Single-Machine Cross-Platform Development Through CPU Emulation
I can test all the operating system platforms Ogg Frog will support by running CPU emulators on a single computer.
Michael David Crawford
June 6, 2006
Copyright © 2006 Michael David Crawford.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
Ogg Frog is to be a cross-platform application. It's being implemented with the ZooLib C++ cross-platform application framework to support Mac OS X, Classic Mac OS (both PowerPC and 68000), Windows, BeOS, Haiku and Linux. In the old days, this would have meant using several different computers, but now I can do most of my development on just one computer through the use of CPU and machine emulators.
For this first draft I'm just going to discuss running the BeOS under the QEMU PC emulator, but later I'll discuss the SheepShaver PowerMac emulator and the Basilisk II 68k emulator for running Classic Mac OS, as well as PearPC for running PowerPC Mac OS X.
My short-term goal is to be able to do as much of Ogg Frog's development as possible on my MacBook Pro, an Intel OS X laptop. That way I can take my work to the cafe, and won't have to be tied to my desk! In the long run, after I release Ogg Frog, I want others to be able to hack its code on any platform, while testing any other platform.
I discuss the BeOS first because QEMU does not yet support installation from the BeOS 5 Pro CDROM. After some experimentation, I found a workaround that works very well at getting it installed. However, while BeOS 5 Pro for Intel runs reliably, neither sound nor networking work yet. This makes it difficult to transfer files from the host computer, but there is a way. It's likely that now that I've found an installation procedure, the problems with sound and networking can be fixed.
MacOS 8, Windows 2000 and BeOS 5 Pro
running on Intel Mac OS X
(Click for full-size screen shot)
Contents
- Q: Qemu for Mac OS X
-
Installing the BeOS Under the QEMU PC Emulator
- The Problem: The BeOS CDROM Won't Boot
- The Workaround: Copy an Existing Installation
- Warning!
- The Procedure
- Install BeOS on a Real PC
- Download a VESA Video Configuration Tool
- Use dd To Create an Empty File One Cylinder In Size
- Use dd To Copy the BeOS To a Regular File
- Use cat with >> to Append the BeOS Image File to the First Cylinder File
- Use dd to Create a File That Makes Up a Whole Number of Cylinders
- Use cat with >> to Append the Tail File to the End of the Image
- Create a Text File that Specifies the Partition Map to sfdisk
- Copy the Image File to the Machine Where it will be Used with QEMU
- Download a BeOS Boot Floppy to the Host Computer
- Boot the BeOS
- Set Your VESA 2 Video Mode
- Where to Go from Here
More to follow in coming days...
Q: QEMU for Mac OS X
Since I'm using an OS X Mac, I'm using Q, an elegantly designed GUI front-end to QEMU; the GUI is written in Objective-C with Apple's Cocoa framework.
What the Bold Print Giveth, the Fine Print Taketh Away
Copyright © 2006 Michael D. Crawford.
Ogg Frog, Rippit, Rippit the Ogg Frog, the Frog logo and the Circle Flowers logo are trademarks of Michael D. Crawford. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
So there.