5 ms·

Apple Approves iDOS Emulator

67 points by gattilorenz 2y ago

accrual 2y ago
Given that another Verge article discusses running XP on an iPad using this tool, I wonder if it emulates enough PC hardware that one could run OpenBSD or Debian on it. That would be pretty cool paired with a Bluetooth keyboard! https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/22/24200536/windows-xp-ipad-pc-emulation-utm-se https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/22/24200536/windows-xp-ipad-...
- alargemoose 2y ago
  The Emulator in that article, UTM SE, is a a GUI for QEMU. It’s also a MacOS app. I can confirm the “SE” version on iOS can run Linux, though I’ve not tried BSD. UTM’s site also has a handful of pre-built images of various operating systems to make it easy to setup a VM to mess around with https://mac.getutm.app/gallery/ https://mac.getutm.app/gallery/
mrkramer 2y ago
I thought emulator is free....but it costs $0.99. Is that even legal? Charging for emulating software that is not your.
- deafpolygon 2y ago
  You can charge for an emulator as a service for building and packaging it on the App Store (assuming you have permission somehow) or as long as you can definitively prove that you built it via some "clean room design" - that will protect you from legal issues should anyone decide to litigate you for stealing copyrighted code. Backward engineering something (an emulator) to run software (a game) is not illegal, as long as said software doesn't run copyrighted code. This is how WINE exists, after all. Yes, I know WINE is not an emulator. It's a compatibility layer. Will anyone litigate you for a DOS emulator at this point? Likely not.
  - mrkramer 2y ago
    >You can charge for an emulator as a service for building and packaging it on the App Store (assuming you have permission somehow) or as long as you can definitively prove that you built it via some "clean room design" - that will protect you from legal issues should anyone decide to litigate you for stealing copyrighted code. Yea, I get it....emulating is essentially mimicking but if you mimic whole bunch of specific features, APIs or whatever, it is still tricky legally. Because if you mimic the whole thing, then you somewhat copied the complete architectural design of hardware/software system that you are emulating. For example I hear often about Nintendo emulators but if emulator devs decide to sell emulators, couldn't Nintendo sue emulator devs because Nintendo emulators are creating parallel market for Nintendo devices and therefore leaving Nintendo completely out of picture.
    - deafpolygon 2y ago
      Right, it's legally OK to backward engineer something. There is no copyright or legal protections on the 'how'. > but if you mimic whole bunch of specific features, APIs or whatever, it is still tricky legally. If you mimic an API, as long as you can prove you didn't copy any of the original code or engineering - you are in the clear. > because Nintendo emulators are creating parallel market for Nintendo devices No, they are not. The parallel market only pertains to games (or specifically, the creative work that covers the IP for the game).
    - Retric 2y ago
      It’s about the line between what gets protected by patents and what gets protected by copyright. The rule is basically patents protect function, copyright doesn’t. If the specific design of a windshield wiper blade was protected by copyright then its patent would be pointless. Therefore patents essentially invalidate copyright where they apply. People often hate software patents, but a 20 year window expires on anything built before 2004.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      Copyright is about implementations, not architectural designs. That would be the domain of patents, and these have much stronger limits than copyright. Most notably, you need to actively apply for them, and they expire much sooner than copyright. Besides that, software is not patentable in all jurisdictions.
charliebwrites 2y ago
How performant is this without JIT support? I tried using UTM on my iPad to emulate Ubuntu and Kali Linux and it was so slow and broken I gave up
- kjkjadksj 2y ago
  You need to jailbreak the ipad and the path you will tread will be a bit unsupported, but its possible. https://worthdoingbadly.com/hv/ https://worthdoingbadly.com/hv/
  - charliebwrites 2y ago
    Unfortunately I’m not in a spot where it makes sense to Jailbreak my iPad If I build the project from scratch in XCode and put it on my iPad from there will JIT work?
- jamesy0ung 2y ago
  I've got an M2 iPad Pro, running 16.3.1 and jailbroken with UTM HV. It's very fast, about 96% of the native speed, however you can only use up to 5 and a bit gigabytes of ram before getting terminated. The linux experience isn't too great either. It tends to be quite buggy and crashes a lot, I've tested Ubuntu 24.04 and Fedora 40. Overall, it's cool but too buggy for me to use daily.
  - jansommer 2y ago
    You could consider zram and get 50%+ more ram by compressing it. I use it on a 4gb ram surface go 2 and it works wonders. Not even noticing it in games like Divinity: Original Sin that requires at least 4gb.
- Firehawke 2y ago
  It handled One Must Fall 2097, which needed a high-end 486 or low-end Pentium, just fine. Wing Commander 1 and 2 should be fine. WC3 I'm not entirely sure about, though.
- odo1242 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
crims0n 2y ago
Oh nice, the iPad Pro 12.9 inch has a 4:3 aspect ratio if I recall correctly, should make for a decent DOSBox screen.
klipklop 2y ago
Keep in mind with Retroarch on iOS you can use dosbox-pure which can even run windows 98 games. It’s still a work in progress though since retroarch does not yet have good mouse support. Also OpenGL ES acceleration of voodoo graphics is around the corner. On my M4 iPad Pro I get around 266 mhz p2 performance. With openGL (not yet in the App Store version) you can get ~77fps in quake 1 in glide mode at 640x480. Pretty much everything of the dos era is playable in dosbox on a m4.
- paines 2y ago
  This should be much higher up. Thanks! How about controllers? Playing Archimedean Dynasty with an 360 joypad would be pretty cool once Voodoo/GLIDE graphics is in.
halopelican007 2y ago
what are some good emulator for school
- odo1242 2y ago
  What do you need to emulate?
  - halopelican0071 2y ago
    discord
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

67 points by gattilorenz 2y ago

Given that another Verge article discusses running XP on an iPad using this tool, I wonder if it emulates enough PC hardware that one could run OpenBSD or Debian on it. That would be pretty cool paired with a Bluetooth keyboard! https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/22/24200536/windows-xp-ipad-pc-emulation-utm-se https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/22/24200536/windows-xp-ipad-...

alargemoose 2y ago
The Emulator in that article, UTM SE, is a a GUI for QEMU. It’s also a MacOS app. I can confirm the “SE” version on iOS can run Linux, though I’ve not tried BSD. UTM’s site also has a handful of pre-built images of various operating systems to make it easy to setup a VM to mess around with https://mac.getutm.app/gallery/ https://mac.getutm.app/gallery/

mrkramer 2y ago

I thought emulator is free....but it costs $0.99. Is that even legal? Charging for emulating software that is not your.

deafpolygon 2y ago
You can charge for an emulator as a service for building and packaging it on the App Store (assuming you have permission somehow) or as long as you can definitively prove that you built it via some "clean room design" - that will protect you from legal issues should anyone decide to litigate you for stealing copyrighted code. Backward engineering something (an emulator) to run software (a game) is not illegal, as long as said software doesn't run copyrighted code. This is how WINE exists, after all. Yes, I know WINE is not an emulator. It's a compatibility layer. Will anyone litigate you for a DOS emulator at this point? Likely not.
- mrkramer 2y ago
  >You can charge for an emulator as a service for building and packaging it on the App Store (assuming you have permission somehow) or as long as you can definitively prove that you built it via some "clean room design" - that will protect you from legal issues should anyone decide to litigate you for stealing copyrighted code. Yea, I get it....emulating is essentially mimicking but if you mimic whole bunch of specific features, APIs or whatever, it is still tricky legally. Because if you mimic the whole thing, then you somewhat copied the complete architectural design of hardware/software system that you are emulating. For example I hear often about Nintendo emulators but if emulator devs decide to sell emulators, couldn't Nintendo sue emulator devs because Nintendo emulators are creating parallel market for Nintendo devices and therefore leaving Nintendo completely out of picture.
  - deafpolygon 2y ago
    Right, it's legally OK to backward engineer something. There is no copyright or legal protections on the 'how'. > but if you mimic whole bunch of specific features, APIs or whatever, it is still tricky legally. If you mimic an API, as long as you can prove you didn't copy any of the original code or engineering - you are in the clear. > because Nintendo emulators are creating parallel market for Nintendo devices No, they are not. The parallel market only pertains to games (or specifically, the creative work that covers the IP for the game).
  - Retric 2y ago
    It’s about the line between what gets protected by patents and what gets protected by copyright. The rule is basically patents protect function, copyright doesn’t. If the specific design of a windshield wiper blade was protected by copyright then its patent would be pointless. Therefore patents essentially invalidate copyright where they apply. People often hate software patents, but a 20 year window expires on anything built before 2004.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    Copyright is about implementations, not architectural designs. That would be the domain of patents, and these have much stronger limits than copyright. Most notably, you need to actively apply for them, and they expire much sooner than copyright. Besides that, software is not patentable in all jurisdictions.

charliebwrites 2y ago

How performant is this without JIT support? I tried using UTM on my iPad to emulate Ubuntu and Kali Linux and it was so slow and broken I gave up

kjkjadksj 2y ago
You need to jailbreak the ipad and the path you will tread will be a bit unsupported, but its possible. https://worthdoingbadly.com/hv/ https://worthdoingbadly.com/hv/
- charliebwrites 2y ago
  Unfortunately I’m not in a spot where it makes sense to Jailbreak my iPad If I build the project from scratch in XCode and put it on my iPad from there will JIT work?
jamesy0ung 2y ago
I've got an M2 iPad Pro, running 16.3.1 and jailbroken with UTM HV. It's very fast, about 96% of the native speed, however you can only use up to 5 and a bit gigabytes of ram before getting terminated. The linux experience isn't too great either. It tends to be quite buggy and crashes a lot, I've tested Ubuntu 24.04 and Fedora 40. Overall, it's cool but too buggy for me to use daily.
- jansommer 2y ago
  You could consider zram and get 50%+ more ram by compressing it. I use it on a 4gb ram surface go 2 and it works wonders. Not even noticing it in games like Divinity: Original Sin that requires at least 4gb.
Firehawke 2y ago
It handled One Must Fall 2097, which needed a high-end 486 or low-end Pentium, just fine. Wing Commander 1 and 2 should be fine. WC3 I'm not entirely sure about, though.
odo1242 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

crims0n 2y ago

Oh nice, the iPad Pro 12.9 inch has a 4:3 aspect ratio if I recall correctly, should make for a decent DOSBox screen.

klipklop 2y ago

Keep in mind with Retroarch on iOS you can use dosbox-pure which can even run windows 98 games. It’s still a work in progress though since retroarch does not yet have good mouse support. Also OpenGL ES acceleration of voodoo graphics is around the corner. On my M4 iPad Pro I get around 266 mhz p2 performance. With openGL (not yet in the App Store version) you can get ~77fps in quake 1 in glide mode at 640x480. Pretty much everything of the dos era is playable in dosbox on a m4.

paines 2y ago
This should be much higher up. Thanks! How about controllers? Playing Archimedean Dynasty with an 360 joypad would be pretty cool once Voodoo/GLIDE graphics is in.

halopelican007 2y ago

what are some good emulator for school

odo1242 2y ago
What do you need to emulate?
- halopelican0071 2y ago
  discord

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]