Aemulor Pro embraces Sibelius | Drobe.co.uk archives

Aemulor Pro embraces Sibelius

By Chris Williams. Published: 12th Mar 2004, 22:45:32 | Permalink | Printable

Eventually

Users of Sibelius will be warmed by this week's news that the Aemulor team have managed to finally run the famous music notation software on the Castle Iyonix, using Aemulor Pro. As Sibelius is a 26bit application, it needs Aemulor Pro to enable its execution on the Iyonix's 32bit only XScale processor.

"With the changes made for Aemulor Pro I'm happy to report that Sibelius 7 is now running on the Iyonix. Both in desktop mode and full-screen," Aemulor developer Adrian Lees announced, explaining that Aemulor Pro addresses the tricky screen requirements that Sibelius demands:

"Over Aemulor, Pro adds support for low-colour screen modes (Sibelius needs a 4-colour screen), including support for multiple banks (again required by Sibelius) to allow smooth screen updates. A number of demos use this as well.

"The current code makes each of your native modes available with 1-,2- and 4bpp. I plan to introduce scaling code so that the old 640 x 256 modes will be displayed using a 640 x 480 native mode, for example, allowing you to run old games/programs without letterboxing."

Sibelius was first released in 1993 for RISC OS machines, having undergone five years of development by the Finn brothers. Now the software is used world wide on Windows and Mac platforms.

Adrian adds that he's looking for Aemulor Pro beta testers, don't all rush in at once.

Links

Sibelius and Aemulor Pro - screenshots and details

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Discussion

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Aemulator is amazing! It does the seemingly impossible so well. Does it run software that isn't StrongARM compatible? If so you can sell to SARPC owners

I'm sure Adrian has magic dust or something, any chance I can have some for my project?

john on 13/3/04 10:57AM
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john:

the version that of Aemulor pro that I was using at the RISC OS SW show will run save the gweeks :-)

this game wouldn't run on RISC OS 4 / StrongARM

& you can't run it on anything other than an Iyonix

epistaxsis@work on 13/3/04 11:50AM
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oops - Aemulor that is... :rolleyes:

epistaxsis@work on 13/3/04 11:51AM
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Epistaxsis, you're talking moose I'm afraid. STG runs just fine here on my SA-RPC -- hell, it's even running nicely under ViewFinder !

imj on 13/3/04 2:08PM
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imj:

odd - I could never get it to run

ho hum :rolleyes:

epistaxsis@work on 13/3/04 5:28PM
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John: Yea, Aemulor (and Pro) can run non-StrongARM compatible software using an ARM610 emulation mode, which is much slower than the StrongARM engine, but alot more compatible with pre-SA machines.

I wish Adrian did have magic dust - he might meet more deadlines :-)

However, what he's done so far is pretty fantastic, and dont worry, there will be plenty of the same magic dust in Cino

Cheers,

/Neil/

spellinn on 14/3/04 2:02AM
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Yesterday I added a new ARM3 engine in fact which should be even more compatible. It's basically the same as the ARM610 but disables the optimisations that could break self-modifying code. Should improve compatibility still further.

BTW, the trouble with magic dust is it's not fast acting.

adrianl on 14/3/04 12:01PM
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depends if you get it from moon face or not ;-)

epistaxsis@work on 14/3/04 1:28PM
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Just as a quick reminder for anyone who doesn't already know; Neil will be demonstrating Aemulor Pro (and his see-through Iyonix case, and maybe even a little bit of !CinoDVD) at ROUGOL on the evening of Monday 15th March 2004.

More information at [link]

dgs

dgs on 14/3/04 5:14PM
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There's no (hardware) MIDI support on the Iyonix though, is there? Or the possibility of input from a MIDI keyboard. I don't think Virtual RiscPC can offer MIDI input under RISC OS either...

That being the case, those users who rely on MIDI will perhaps gravitate toward the Omega, which offers MIDI hardware as standard. Of course, the Omega also will also run a copy of Sibelius 'as standard'.

It's nice to finally have a choice of machines, isn't it ;-)

Stewy on 14/3/04 7:39PM
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Stewy: Could you bring one along to ROUGOL, so that we can compare? :-)

I know I've asked before, but...

dgs

dgs on 14/3/04 8:05PM
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The SoundBlaster cards that we're supporting for Cino do have MIDI inputs

And, in fact, the Iyonix SouthBridge has a MIDI interface but the relevant pin header, buffering circuitry and connector were omitted

adrianl on 14/3/04 10:04PM
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Correction: the header is present so, in theory, the signals could be cabled to a suitable backplate and a driver written.

adrianl on 14/3/04 10:30PM
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Why did Sibelius require a 4-colour mode?

Loris on 15/3/04 1:25PM
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Loris: For speed, apparenltly it's usable on ARM2 machines. adrianl: If I has an iyonix I'd look into writing the driver. Does the header have all the signals in the appropriate form just requiring a physical connection to midi sockets or does it require extra glue? If castle will lend me an iyonix and a copy of the specs required I'll write one

john on 15/3/04 2:50PM
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For a prototype I think it'd work, yes. If, however, you wanted to produce adapters or make the details available to others then you should really include some passive circuitry to protect the IC from overvoltage conditions & static etc. The header pins are connected directly to the IC pins, you see, with no protection.

adrianl on 15/3/04 6:38PM
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By the way, I assume '4 colour' should read '4 bit colour' (i.e. 16 colours). I'm sure there's more than four colours on that screenshot.

ninja on 15/3/04 7:10PM
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Nope, in full screen mode Sibelius only uses 4 colours, black, red, paper colour, usually white, and grey. The screenshot was in the desktop preview mode.

mavhc on 15/3/04 7:28PM
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John: I suggest you talk privately (and nicely) to John B at Castle. When Iyonix was first released they did have some developer loan machines...you never know your luck, they may still be available.

TonyStill on 15/3/04 10:29PM
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adrianl: hmm that probably means it wouldn't work, since MIDI works with current not logic levels, however shouldn't be too hard to translate. I'm not overly interested in hardware, I prefer to bodge it and get on with the software

My midi lead is a piece of two core bell wire because I'm too stingy to buy a lead with plugs on :/

As far as an iyonix goes I might have a word, if they've got an iyonix with midi socketry on already it'd be a bit easier.

john on 16/3/04 9:05PM
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