5 ms·

ArcEm – The Acorn Archimedes Emulator

intothemild 3y ago
This is cool, I remember using Acorn computers, and I liked RISC OS at the time.
vidarh 3y ago
You got to love an emulator showcasing an archaic OS with screenshots taken on other archaic OS's (and I'm not intending that in a snarky way; it shows how old some of the early home-computer emulators now are becoming)
- fidotron 3y ago
  In the case of the original ARM2 hardware things are scarce/expensive now. Those outside the RISC OS world may be surprised that in market potential terms RISC OS peaked at 2. By the time 3 came along PCs were displacing the Archimedes almost everywhere, and one consequence of that is a lot of software, especially early games, never made it even to the Risc PC.
  - louthy 3y ago
    Which is a shame 'cos the RISC PC was an absolute beast of a machine for the time.
    - sirwhinesalot 3y ago
      Indeed, it was incredibly powerful for the price. The games that came out for it didn't really show what it could do, most were either straight Amiga ports or even more amateurish than Amiga games tended to me.
    - fidotron 3y ago
      The StrongARM upgrade was phenomenal, but clearly pushing the machine to the limit. Acorn seemed to have a dangerous disinterest in floating point performance though. On some level I have grown to believe that Acorn were deliberately not producing competitive desktop machines so as to keep ARM off the Intel radar. It has become clear from some leaked documents from Acorn (and discussion on here) that they appreciated the game was up, except for the niche enthusiasts, long before the Risc PC was announced.
- trebligdivad 3y ago
  The 'archaic' is kind of fun - when I wrote this originally in '95-'97 the machines were ~10 years old; that was old for the time. But that point was over 20 years ago - so the time since I wrote the emulator is much longer than the time from the hardware to the emulator.
trollied 3y ago
Originally written by this chap in the late 1990s: http://www.treblig.org http://www.treblig.org
- trebligdivad 3y ago
  Yep, that's me! Heck, how did this land on HN - it's not had anything done to it for AGES. It was definitely a fun program to write, not long after I wrote BeebEm :-).
  - trollied 3y ago
    I also went to Manchester in the 90s. I emailed you as a naive youngster asking if you knew a friend that was also a Gilbert. heh.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Thank you!
Symbiote 3y ago
For context, this emulates RISC OS [1], the operating system designed for the Acorn Archimedes computer[2] — which used the ARM 2 CPU [3] designed by Acorn. Originally, "ARM" meant "Acorn RISC Machine". RISC OS can also be installed on a Raspberry Pi [4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_OS [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture_family#ARM2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture_family#ARM2 [4] https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry-pi https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry-pi
esafak 3y ago
So can you run the Domesday Project (off a virtual LaserDisc)?
- trebligdivad 3y ago
  You'd want a Beeb emulator for that not an Arc; some work has been done on the Beeb emulator for that (although not sure what's still around). There was a fun meeting of the Chamelion project that came out of Uni Leeds many years ago when they were doing exactly that and a bunch of BBC people around.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  There's a blast from the past. All kinds of neurons started firing on that mention and they had plenty of dust and cobwebs on them. "The future of interactive computing"... how little we knew.
lproven 3y ago
RPCemu is much more modern: https://www.marutan.net/rpcemu/index.php https://www.marutan.net/rpcemu/index.php If you just want the OS on x86 with minimal hassle there is also a commercial emulator: http://www.virtualacorn.co.uk/index2.htm http://www.virtualacorn.co.uk/index2.htm This company now owns the source code for one of the two forks of RISC OS. The other is now fully FOSS and runs natively on the Raspberry Pi: https://www.riscosopen.org/content/ https://www.riscosopen.org/content/ Here is a good beginner's distro of it: https://www.riscosdev.com/direct/ https://www.riscosdev.com/direct/
- sirwhinesalot 3y ago
  is RPCemu still maintained? Last updated (even on their mercurial) seems to be from 2021.
  - Narishma 3y ago
    That's more recent than ArcEm's last update from 2017.

This is cool, I remember using Acorn computers, and I liked RISC OS at the time.

You got to love an emulator showcasing an archaic OS with screenshots taken on other archaic OS's (and I'm not intending that in a snarky way; it shows how old some of the early home-computer emulators now are becoming)

fidotron 3y ago
In the case of the original ARM2 hardware things are scarce/expensive now. Those outside the RISC OS world may be surprised that in market potential terms RISC OS peaked at 2. By the time 3 came along PCs were displacing the Archimedes almost everywhere, and one consequence of that is a lot of software, especially early games, never made it even to the Risc PC.
- louthy 3y ago
  Which is a shame 'cos the RISC PC was an absolute beast of a machine for the time.
  - sirwhinesalot 3y ago
    Indeed, it was incredibly powerful for the price. The games that came out for it didn't really show what it could do, most were either straight Amiga ports or even more amateurish than Amiga games tended to me.
  - fidotron 3y ago
    The StrongARM upgrade was phenomenal, but clearly pushing the machine to the limit. Acorn seemed to have a dangerous disinterest in floating point performance though. On some level I have grown to believe that Acorn were deliberately not producing competitive desktop machines so as to keep ARM off the Intel radar. It has become clear from some leaked documents from Acorn (and discussion on here) that they appreciated the game was up, except for the niche enthusiasts, long before the Risc PC was announced.
trebligdivad 3y ago
The 'archaic' is kind of fun - when I wrote this originally in '95-'97 the machines were ~10 years old; that was old for the time. But that point was over 20 years ago - so the time since I wrote the emulator is much longer than the time from the hardware to the emulator.

trollied 3y ago

Originally written by this chap in the late 1990s: http://www.treblig.org http://www.treblig.org

trebligdivad 3y ago
Yep, that's me! Heck, how did this land on HN - it's not had anything done to it for AGES. It was definitely a fun program to write, not long after I wrote BeebEm :-).
- trollied 3y ago
  I also went to Manchester in the 90s. I emailed you as a naive youngster asking if you knew a friend that was also a Gilbert. heh.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Thank you!

Symbiote 3y ago

For context, this emulates RISC OS [1], the operating system designed for the Acorn Archimedes computer[2] — which used the ARM 2 CPU [3] designed by Acorn. Originally, "ARM" meant "Acorn RISC Machine". RISC OS can also be installed on a Raspberry Pi [4]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_OS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC_OS [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Archimedes [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture_family#ARM2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture_family#ARM2 [4] https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry-pi https://www.riscosopen.org/content/downloads/raspberry-pi

esafak 3y ago

So can you run the Domesday Project (off a virtual LaserDisc)?

trebligdivad 3y ago
You'd want a Beeb emulator for that not an Arc; some work has been done on the Beeb emulator for that (although not sure what's still around). There was a fun meeting of the Chamelion project that came out of Uni Leeds many years ago when they were doing exactly that and a bunch of BBC people around.
jacquesm 3y ago
There's a blast from the past. All kinds of neurons started firing on that mention and they had plenty of dust and cobwebs on them. "The future of interactive computing"... how little we knew.

lproven 3y ago

RPCemu is much more modern: https://www.marutan.net/rpcemu/index.php https://www.marutan.net/rpcemu/index.php If you just want the OS on x86 with minimal hassle there is also a commercial emulator: http://www.virtualacorn.co.uk/index2.htm http://www.virtualacorn.co.uk/index2.htm This company now owns the source code for one of the two forks of RISC OS. The other is now fully FOSS and runs natively on the Raspberry Pi: https://www.riscosopen.org/content/ https://www.riscosopen.org/content/ Here is a good beginner's distro of it: https://www.riscosdev.com/direct/ https://www.riscosdev.com/direct/

sirwhinesalot 3y ago
is RPCemu still maintained? Last updated (even on their mercurial) seems to be from 2021.
- Narishma 3y ago
  That's more recent than ArcEm's last update from 2017.