🚀 go-pugleaf

David Wareing (dwareing@apanix.apana.org.au) wrote:
: jasonp@fit.qut.edu.au (Jason Patterson) writes:

: >**** FORSALE: AMax 2.5 Macintosh Emulator for Amiga ****

: >     * Apple System 6.0.5 (from ftp.apple.com)

: Hmm, the purchaser of this emulator would be advised to procure a copy of
: a system later than this. 6.0.5 is pretty old and retarded. Don't know how
: you are going to legally use a later version though unless you purchase
: it. Even then the fine print on the licence might give you worries, if you
: are the sort of person who is worried by fine print on software licences.

I run System 7.0.1 on it, but will be keeping System 7 for use
with other Macs, so I thought I'd give the purchaser 6.0.5 so
he can test it straight away. The purchaser can go and buy
System 7 at any good computer store.


: >     * Runs System 6 and System 7

: Well, if you have System 7 it might :) What version of System 7? Does it
: handle 7.1? Does it run QuickTime 1.6.1 and Sound Manager 3.0? Are all
: features of the toolbox up to 7.1 supported?

As far as I know, Amax2.5 runs System 7.1 fine, but I haven't
tested it. I know that ReadySoft recommends System 7.1 for
AMaxIV, and the buyer will probably want to upgrade to AMaxIV
anyway (for the color support).


: >     * Runs all Macintosh applications
: >       (works with everything I've tried: Word, PageMaker, Excel,
: >        PowerPoint, Mathematica, FileMaker, Hypercard, SuperPaint,
: >        MacPaint, MacDraw, QuickLink, Metcom Modula-2, TurboCASE,
: >        LogicWorks, AfterDark)

: What level of graphic support does it handle? The min configuration these
: days for a Mac II level machine is 640x480x8. Many games (including mine)
: won't run on anything less. I've heard reports that cpu-wise, AMAX does
: *okay* (not great, just ok), but graphics-wise, it sucks. Screen refreshes
: are supposed to be pretty hideous and rule out a lot of graphics
: applications and games. Is this true?

Graphics support is black & white, any resolution from the
original MacPlus resolution (512x342) up to whatever your
Amiga can manage. I run at the maximum PAL overscan on an
A3000, which from memory is something like 712x576. If you
want to, you can run a "virtual screen" larger than the
actual screen, and scroll around within it.

For color support, you can upgrade to AMaxIV. This will give
you the same graphics capabilities as the Amiga hardware you
have (4-bit (16 colors) for older Amigas, 8-bit (256 colors)
for Amigas with AGA). AMaxIV will also support third party
graphics cards (including PicassoII and Retina) for 24-bit
graphics (16.7 million colors).

On the graphics performance side, an A3000 with AMax is _much_
faster than a MacIIcx, and quite a bit faster than a B&W MacIIci.


: >     * An A3000 with AMax runs faster than a Mac IIcx

: Running an 8bit or greater graphics device? *That* I would really like to
: see! Perhaps you could post some benchmarks to back up your claim.
: Benchmarks that actually include real-life mac stats. You could use
: Speedometer (a mac timing program - shareware) to tell us exactly how the
: AMAX rates on an A3000, compared to a MacII. That would be something we
: could use.

Benchmarks have been posted in the past which show that CPU
performance on an A3000+AMax easily exceeds a MacIIcx (which
is what you would expect, since a 25MHz 68030 is faster than
a 20MHz 68030). From a user/developer point of view, disk
access, compilations, circuit simulations and Mathematica are
noticeably faster under AMax. Normal applications are faster
too, mainly because AMax2.5 is black & white (so the interface
is much quicker to react). If you want more details, try
posting to comp.sys.amiga.emulators. I'm sure someone there
can quote the latest AMax and Emplant performance numbers.


In summary, I've found AMax to be a good quality product. The
emulation is perfect, performance is excellent, and the
upgrade path has been good. I'm selling it because I've just
ordered MAE for my SPARC 10, so I no longer need AMax. This
should be an excellent opportunity for someone to buy AMaxIV
extra cheap buy buying AMax2.5 from me then upgrading.
 
 
JASON PATTERSON  (jasonp@fit.qut.edu.au)
 
  Imagine that CRAY decides to make a personal computer. It contains 16
  `Alpha' based processors executing in parallel, has 500 megabytes of RAM,
  2500 Megabytes of disk storage, a resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, does
  24bit 3D graphics in realtime, relies entirely on voice recognition for
  input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300. What is the first
  question the computer community asks?
 
  "Is it DOS compatible?"