Emulating through web browser or emulating online

[thorfdbg]

 

It's in C++.

I suppose it's possible to do with Emscripten, but it seems like it would be a ton of work.

The language is only the least problem. HTML5 and javascript are an environment that is very different from the native Windows environment. It's not that you can take an existing code, like Altirra, and simply - because the language is identical - compile it and run it on HTML5 or Linux. That's exactly why there are emulators that are native on those environments, like Atari++ on Linux.

 

It's the matter of how code how easy porting is. Atari++ is pretty portable and compiles on Linux, Windows, MacOs and (the latest) Os/2. But even this code would be hard to port to Javascript and the HTML5 environment.

[Keatah]

Emulators are native to Windows or Linux or whatever have you because that's where they were first developed.

[Mclaneinc]

It just makes me laugh that there are people who want to try and make a profit for software off a nigh on 40yr old machine, you might cover your costs with a few notes spare but to actually hope to make a constant actual profit while TOTALLY ignoring the only way a half decent way to make any cash with little or no overheads just makes me wonder at the mentality here.

 

Add to that there are games posted for free that are fantastic...

 

I wish any dev on here all the best when they work hard on a game or device and sell them but as Dirty Harry says in one of the films "a man's got sta know his limits", there's no Aladdin's cave out there, just a little bit here and there..

[danwinslow]

The language is only the least problem. HTML5 and javascript are an environment that is very different from the native Windows environment. It's not that you can take an existing code, like Altirra, and simply - because the language is identical - compile it and run it on HTML5 or Linux. That's exactly why there are emulators that are native on those environments, like Atari++ on Linux.

 

It's the matter of how code how easy porting is. Atari++ is pretty portable and compiles on Linux, Windows, MacOs and (the latest) Os/2. But even this code would be hard to port to Javascript and the HTML5 environment.

 

Yeah, that's certainly true. Although actually Emscripten is pretty powerful, and it compiles stuff o a specialized version of Javascript. For instance, there's a MS-DOS emulator for playing old games that was cross compiled via emscripten. But still, its not a 'press button and go' situation, I'm sure it would take a bunch of work, and you'd probably need to add a 'windows emulation layer' in there somewhere like they had to do for the DOS box stuff.

[Keatah]

@Mclaneinc:

 

Yes, that's right.

 

In fact there are so many free games I doubt I'll have time to play them all to completion. And so many of them are top-class like Scramble, Pac-Man 8K, Star Castle, StayFrosty2, Thrust+.. And that's just on the VCS for starters! Now there's a new version of Star Raiders.. A whole thread has grown around finishing and improving it. You know you have a good thing going when a thread is dedicated to it. And Altirra is getting better seemingly exponentially.. Ohh my! Is there any end to the greatness?

 

Those things - crafted from the heart - shine in quality, depth, accuracy, and replay value. And developers whose modus operandi is as such receive my gratitude and recommendation to other gamers. It is material born of that philosophy which expands the hobby into the 21st century and sets the standard.

Edited December 29, 2015 by Keatah

[fujidude]

"A man's gotta know his limitations."

[flashjazzcat]

"A man's got to know his limitations."

[fujidude]

Yep. "I know what you're thinking. Was that six shots or only five?"

Edited December 30, 2015 by fujidude

[kiwilove]

"A man's gotta know his limitations."

It is only by trying and then failing - then you know what your limitations are?

Also - if you try, try, try again - you may well succeed in that particular case.

And like in any other hobby, interest or sport, etc etc - the more time you spend at it, the better you become - in that particular interest.

 

Hardware - of course, has it's limitations - but there's always tricks of one kind or another, when used, can make the hardware appear to do more than it is thought capable of.

 

Harvey

[scottinNH]

I'm looking for something similar to what this thread tried to uncover (more on that after).

FYI since time of this thread, there are now deployable web-desktop:

• Win 9x:  https://hub.docker.com/r/toolboc/windows95/
• Linux: https://www.linuxserver.io/blog/2021-05-05-meet-webtops-a-linux-desktop-environment-in-your-browser
  • (PulseAudio works, meaning remote viewing can include sound)

 

What I am really looking for are foundation elements (infrastructure) to host some "integration testcases" that validate CC65 and BASIC apps inside of Altirra (or as a fallback, `atari800`).

And be able to do this without requiring that the host OS be Microsoft Windows.

 

For validation there are tools that can compare desktop screenshots, or run inside a browser. I'm not too worried about this stage yet since I'm still struggling to arrive at portable, non-Windows environment.

(How ultimately  feasible that is, I don't know... I'll be happy to just automate validation of `10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"` output, "somehow")

 

There is some element of over-thinking here, I could just be content to manually run the emulator and judge results of thing I just built.   

But I have some cloud VMs available, and I would like to move some things into a Linux based VM or docker.

 

 

The constraint here is altirra must be run "as is" without modification (it has already been well explained before, this binary is tied close to Windows API).

So this is about providing a flexible host environment for the Atari emulator, and ultimately having a Makefile that can judge expected output from the emulator, without being tied to an OS.

 

Has anyone pushed along these lines?

 

 

Edited February 5, 2023 by scottinNH