Re: OT: Old Computer Games (Was: Weekly Vocab #1.1.3 (repost #1))

-----Original Message-----
>From: Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>
>Sent: Sep 13, 2006 11:15 PM
>But for DOS, I fear the OS and the computer hardware were already too
>complex to be emulated well enough for all those picky game engines
>that failed to run even on native DOS in most cases.  I doubt that
>many DOS or Windows games will survive the DOS/Windows time.  To save
>them, the game engines themselves will probably have to be ported,
>which is quite some work.  For some block busters, yes (e.g. ScummVM
>for Day of the Tentacle etc).  But Goblins III for example, can I play
>that?  Not the most widespread game and thus not too many enthusiasts.
>It was one of my favorites.
Well, there are a number of promising technologies.

The Intel Itanium, though a different architecture, could provide binary emulation
in hardware of the x86 chip line. I believe there's some hardware binary
emulation of other chips in at least some PowerPC chips (though I don't think
so in the more modern POWER line).

VMware lets you run an entire OS inside a virtual machine. Coupled with something
like binary emulation on the host machine, that provides lots of options.

With emerging -- and radically different -- CPU technologies, real speeds in the
hundreds of GHz per core range are not only probable, but virtually guaranteed,
within years, and possibly even THz cores (or technology providing THz
equivalent processing rates) are confidently predictable. Even a 100% software
emulation solution stands a chance in that environment, especially with the
trend for multi-CPU and multi-core processing slowly trickling down from "real"
computers to PC-land. Dual-CPU, dual-core is already within the reach of
consumers, and quad-CPU, dual-core is coming Real Soon Now. Once consumer level
technology reaches the stage of industrial machines with (say) 32 eight-core
CPUs, with each of those cores idling near 1THz, things should get very
interesting indeed.

All is not yet lost. There are even now programs out there that throttle the CPU
to allow you to play old games dating back to the CGA era.




Paul