Fresh Fish 9/FreshFishVol9-CD2.bin/bbs/reviews/emulation.lha/emulation/EmplantDeluxe

Internet Message Format | 1994-08-17 | 15.9 KB

Path: news.uh.edu!barrett
From: [e-mail] (Gene Ruebsamen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: Emplant Deluxe (with Mac Software v4.6)
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.emulations
Date: 16 Aug 1994 23:28:55 GMT
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
Lines: 345
Sender: [e-mail] (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator)
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <32ri3n$[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Gene Ruebsamen)
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Keywords: hardware, emulator, Macintosh, commercial
Originator: [e-mail]


PRODUCT NAME

    Emplant Deluxe (with Mac Software v4.6)


BRIEF DESCRIPTION

    The Emplant is a Zorro-II board that allows emulation of various
different computers via your Amiga.  Currently, the only emulation that is
written for the Emplant is the Macintosh, which emulates a full-colour
Macintosh on your Amiga.  The type of Mac emulated by the Emplant is
dependent upon your CPU speed.


COMPANY INFORMATION

    Name:        Utilities Unlimited International
    Address:    790 Lake Havasu Ave Suite #16
            Lake Havasu City, AZ  86403
            USA
    Telephone:    [phone]
    FAX:        [phone]


LIST PRICE

     Unknown.  I paid $399 (US) for the Deluxe board.


SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

    HARDWARE

        68020 CPU or greater.
        Mac 256K ROMS (v1.1-v1.3)
        Minimum of 2 megs of FAST memory.
        Hard drive required.

    SOFTWARE

        AmigaOS 2.04 or higher.
        A Macintosh System (boot) disk.


COPY PROTECTION

    None.


MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

    Amiga 3000/25, 8 MB Fast RAM, 2 MB Chip RAM.
    1 internal 880k floppy drive.
    Maxtor 213 MB SCSI Hard Drive.
    Quantum 105 MB SCSI Hard Drive.
    AmigaDOS 2.1
    KingCon 1.4 replacing the Amiga Shell.


INSTALLATION

    The Macintosh emulation software installs from an 880K floppy disk.
Version 4.5 was the latest 'full' version on disk, therefore I had to
install v4.5 then install the v4.6 patches on top of it.  It was quite easy
as both versions used the standard Commodore Installer.


REVIEW

    I will be reviewing only the Macintosh emulation software in this
review.  The IBM 486DX emulation is suppose to be near completion, but there
has been no release date set, and no one I know has it as of yet.

    The Emplant comes on a Zorro-II board that is easily placed inside
any Zorro-II equipped Amiga (A2000/3000/4000).  There are four different
versions of the board:  a basic one with no ports, one with two Mac serial
ports, one with a SCSI port, and one with both serial ports and the SCSI
port (this one is called the deluxe model).  I have the deluxe model, so I
will be be reviewing it.

    The first thing you notice when you plug in the board is that there
are two Macintosh serial ports, and one SCSI port on the backplate of the
board (the side sticking out the back of your Amiga).  These serial ports
are capable (according to the manual... I have never tested them at any
faster than 14.4k) of transfer speeds up to 230.4k baud normally, yet with
the special Emplant hardware, the speed can be quadrupled (between two
Emplant boards ONLY) to 921.6k baud for AppleTalk (the standard Macintosh
networking) or 460.8k if connected to a DoubleTalk board.  The serial ports
are not the standard Amiga RS-232 style, they are the Mini-DIN type.  The
second thing you will notice is the large SCSI port.  The SCSI interface
uses the 53C80 SCSI chip.  It is NOT SCSI-II.  It is a standard SCSI-I
controller.

    Before you can use your hardware, you must have the 256k ROM from an
Apple Macintosh computer, OR you can copy the ROMS off of a Macintosh that
uses the 256k type. (Note:  You MUST own the Macintosh that you copy the ROMS
from, otherwise you could be in violation of copyright law.)  A program
included with the Emplant distribution software, called ROMINFO, will dump
the ROMs when run on a Macintosh.  In order to get this program to a Mac,
you have to copy it to an IBM formatted disk via CrossDOS and then load it
into a Mac that is able to read IBM disks, or you could use a modem.  The
ROMINFO program will dump the MAC ROMs to the same Diskette, and you can now
use that ROM Image with your Emplant.  If you opt for the first method
(using the actual ROMs with the board) you must use a program called ROMDUMP
to dump the ROMS onto your hard drive, then you must remove the actual ROMS
from the board.  From now on, your Emplant will use the ROM Image that is on
your hard drive.  Either way, you will end up with the same image.

    Once you have the ROM image, you can start the Emplant and get things
up and running.  There are three versions of the software that come with the
Emplant:  a version for EC processors (680EC20, etc.), a version for Amigas
with the actual kickstart ROM chips (A2000/4000 and some 3000), and another
version for Amiga 3000's with the softkicked kickstart ROMs.  When you first
start the emulation software, you will be presented with a preferences
screen, where a plethora of options are presented to you.  You are able to
select the amount of memory that the emulation will use, the screenmode, 24
or 32-bit emulation (more on this later), mouse and keyboard emulation,
sound, etc....

    When the emulation first starts, your computer will beep (a la
Macintosh), and should you have a Mac hard disk hooked to the SCSI port or a
boot disk in the drive, the macintosh will proceed to boot.  Once you are on
the Mac side, everything runs well.. pretty much like a Macintosh.  The only
major difference will be the ejection of the disks.  A little symbol will
appear at the top of the screen which means to eject the disk (much like
that of A-Max II+ for those of you who owned it).  Aside from this,
everything runs exactly like a Macintosh.  One note:  Some software is not
"32-bit clean" and will require you to select 24-bit mode in the preferences
screen.  24-bit mode will limit the amount of memory that you have available
for the emulation.  I highly recommend you install Apple System 7.1 or
greater, otherwise you will be forced to use the inefficient 24-bit mode.
The graphics speed with my EGS Spectrum is about 50% faster than that of a
standard Mac II when run in 256 color mode.  However, in 24-bit mode the
graphics speed is extremely slow (much like 16 color mode on the Workbench
of an ECS Machine).  On my Amiga 3000/25, Emplant emulates a Mac IIci, and
on an A4000/40 it is supposed to emulate a Quadra 650(?).

    Unless you have a high-density disk drive, do not expect to be able
to read Macintosh disks in your Amiga disk drives (unless you happen to have
an A-Max cartridge and a Mac Drive, or AMIA).  Having a high-density disk
drive will allow you to read Macintosh High Density diskettes, but not the
low density variety.  To read the low-density (which are fairly rare) you
will need either AMIA or an A-Max Cartridge & Mac drive.  (Note:  if you
have an A-Max cartridge & Mac drive you will not be able to use then inside
the Mac emulation, instead you have to use an included "converter" program
to convert the disks to EMPLANT format so that they can be used in the
emulation.  AMIA is able to read Macintosh low-density disks inside the Mac
emulation).

    Multitasking on the Emplant is very good.  You can switch to and from
the Macintosh and Amiga Workbench screen.  Though if you only have four megs
of Fast RAM you probably will want to disable Workbench to get the most
memory out of Emplant.  With my eight megs of Fast RAM, the most memory I am
able to get out of the Emplant is about 5.7 megs of Macintosh memory.  You
are able to set the task priority of the Emplant software as high as 0.  Any
higher (according to J. Drew) and it would cause the emulation to actually
run slower.  According to Xoper, when there is little load on my Amiga side,
the Macintosh Emulation can take up almost ALL of the available CPU time;
however, when I am doing something processor intensive on the Amiga, the
Macintosh side will lower its CPU usage to about 50% or possibly even
lower.  I have experienced some crashes while downloading on the Amiga side
at high speed, and doing some other stuff on the Mac.  Overall, the system
seems slightly less stable when running the Emplant software, but it is not
too bad.

    Another thing is the speed of the Emulation.  I have to say that it
is very impressive.  I am only sorry that I cannot include a Speedometer
report in this review (as my Macintosh system got corrupted yesterday), but
maybe in a later post.  Well, about the speed of the Mac emulation.
According to Speedometer, my 25-mhz 030 runs at the same speed as a 25mhz
030 Macintosh would run....  But the surprise comes with Floating Point
operations.  My floating point speed was anywhere from 5%-25% faster than an
equivalent Macintosh!! This is very good for people into raytracing and
rendering.  I am told that the faster the CPU, the larger the floating point
difference will be.  So I wouldn't be surprised to see approximately about a
40% speed increase on floating point operations on an 040.  Unless you are
doing heaving multitasking on the Amiga side, you will find that your
emulation will run faster than the equivalent Macintosh.  The only thing
that would slow you down would be graphics speed, but a good graphics card
such as my EGS Spectrum would easily fix that problem.

    The screen that the Emplant uses can be chosen by the user.  Emplant
supports multiple monitors like a real Macintosh if your graphics card
supports it.  Several graphics cards are supported, and by using a graphics
card, you will not suffer from the slow ECS screens. On my EGS Spectrum, I
am able to do 1024x768, 832x624, and 640x480. When using ECS or AGA you are
able to select from the screenmode database.  There is a QD mode that can be
enabled for faster updates on 24-bit and ECS/AGA screens (not needed on 256
color screens as they are extremely fast already!) but it uses 128k more
memory.

    The last issue I will cover is compatibility.  I am sure many people
are wondering how "compatible" is this emulation...  Well, I have had only
one problem so far.  When installing OmniPage Pro v5.0, the Macintosh
crashed, but I cannot be sure that it was the Emplant as I did not have the
chance to reinstall it because it corrupted my Mac system, and now I am
waiting for my high-density drive so I can reinstall it.  Here is a list of
a 'few' programs that I run without any problems:

        MicroSoft Word 5.1a        Z-Term 0.93
        Now Utilities            Norton Tools 2.0
        MacWrite Pro            Cricket Graph III v1.5
        Spirit of Excalibur        Sim City 2000
        MacSyndicate (slow on 030)    Civilization
        Adobe Photoshop 2.5.1        Kai's Powertools
        Speedometer 3.0            MPEG Play
        Super ATM            F-18 Flight Sim
        Deliverance            DiskDoubler

    One thing to note.. Some Macintosh programs seem to run slower than
their Amiga counterparts (even on Real Macs), so I take it either the custom
chips (i.e. blitter, denise, etc) are helping out the Amiga program to make
it more efficient, or the Mac programs are less efficient due to more
colors, being larger, or some other reason.  One good example is syndicate,
on the Macintosh it is high-res @ 16 colors.  But the play is excruciatingly
slow even on an 030.


OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES

    Some of the "special" features of the Emplant that make it really fun
to use are:

    * Has support for virtual hard drives (hardfiles) so you can have
      your Macintosh boot from your Amiga Drive, though it is quite a bit
      slower that way.

    * Has support for MANY graphics cards: EGS Spectrum, Piccolo,
      Retina ZII, Retina ZIII, EGS 110, Picasso, Merlin, Visona,
      plus ECS (2 or 16 color emulation), AGA (2, 16 and 256 color), etc.

    * You can use the serial and SCSI ports from the Amiga side, though
      the empser.device has no hardware handshaking so is useless above
      2400 baud on the Amiga side (though a new empser.device is suppose
      to be out now with this problem fixed).

    * The Emplant can redirect the Mac Serial & Parallel to the standard
      Amiga ports, so you can use your modem and printer (if you have the
      correct printer driver).

    * Share clipboards between the Macintosh and Amiga.

    * Easy file transfers between Macintosh and Amiga.


DOCUMENTATION

    The Emplant board comes with two manuals.  A hardware manual (15-pgs)
which explains a lot of things about the Emplant hardware such as jumper
settings and the such.  Also included is a new Macintosh Emulation guide.
It is in a small three ring binder, and though black & white only, it does
appear to be a well thought out and prepared manual.  There is a table of
contents and a troubleshooting section; however, there is no index.  The
documentation tells you basically everything a beginner needs to know.
Other advanced questions can be directed to tech support at [phone].


LIKES

    The thing I like most about the product is the peaceful coexistence
of the Macintosh and the Amiga.  Little things like being able to copy text
from the Mac side and paste (via clipboard) on the Amiga side and vice versa
make the Emplant a nice product.  Some other things that I like are the
quick and easy file transfers, which allows me to download a Macintosh
program on my Amiga side and make a Mac binary transfer to the Mac side.


DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS

    The thing that I dislike is lack of hardware handshaking on the
current empser.device, and myself not being able to use the MMU of my
machine.  Utilities Unlimited said that if I were to use the EC version of
the software I could use my MMU, but as of yet I still have had no luck.
This prevents me from using a few software programs on the Mac side such as
virtual memory.  Also the problem with the empser.device is annoying, yet
doesn't affect the Macintosh side.


COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

    The only other similar product would be A-Max IV, which is also a
color Macintosh emulator.  I have heard only good things about A-MAX IV, but
because I don't have one, I am unable to do a comparison.

    I do, however, have the older A-MAX II.  According to Speedometer,
Emplant is faster in ALL tests (I am unable to provide the output of the
speedometer test because my Mac system is down right now, I may put it in
another post though).  I am not surprised that Emplant is faster since the
older A-Max II only emulated a Mac Plus.


BUGS

    I notice that when I use my Workbench with my EGS Spectrum (at 256
colors), and the Mac side is doing something on its screen, I get garbage on
my Workbench screen which I have to clear by selecting ResetWB in the
pull-down menus.  I asked Jim Drew about this, and he gave me a reason for
this once (in a post on USENET), but I cannot remember the exact reason, but
I would think that it could be solved???  (Note:  There is no such problem
if you are running in only AGA or ECS mode, or if the Macintosh is running
on an EGS Spectrum screen and my Workbench is on a standard ECS Screen.
There is only the garbage problem when BOTH the Mac and the Amiga use an EGS
Screen).  I believe this happens with the Piccolo as well.


VENDOR SUPPORT

    Excellent!  The first board I had happened to be defective and only
worked on occasion.  I called Utilities Unlimited and they told me to send
it back.  I did so and three days later I had a brand new board with updated
manuals and the latest version of the software!


WARRANTY

    There is a Lifetime warranty.  Also I should also talk about the
upgrade policy.  To upgrade from a lower model Emplant to a higher model,
you only send in the board and the difference in cost between the two models
and you will get your new board.  There is no other "hidden" upgrade costs.


CONCLUSION

    This is an excellent product, and I give it five out of five stars!
Aside from the minor quirks, it works flawlessly, and even runs faster than
the equivalent Macintosh.


NOTICE

    This review written by Gene Ruebsamen, and is Freely Distributable.

Gene Ruebsamen

+ Computer Dept. Chair,  ERA Champion Realty. +
Email: [e-mail]

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