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Aemulor sees the light of day

By Chris Williams. Published: 25th Mar 2003, 18:18:42.

Go forth and emulate

Finally, drobe.co.uk is pleased to report that aemulor.com's 26 bit emulation software for Iyonix users, appropiately titled Aemulor is now available to end users following a time limited demo version release.

"We are pleased to announce that the full version of Aemulor is now available from www.aemulor.com, and your local Acorn/RISC OS dealer", states the Aemulor team in their email to us. "We've taken many suggestions and results of testing from users of the demo version and incorporated these into the full release code."

As discussed in a previous article, the XScale optimised Aemulor enables legacy 26 bit software to run on new 32 bit only Iyonixes, allowing users to run old software such as Impression that is no longer in a position to be converted to 32 bit. We have to admit, we did get a little worried when the programming team started slipping behind their own publically stated deadlines so this release is very welcome.

As well as pointing out that Aemulor can now handle 26 bit taskwindow based apps, the Aemulor developers have also dropped hints of a "pro" version which'll support 16 bit sound and screen modes not provided by RISC OS 5. These developments must be worrying for a certain other hardware developer seeing as one of the major selling points for their long awaited RISC OS computer is that being StrongARM and RISC OS 4 powered, it can run legacy applications that Iyonix users were once upon a time locked out from using. Aemulor itself can handle, at the very least, all these applications.

Adding to the usual press release style 'our product is the best, really' spiel, the Aemulor team finally comment, "We'd like to thank you all for your patience in the development of Aemulor and we hope it adds functionality to your Iyonix PC."

We're touched, truly.

Where's the goods?
The software will be on sale at the Wakefield 2003 event and due to the fact that copies of aemulor are being locked to Iyonix MAC addresses (unique IDs built into the computer network interface), you'll need to bring a copy of this. A couple of useful FAQs including purchasing details and prices can be found here.

Links
Aemulor finally released

Discussion

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Excellent. This should boost Iyonix sales too

-- Spriteman.

Spriteman on 25/3/03 8:40PM [ Reply | Report ]

all the way past the 200 mark !cor

robroy on 25/3/03 9:47PM [ Reply | Report ]

I hope they have a way of unlocking should the internal NIC die - it would be awful if the NIC fell over and with it, the tonnes of legacy software.

Nodoid on 25/3/03 11:37PM [ Reply | Report ]

You can request changes to the registered nic on their website, as the faq clearly states, so you're probably ok until the company dies, in which case I hope they'll release it for free/release a patch to unlock it

mavhc on 25/3/03 11:40PM [ Reply | Report ]

Cor blimey! "until the company dies" Talk about doom and gloom!

Its fantastic news. I'll be buying my copy this week.

Hopefully the legacy software will be replaced or updated before the NIC dies. Not that I've ever seen a NIC die in the thousands that have passed my hands.

danielbarron on 26/3/03 12:47AM [ Reply | Report ]

To be honest, I think there's more chance of your harddisc dying than the Iyonix NIC device failing. It's like the RS Laptop, you don't have to worry about it happening ;-)

I'm looking forward to hearing what Aemulor users have to say with their full copies.

Chris, drobe.co.uk

diomus on 26/3/03 12:50AM [ Reply | Report ]

The Aemulor demo has been working great for me so I just bought the release version. Works great too and there appear to be lots of small fixes and changes. On the demo, Publisher and Style were reducing the wimpslot to zero due to a Computer Concepts' programming error, but this has even been trapped by Aemulor Lite to avoid problems!

Nodoid is on the right track with the NIC dying - some Iyonix owners, including myself, are having problems with the NIC not being detected upon boot, which may mean Aemulor can't run. It may be due to "odd" network traffic, and Castle have said a forthcoming ROM update should address the problem. For now, I just never switch my machine off.

-- Simon Wilson, Boulder, Colorado

ksattic on 26/3/03 6:02AM [ Reply | Report ]

No, he's not on the right track. Detection issues are something completely different to a physical failure. The former is a software issue,the latter means return to base (after all, that's why we have warranties), so it can be fixed.

Whilst I'm sure your detection issues are valid (and will be fixed soon), a hardware failure is just a red herring.

-- Peter, drobe.co.uk

mrchocky on 26/3/03 8:08AM [ Reply | Report ]

ksattic: if you're leaving your iyonix on 24/7, you could run the BASIC httpd by Stewart Brodie and have the first Iyonix server

Is Impression the only legacy app that hasn't been 32bitted?

Chris, drobe.co.uk

diomus on 26/3/03 1:10PM [ Reply | Report ]

Nope. Important apps that haven't been 32-bitted include Prophet and Datapower. DP is, I believe, being 32-bitted by RComp, but there aren't any plans to convert Prophet, which limits the appeal of the machine to business. Also, although there's been a report of Photodesk being 32-bitted, this hasn't been confirmed by Photodesk Ltd AFAIK. And there are "background" apps like Win95FS, which there's no news about on WSS's site or the Iyonix site.

Plus all the little things from years ago, of course :-)

-- [link]

john-pettigrew on 26/3/03 1:32PM [ Reply | Report ]

Peter: I was offered a replacement motherboard by Castle as soon as I reported the problem. It hasn't been traced to a particular software or hardware issue yet, but Castle tell me it may well be a hardware fault. On the other hand, it may be a software problem, which is why I've chosen to wait till the next ROM update. Personally, I think it *is* more likely to be a software problem. -- Simon Wilson, Boulder, Colorado

ksattic on 26/3/03 4:33PM [ Reply | Report ]

Other nice things that are still only 26bit...

TopModel 2 Insignia Composition RenderBender Rhapsody 4 Starfighter 3000 TEK

Still quite a few good reasons for Iyonix owners to buy Aemulor :-)

-- Steve

knutson on 26/3/03 8:08PM [ Reply | Report ]

Compo is 32-bit. Most of the rest is only a matter of time/will.

Certainly Aemulor is a great idea - however, it's a stopgap, and not something (and I stress this is because of my personal requirements) I will be getting. I expect many Iyonix owners will, however.

By the time the Omega is available in large numbers, Aemulor will have done its bit, and many more important packages will be 32-bit, making that aspect of the argument for getting one much diminished.

-- Peter, drobe.co.uk

mrchocky on 26/3/03 8:55PM [ Reply | Report ]

Prophet will work if the BASIC program is ripped from the App. I've been running it from the day I bought my Iyonix. -- Tank

tank on 26/3/03 10:22PM [ Reply | Report ]

tank: hey, you're running statusd on your machines.. cool :-)

Chris, drobe.co.uk

diomus on 26/3/03 10:47PM [ Reply | Report ]

Awwwww - lanman98 does not with with Aemulor. Could not get LIRC to work either. Oh well - looks like the Iyonix goes back in the box for another 3 months until my core apps will work on it.

danielbarron on 27/3/03 9:44AM [ Reply | Report ]

You're not using your Iyonix because you can't get your IRC client working on it? And I thought I IRCed too much.. ;-)

Chris, drobe.co.uk

diomus on 27/3/03 10:30AM [ Reply | Report ]

BitchX works fine :-)

As does LanManFS (although has a few minor issues currently being resolved) comes with Iyonix, and works.

-- Peter, drobe.co.uk

mrchocky on 27/3/03 10:32AM [ Reply | Report ]

A 32-bit RISC OS? An XScale machine? Compatibility problems frankly minimal?

I'm happy.

moss on 27/3/03 3:30PM [ Reply | Report ]

I expect that sh*t loads of stuff doen't work natively and a fair whack will still not work with Aemulor. However, you've just got to see which programs you actually use. Who cares if !Man doesn't work? :-)

-- Spriteman.

Spriteman on 27/3/03 4:19PM [ Reply | Report ]

diomus: I need LIRC for my job and need to be able to easily cut and paste to it. I could cope with others, but with no LanMan98 I can't do 95% of my work. I work writing unix and firewall apps via LM98, zap, nettle and oregano. I need to be able to use the notypes feature of LM98. Without LM98 I have no way of doing my job. Hense a 1400 dust collector.

Besides - maybe by the time I use it mouse clicks won't be lost when its busy

danielbarron on 28/3/03 10:08AM [ Reply | Report ]

The App I will miss when I get my Iyonix will be Look Systems Font Manager. That was a cracker of an app that was! N.

NeilWB on 28/3/03 2:41PM [ Reply | Report ]

I just wrote a longer version of this, but the bloody thing said "Nothing to be done" when I pressed submit. Grrr.

LM98 needs to work to allow Iyonix to integrate into existing RISC OS installations running with Windows servers.

Mike

mikeg on 30/3/03 10:18AM [ Reply | Report ]

Or LanMan in RISC OS 5 needs to be altered to do everything needed, which is what?

mavhc on 30/3/03 7:51PM [ Reply | Report ]

...everything LanMan98 can do?

Phlamethrower on 30/3/03 11:21PM [ Reply | Report ]

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