Jason Thacker wrote:
I don’t know if this would be any use, but I did see this Spectrum emulator
that runs within XNA on the XB360
It does look like it'd be a great starting point, as it includes a Z80
core and a framework to expand on for SAM-specific stuff. Though how
much work was involved would depend on the level of accuracy required...
It'd need expanding to support at least line-level updates for many SAM
titles to look right. That includes the stripy boot screen and anything
changing display page/mode mid-frame (even Manic Miner does that).
That Z80 core currently uses fixed timing values, which don't allow for
contention delays in the right places. Without them you'll miss out on
the fancier demo effects, but probably won't be missing much in games
(except stutters in Defender).
This note in the related NES emulator is a bit more of a worry:
"The Audio API's in XNA do not allow for writing to sound buffers. THIS
MEANS THAT NO EMU OR MEDIA PLAYER CAN HAVE SOUND SUPPORT ON XNA IN ITS
CURRENT STATE.". Ouch.
I'd imagine it would be quite a lot of work to do well, and would
probably only end up targeting the X360 platform. Still an interesting
challenge if you've got a 360 and enjoy C#. So, any takers? :-)
Si
