Re: Wine

[Christopher C Chimelis <chris@classnet.med.miami.edu>]

On 15 Apr 1999, Brederlow wrote:

> Don't tell me, I'm using bochs on my alpha to emulate a complete 386.

Hehehehe...sorry :-)

> Why so many steps? Only the nativ program code should be emulated as
> i386 code and be real slow. As soon as a win api call is detected, the 
> wine should be able to switch to native alpha code and run it
> FAAAST. So after step 1. above, you would have some X calls and be
> done with.

This is assuming we have a Wine lib that works on Alphas.  I assumed the
regular discussion was just using em86 and a Wine compiled on i386.  If
that assumption was wrong, then, yes, we would save ALOT of steps, but I
still think Win API calls will be kinda creepy.

Also, another thought keeps popping up in my head.  The absolute best idea
would be to somehow have Wine and em86 merged code-wise to allow em86
handle i386 calls and Wine handle just emulating Windows and Win API
calls (even those from Alpha binaries...assuming the supporting libs are
ok).  I'm thinking that this kind of merge would allow us to run 386 and
Alpha Win binaries under the same Wine setup (just conjecture...alot of
work would need to be done...mostly by Compaq since only they have the
source to em86 from what I recall).  That would be the ideal setup
allowing us to run some things native if possible.

> Since we have the source fo wine and its lib, what we now need is an
> emulator that maps the i386 win api calls to a native alpha wine
> lib. Thats the point where an emulator should become useable.

So we would have to incorporate em86 somehow into the backend of Wine so
that specific i386 calls are emulated by it, but API calls are handled by
the lib....correct?  I think I'm understanding this idea better now :-)

Another thing we would have to ensure is, if we (or someone) decide to
implement this, that the API calls are properly implemented based on the
arch's headers.  I'm not sure if i386 Windows NT and Alpha NT have the
same header files (meaning that the functions are called with arguments of
the same types across platforms), but if they do, then running Alpha NT
binaries would be ALOT easier and not a whole lot of work would be
required on Wine to accomplish this (well, at least compared to getting
i386 stuff to work).

> Yes, such a switch is pretty handy, but those are quite expensive and
> the cheaper once have poor quality. Its easier to use remote displays
> with X and telnets.

Agreed.  Too bad I haven't found a really good X server for most of my Win
equipment yet :-(