[GEM Development] Weird idea...

[John Elliott]

: 
: I've thought about it, but it never got off the ground, I thought of 
: making use of the running DOS and GEM to make a high-level Atari ST 
: emulator.  ("CrySTal" would be a good name for it!)
: 
: Thing is I don't know enough about, for one, the ST, or for another, 
: GEM...  but it would be a nice idea to bring some of the better ST stuff 
: over here until it can be ported properly...

  It's a nice idea, and I've entertained it from time to time as well; the
problem is, of course, that it's much easier to have ideas than to find the
time to implement them.

  The ideal solution would be a WINE-like environment that let ST-GEM
programs run side by side with PC-GEM programs. You'd probably want to do
it with a modified ST emulator, intercepting GEM calls and routing them to
the host AES and VDI. You'd have to send everything through endianness
conversion both ways, and probably copy stuff back and forth between the
ST's address space and DOS's address space. It would be simplest to start
with VDI only, routing the ST's AES through the host VDI, since VDI calls
don't have so many structures going to and fro.

-- 
John Elliott