Emulators For Developer?

[kentaromiura]

Hello, Since this is my first post I will introduce myself:
I'm Cristian, I'm Italian and I work as a developer, building any kind of application using C# (web/windows/compact).
I have some experience in building application on smart devices since I wrote apps using compact framework.
Long time ago (5 years ago) I built a custom linux distribution on a 1.72mb floppy with a working compiler (tcc) using uClinux,at that time I used to have only 1 os on my p133: slackware.
I know lot of languages: C / Java / RapidQ / Q-Basic / 3 kind of differents assembly / Brainf. / pascal-delphi blah blah blah...

I would like to start developing something for the pandora, I want know if there is a standard emulator for testing armstrong and try to build something on it.
I'm interested in opengl-es and I would test how mono:arm works on pandora

Thanks.

 

[habib15]

You should take a look at the BeagleBoard

www.beagleboard.org

Its cheap and available with angstrom running on it.

 

[Butterman]

You can also use QEmu to emulate a ARM environment as it would be on a BeagleBoard.

Honestly at the moment, it's best to wait it out.

 

[skeezix]

OR just dn't bother with ARM for dev side; run a vmware-player VM, say, or use your local linux setup and just go. (Yes, there may be endian issues depending on your environment, or padding, etc.. but if yo code well, or depending on the languager and tools, it may be a cakewalk.) In general, porting linux to linux is not geneally very difficult. For displays, open an appropriate window size, instead of full screen, etc and so on...

Nowdays the handhelds are using more and more modern OSes, so the need for an emu is less. (But then again, some tasks really need an emu, but you didn't let us know what sort of thign you'd be working on

jeff

 

[kentaromiura]

OR just dn't bother with ARM for dev side; run a vmware-player VM, say, or use your local linux setup and just go. (Yes, there may be endian issues depending on your environment, or padding, etc.. but if yo code well, or depending on the languager and tools, it may be a cakewalk.) In general, porting linux to linux is not geneally very difficult. For displays, open an appropriate window size, instead of full screen, etc and so on...

Nowdays the handhelds are using more and more modern OSes, so the need for an emu is less. (But then again, some tasks really need an emu, but you didn't let us know what sort of thign you'd be working on

jeff

Yesterday I've downloaded Qemu for testing purpose, I will give it a try later (I see it needs the flash and a linux image to go...)

jeff, I don't know yet what to do because before doing anything I want to understand what can I do (programs/games) and what I can do for help me do what I would do(tools)

I know, for experience, that for how similar the enviroment can be, there's always situation in which working on the real hardware is different from working on another platform.

An emulator can help me understand what is already working and what is not there.
For example, if I start to write a c# application that should work on mono, wrapping opengl es2, making all the stuff working on my pc, putting lots of efford in doing all this stuff, it would be a shame if I discover later that mono doesn't work on pandora or it works in a diffent incompatible way...

 

[skeezix]

Good points.

In general, you can assume a few things -- ie: its Linux, and SDL is supported, and its (usually) running within X11. We're aiming for the matchbox window manager, as well as some custom launchers.

OpenGL ES 2 should be working to some level, but that is still a very new thing, and as soon as you talk mono .. triply so.

So if you wanted to work on a 2d game in SDL, no problem. You could then later backport it to direct to the hardware if you wanted, etc.

Making assumptions about OpenGL might trip you up, but its getting ot be on safer ground on a day by day basis. Sadly, I'm not much up on my Open GL ES or its progress on the Panda, so best talk to others

Don't know if mono bindings will tie in there; perhaps you'll have to fix the mono bindings yourself, who knows? Or maybe it'll all just work, once sorted out. *Shrug*

Let us hope .. the more bindings the merrier

jeff

 

[kentaromiura]

Good points.
...

jeff

Mono was only taken as example purpose, I don't have to write applications in c# but it would be great if I could do it

http://www.mono-project.com/Mono:ARM

:rolleyes:

I agree that SDL should be, so *should* be allegro
http://www.handhelds.org/hypermail/intimate/8/0807.html

I'm now discovering what framework/computer language I will use, after that I will try out something

Now I know I can write C/C++ apps, Probably D / Objective c / object pascal, I just want to understand what it fits me better

EDIT: I was forgetting the goods manner, thanks for your contribution

 

[cxl000]

The options are
1) Full pandora hardware emulation running pandora kernal and Armstrong
2) Running a user level arm binary in an emulated user environment.
3) Run x86 Armstrong in a VM
4) Run x86 version in a chrooted user environment

I dont believe full hardware emulation is available. The closest would be the development branch of qemu that is adding beagleboard hardware emulation. With some pandora hardware details it would be possible to extend this for the pandora.

Maemo/Mer are producing releases targeting all the above options for the Nokia tablets.
CODE
http://wiki.maemo.org/Mer/Releases/0.8

 

[warmi]

Hello, Since this is my first post I will introduce myself:
I'm Cristian, I'm Italian and I work as a developer, building any kind of application using C# (web/windows/compact).
I have some experience in building application on smart devices since I wrote apps using compact framework.
Long time ago (5 years ago) I built a custom linux distribution on a 1.72mb floppy with a working compiler (tcc) using uClinux,at that time I used to have only 1 os on my p133: slackware.
I know lot of languages: C / Java / RapidQ / Q-Basic / 3 kind of differents assembly / Brainf. / pascal-delphi blah blah blah...

I would like to start developing something for the pandora, I want know if there is a standard emulator for testing armstrong and try to build something on it.
I'm interested in opengl-es and I would test how mono:arm works on pandora

Thanks.

You can code for OpenGL ES using Imagination Technologies SDK either on Windows or on a Linux machine.

I used their SDK as a basis for coding for iPhone - interestingly , I do 90% of my iPhone dev on Windows and only do device specific code (asm, testing) on the Mac/iPhone combo.

 

[Svartalf]

Making assumptions about OpenGL might trip you up, but its getting ot be on safer ground on a day by day basis. Sadly, I'm not much up on my Open GL ES or its progress on the Panda, so best talk to others

Heh... Even if the driver situation's good, the SDL integration situation's not so hot. Official SDL ES support is for 1.1 and it's really kind of tied to iPhone dev right at the moment (I tried to make it work with the SDK simulator and it just won't bring in ES stuff right from out of the 1.3 repository pull...). Unofficial 1.2 support is available with some hackery for ES 1.1 in the form of two differing ES ports of the 1.2 codebase. If you're coding for ES 1.1 or 2.0 and it works right now in the SDK, you should largely be good to go on Pandora once the drivers gel. If you're needing SDL, you're going to need to do some work yourself or wait for someone like myself who needs the thing supported right to do it for you...

 

[kentaromiura]

did someone knows if glib is supported? It should, but i would like to know, thanks.