What Needs to be done for a NeXT Emulator

[Adam_Hall]

Anyone thought of just doing an .AppImage version? Might be much easier for everyone.

[Rhetorica]

Awaiting Linux builds from @wmlive!

Available now for Debian/Trixie amd64/arm64/i386 at wmlive.rumbero.org/repo/pool/main/p/previous/.

Mirrored!

[jeffburg]

@Adam_Hall I admit, I had to google .AppImage to understand what it is. Seems pretty cool. Of course I should have figured that the Linux community had still not settled on a portable application binary format. Of course, I could see why given the incredible variety of linux distros and versions in use.

[Adam_Hall]

I'm not too familiar with it beyond using it in the background regularly — many of the programs I use come in that format. Honestly, I find it easier to work with than Flatpak.
I built Previous from source, so it runs fine on Debian 12 (I haven't moved to Debian 13 yet). I did have Claude AI walk me through creating an AppImage for another program I built from source. It was a bit of a blur since I'd never done it before, but it only took about five minutes and I ended up with an AppImage that runs on any Linux distribution.
I first became familiar with AppImage when GDoom switched to it from Flatpak, and later discovered I already had quite a few programs on my system using it.

[andreas_g]

I've got a little teaser for you. It has been requested many times and finally it will arrive. Check back soon.

[ZombiePhysicist]

OMG OMG OMG

HURRAY!

Now do all 4!

[jeffburg]

OMG!

[andreas_g]

Hello all,

finally it is time to release Previous v4.3. As already shown in the teaser above it has a new display feature. It is now possible to group multiple screens within a single window. This improves usability of multi-screen setups. The new version also includes improved window sizing on small screens.

The new display mode is available through the Graphics dialog when selecting "Show display: All". Because I had to rework the screen drawing code I also had to introduce new setting parameters and replace old ones. Therefore you might need to re-configure your screen settings.

I am providing a binary for macOS v10.13 and later (Apple Silicon and Intel) here. I hope you like the new feature.

Because the new feature adds quite some complexity to the code please be prepared for some UI bugs but the emulation core of Previous is still stable. Please report any issues you might experience.

[ramalhais]

Compiles and runs fine on ubuntu 26.04
Thanks @andreas_g !

[wmlive]

The Debian/Trixie based previous packages for amd64/arm64/i386 at wmlive.rumbero.org/repo/pool/main/p/previous/ have been updated to release Previous v4.3.

[Rhetorica]

@wmlive @andreas_g
All of the above builds, plus Windows SDL2 and SDL3, have been posted to the Previous website. I have not had an opportunity to verify that the Windows builds work as expected beyond simply compiling and briefly looking at the boot monitor; I hope to find the time to do this soon.

[Rhetorica]

Hey @andreas_g — build r1828's DSP-recording feature sounds really cool. Is there any chance this could be used to produce high-quality audio recordings of the early DSP demos? I've been in love with Velvet since I first heard it, but have never been able to capture output as good as what Previous generates in real-time. (I know I'm not alone in my fondness for Velvet, since verdraith used it as the intro tune to his NeXT OSNerd videos.)

[andreas_g]

Recording has been possible since Previous v2.9. With shortcut-R (see keyboard options dialog) you can start the recording process. When pressing shortcut-R again it will save all sound output that has occurred since you started recording to a file in AIFF format. You find the file in the printer output directory.

The content of the file matches what is sent to the Soundbox for playback. There is no compression or other loss of data. It just skips over periods without sound output (when there is nothing sent to the soundbox, not even silence).

[Rhetorica]

I had no idea. That's wonderful. Time to make some recordings!

[andreas_g]

Question on sound recording: At the moment Previous records sound after volume adjustment and the experimental (and not very accurate) low-pass filter is applied. Do we want to keep this behaviour or do we prefer saving sound before these adjustments?

In other words: Better save what is heared from Previous or better save the pure data?