[NTLK] Newton MAME

From: Gareth S. Long (gatch_at_ntlworld.com)
Date: Sun Jan 11 2004 - 04:58:46 PST


Hi guys,

Sorry I haven't had a chance to reply regarding the PCMCIA card-filling
service - it's a great idea and I appreciate this group's willingness to
help out fellow Newton owners. As it happens, I've just bought a SER-001
board (from Russ on this group, my one-stop shop for all my Newton needs
:-) ) but I may look at the connectivity issue later on (which I'll
discuss below).

Once upon a time, about 6 or 7 years ago, I ported MAME (Multiple Arcade
Machine Emulator) to the ARM processor. I was asked, not long
afterwards, if I could do a Newton port. I really liked the idea,
especially as I knew the then new Newton 2x00 series was capable of such
a thing. I already had a Newton OMP I bought back in 1993 when they came
out, but knew that wouldn't quite cut it - or would be a bigger
challenge. Sadly, getting hold of a 2100 became a problem at the time
and I wasn't familiar with eBay or anything.

I signed up for eBay about a month ago and the first thing I looked for
was a couple of Newtons.

So, I guess what I'm asking is has anyone tried to do this? If not I'll
give it a go.

My initial idea is that I produce a 'MiniMAME' with support for all the
games which the Newton would be able to successfully play. This will at
least include pretty much all of the 70's/early 80's games and all the
favourites will be in there like Pac-man, Galaxians, Space Invaders etc.
The footprint of these games is small too (and they'll be zipped). I
design mobile phones by day, and the 2100 is still more capable than any
of the smartphones, which usually run a 120MHz ARM9 (for the OS) and a
39MHz ARM7 (for GSM etc).

Use of the keyboard or 'hot zones' on the screen for direction control
is an idea, though I'd appreciate any ideas that you all may have.

I was also involved in the MESS project from the beginning. This is an
emulator (available on Mac, PC and a lot of other systems) designed for
emulating computer and console-based systems. This could be ported to
the Newton as well at some stage, but interestingly, possible a Newton
emulation could be developed. This may help with connectivity.

Anyway, these are all thoughts. Let me know what you think!

Cheers,

Gareth

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