Re: [gccsdk] GCC8+ what new environment check is needed for packages

On Thu, Mar 04, 2021 at 12:26:47PM +0000, Chris Johns wrote:
> On 04/03/2021 08:38, Rob Kendrick wrote:
>
> >I don't think RPCemu provides any VFP, and I don't recall there being a
> >VFPEmulator module - but I admit to not looking for in a decade.
>
> I have before idly wondered if RPCEmu could be extended to handle
> VFP, either via a VFPEmulator module or even by emulating some sort
> of "StrongARM with VFP" processor.

The Howkins brothers tend to try to avoid adding non-RPC-related
hardware emulation to devices, prefering to emulate real hardware unless
there is a strong reason not to. Plus, a VFPEmulator would be useful on
older real hardware as well as VirtualRPC.

> I do wonder if trying to support
> a 20+ year old platform just so that people can emulate it is all
> that sensible.

I don't disagree, but I imagine a significant proportion of users do use
emulated systems. There's a bootstrap issue here: it may be better to
provide some measure of support for old and new, at least for a while,
before removing support for the old.

> >Perhaps it might be time to try porting RISC OS to a qemu target so we
> >can just plug in modern CPUs as they come along and use KVM on native
> >ARM hardware.
>
> I think people have got it running under Qemu in the past, but I
> seem to recall it was as modified version (of QEmu).

Yeah, ideally RISC OS should be modified to work with unmodified Qemu
(VirtIO or Versatile-type.) I suppose targeting real hardware is more
interesting for those with knowledge and willpower to work on the RISC
OS internals!

B.

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