Re: [Qemu-devel] [RFC][PATCH 000/111] QEMU m68k core additions

[Rob Landley <rob@landley.net>]

On 08/21/2011 09:15 PM, Natalia Portillo wrote:
> Definitively you don't know how a Mac works, you don't want to know
> and you don't need to.

I do not care about the half of MacOS that Apple burns into ROM which
Linux does not use, true.

>>>> On 08/20/2011 07:23 PM, Natalia Portillo wrote:
> 
> I hate huge emails. Anyway I can't answer a lot of things you said
> because of NDAs so doesn't matter.

Right, so the emulator you suggested not actually emulating any real
hardware devices is either "tl;dr", "I can't tell you because of NDA",
or "you don't understand how macs work".

*shrug*  Have fun with that.

> You can create your own virtual non-existent hardware (it's done
> extensively in this world) and patch Linux to boot of it inside
> qemu. Or you can check for Linux's support for development boards
> (sure there are one or two) and implement it on qemu based on what
> Linux's source says.

I have, in fact, _seen_ Linux run on an m68k mac, although it was many
moons ago.  Obviously it _can_ be done.

(And I could play with coldfire now, but doing nommu in userspace is
fiddly and irritating.  Stuff like cris is higher on my todo list than
that.)

> And FOR GOD'S SAKE CHECK THE ****** COMPATIBILITY LIST ON
> LINUX-M68K.
> 
> No Mac m68k suits your needs for Linux NONE NINGUNO AUCUN KEINER
> NESSUNO NENHUM.

Which is of course why Linux has a mac_defconfig under the m68k
directory specifying numerous drivers for actual hardware.

It seems unlikely that the powerpc mac99 and g3beige worked just fine
for me, but before they swapped the CPU out it all ran by magic.

Rob

P.S. For context as to what counts as "intimidating" and "magic", Jeri
Ellsworth reverse engineered the Amiga chips in an FPGA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uaDzF99a80