I remember there used to be a PC Emulator / Expansion for the CPC advertised in some old CPC magazines - although I cannot find the ads. Does anyone else remember them?
They were I suspect not too different to the following PCW equivalent:
(https://www.seasip.info/Unix/Joyce/swift286.jpg)
I remember there was an article about the PCE in the first computer mag I ever bought ;D
Happy Computer! [German]
From archive.org
To show the PC screen, this must have a hardware modification to accept the PC video to show on the screen, although that feels way too dangerous, there's no video in port.
So far more likely, the PCW is running a terminal emulator, and the PC outputs a purely text display to that. So text-mode PC DOS apps would work, but nothing graphical. Luckily for the time that was a lot of software.
The hardware looks like the full PC above, most likely without the VGA card installed but whatever extra cables needed for the PCW connection. Given the price of the (then high-resolution) 1024x768 monitor, I can see why some people would do the partial upgrade.
The terminal emulator must also have a mode for the printer output function.
I have a suspicion the solution was probably not very good on the PC side of things.
It wasn't an emulator, it was basically a full PC but without graphics card and keyboard. The CPC acted as a terminal for the PC.
I doubt that this made a lot of sense as a much more powerful full PC 1512 cost just 25% more than this thing (incl. a monitor and keyboard).
Pretty much the same situation as the PC "emulators" for the ST. Not really worth the hassle or the price... Interesting nonetheless!
Quote from: Gryzor on 18:27, 12 August 21
Pretty much the same situation as the PC "emulators" for the ST. Not really worth the hassle or the price... Interesting nonetheless!
On the ST, the emulators worked pretty well and used (except for the Supercharger) a totally different solution:
- there was the PC Ditto, a real software emulator. It was slow, indeed, but it was usable, as long as the program was not demanding.
- PC Speed, At Speed, At Once - they all basically added a X86 CPU and otherwise used the hardware of the ST: RAM, disk, graphics chip...(via some custom chips and drivers of course).
There is a translation of the article:PCE-II (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php?title=Kersten_PC_Emulator)
So just enter |PC and try it out :laugh:
Quote from: eto on 21:55, 12 August 21
On the ST, the emulators worked pretty well and used (except for the Supercharger) a totally different solution:
- there was the PC Ditto, a real software emulator. It was slow, indeed, but it was usable, as long as the program was not demanding.
- PC Speed, At Speed, At Once - they all basically added a X86 CPU and otherwise used the hardware of the ST: RAM, disk, graphics chip...(via some custom chips and drivers of course).
Yes, I was talking about the hardware solutions-slow and expensive. But you could get some work done. I had also tried PC ditto, mainly to view the nude pictures that came with the disk😀
Still pretty cool to have one. I guess the closest to now is the Raspberry Pi card, but at this time we don't really have any software for it.
@Gryzor (https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1) Somehow, Atariamania forgot to include those images on their Ditto page :(