Re: [Qemu-ppc] AmigaOS 4.x on QEMU

[Alexander Graf]

Hi,

On 12.01.2014, at 14:50, Alpha Mule <address@hidden> wrote:

> Hi. AmigaOS 4.x runs natively on some niche PowerPC boards. I was
> wondering about the viability of running AmigaOS 4.x on QEMU.

AFAIK there are 3 different boards with 3 different CPU types on them for 
AmigaOS:

  * 440 based
  * PwrFicient (or whatever its spelling was) based
  * e6500 based

For 440 we do have emulation in QEMU, so you could take the bamboo board as a 
base and start emulating the rest of the system from there.

The PA Semi based PwrFicient has never been implemented, but may be close 
enough to 970 to start working from that base. In any case, you would need to 
start emulating the rest of the system from scratch.

For e6500 we have maybe enough emulation in QEMU to handle all cases AmigaOS 
cares about, but I wouldn't bet on it. The latest SoC emulation we have for 
that series of chips is e500v2 based so it probably won't be of too much use. 
Ergo you're probably stuck reimplementing the rest of the SoC as well.

> Specifically, I was wondering if there has been any development on
> that and/or what needs to be done to get it fully working.

I'm not aware of any development in that area, but who knows what people out 
there are doing :). It's definitely doable, but significant coding effort 
(count on a few weeks if you know what you're doing and have all specs).


Alex