to version 4.1-r1777.
The binary packages were built for target release Debian/Trixie and CPU architectures i386, amd64, and arm64.

Great! I've mirrored them as usual.