BasiliskII Macintosh 68k Emulator Ported to ESP32-P4 / M5Stack Tab5(github.com)
90 pointsby rcarmoa month ago6 comments
  • bArraya month ago
    Looking at the M5Stack Tab5 IoT Development Kit [1] based on the ESP32-P4 - it's a really nice piece of kit.

    [1] https://shop.m5stack.com/products/m5stack-tab5-iot-developme...

    • nottorpa month ago
      Yeah, the first thing I thought of when seeing this was "how long till this tablet thingy will be out of stock everywhere?".
  • stonogoa month ago
    I note that the vide coding tools managed to keep the license headers in individual files, but the COPYING file containing the GPL2 has not made the transition.
  • jhbadgera month ago
    Pity that this isn't for the Cardputer (a M5Stack device that includes a built in (tiny) screen and keyboard), although it might be impractical on it.
  • swiftcodera month ago
    How performant is this - are we able to achieve similar speeds as an actual 68k Mac on embedded hardware?
    • vardumpa month ago
      At 8 MHz, a 68k can execute at most 2M instructions per second. So the answer is going to be yes, if this manages to execute one 68k instruction per ~200 cycles.

      I think executing an instruction is going to be closer to 20-50 cycles than 200, so it should be much faster than a real 68k CPU.

      I think performance is likely to be in the ballpark of a 68040 @20 MHz, but that's just a guess. This would leave 20 cycles for each emulated instruction. With JIT you could reach 200 MHz+ comparable speeds.

      • rasza month ago
        Everything is coming from PSRAM including frame buffer (at 15 fps) so performance is going to be abysmal.
        • vardumpa month ago
          You should be able to cache hot code and data in the SRAM. Although it'd significantly increase complexity.
    • iamflimflam1a month ago
      The P4 is pretty high spec with a 400MHz dual-core RISC-V
      • cardanomea month ago
        Especially as there is a decent working BasiliskII port for the PlayStation Portable with its 333MHz single-core MIPS CPU.

        So this should be much easier.

  • zeckalphaa month ago
    Hoping rePalm ends up there, too! https://dmitry.gr/?r=05.Projects&proj=27.%20rePalm
    • dmitrygra month ago
      i am doing MIPS first (for V-tech Helio), but i will eventually
      • zeckalphaa month ago
        Awesome. I was looking at SASD for my Palm VII just yesterday. :)
  • anthka month ago
    VMac would be lighter.