Slow Emulation Problems

By Chris Dewhurst

Originally published in EUG #57

Firstly, many thanks to John Crane for the tips on SRAM under emulation. I also use an A3010 so they were just what I needed. I followed his instructions and have been able to successfully install some Sideways ROMs. One of these was Mr Toad's Screen FX ROM (Mr Toad of the old Beebug fame). But although ROMs appear on the *ROM and *HELP list after pressing CTRL-BREAK, there is a crash if you try any of the * commands. If this has something to do with ROMs needing to be 'tweaked' then I'd be grateful for any further information. Like John, I also prefer to use View wherever possible when typing articles for EUG, so I'd be interested to know how you can use it directly from the desktop.

Secondly, problems with 6502Em. This is a BBC emulator for the Archimedes produced by Warm Silence Software (WSS) but I have experienced difficulties running it on my A3010 and A3000. It is too slooooow, slower than !65Host. I received 6502Em as a Christmas present, and my main reason for having it was so I could test out the programs I send to EUG on all the BBC models - and also the Electron. (!65Host only emulates a BBC Model B.) I use my A3010 here at university, which is a long way from home where we have real BBCs! However, !6502Em runs fine on a friend's RISC PC. I managed to persuade WSS to send me an earlier version (Version 2.10) of 6502Em with the belief that an older version might run on my older A3010 machine. Unfortunately this didn't make any difference.

WSS said that, as far as they are concerned, other customers had claimed it runs okay on an A3010, and therefore couldn't offer a solution to my problem. Now, I appreciate that they are a small company and they have to rely on customer support, but it still leaves me disappointed with 6502Em.

Does anybody else use 6502Em on an A3010? Is there something I am doing wrong? Perhaps, like with !65Host, something needs to be adjusted to make it run properly. Compared to my expertise with the BBC, I'm a complete beginner as far as the Archimedes goes!

P.S. I'm looking for a job after University (obviously) and, while I don't hold out much hope, anyone know of opportunities with the BBC Micro?!

Chris Dewhurst
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