GP32 Porting Gba->gp32: How Difficult?

[Gruntfuggly]

Now that theres a working BBC emulator available for the GBA, I'm wondering how difficult it would be to convert it for the GP32, assuming the author would share the source? I know they share the same basic architecture, but I can't recall anything specific being ported...

 

[woogal]

Now that theres a working BBC emulator available for the GBA, I'm wondering how difficult it would be to convert it for the GP32, assuming the author would share the source? I know they share the same basic architecture, but I can't recall anything specific being ported...

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My guess is it would be about the same as porting a pc beeb emu, maybe even a little bit harder. I would assume it would be fairly easy to get a basic beeb emu running on the gp32, the problem is no-one is particually interested in doing it. What I'm trying to say here is that homebrew coders aren't paid to work on the gp32 so we code what we want, when we want to. It doesn't matter how many times you point out things that can be ported, they will only be ported if someone wants to do it.

 

[Shirohagen]

There are people coding BBC emulators, it's just none have been released / developed enough. I think there were about 3 on the go from people like Rlyeh...

...The desire for a Beeb emulator is there, both in the fans and the coders, it's just that I guess more exciting and challenging projects are always bound to seize the imagination more and progress because of that enthusiasm at the cost of time spent on the more modest stuff that is well within the GP32's abilities.

®

 

[Gruntfuggly]

My guess is it would be about the same as porting a pc beeb emu, maybe even a little bit harder. I would assume it would be fairly easy to get a basic beeb emu running on the gp32, the problem is no-one is particually interested in doing it. What I'm trying to say here is that homebrew coders aren't paid to work on the gp32 so we code what we want, when we want to. It doesn't matter how many times you point out things that can be ported, they will only be ported if someone wants to do it.

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Fair enough, but I wasn't actually asking anybody else to port it - I was asking for an opinion of whether it would be more straightforward (due to the similarity in architecture) and therefore whether I ought to try myself (hence the use of this forum and not the general forum)...

Why do you think it might be harder than porting from PC source?

 

[Reesy]

It "might" be harder if the BBC emulator on the GBA is using the GBA video hardware to speed up emulation. This would mean you would have to re-write the vdp emulation.

 

[FluBBa]

It uses the CPU core from PocketNES (with added decimal mode for ADC and SBC which can also be found in PCEAdvance), take that and write new stuff for the VDP on the GP32.