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List:       bochs-dev
Subject:    Re: [Bochs-developers] Plex86 and bochs
From:       "J.P. Morris" <jpm () it-he ! org>
Date:       2002-06-17 8:10:16
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On Sun, 16 Jun 2002 22:41:51 -0400
"Gregg C Levine" <drwho8@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

> A question that's been bothering me since getting sort of involved with the
> Bochs grouping. And that is: What is the exact relationship of Bochs, and
> Plex86?

Kevin Lawton wrote Bochs first, around 1997 I think.  To speed up the
emulation, he began to look at dynamic translation of opcodes or code
blocks (I forget which) to native code.

In late 1998 or early '99, VMware hit the scene and Kevin decided to drop
Bochs in favour of a VMware-like solution, which was called FreeMware
or something like that, before it was renamed to Plex86.
Bochs development was then picked up by others, fortunately.

Personally, I always considered Plex86 to be a mistake.  Bochs has the
potential to allow x86 programs to be run on far future hardware.

Plex86 and VMware do not have this capability and will die on near-future
Intel hardware such as the Itanium, where the x86 compatability core
has near-486 performance.

There are naturally parallels with Bochs because it was the same guy,
but there are differences in the code.  Recently there have been moves to
make Bochs and Plex86 more compatible so they can share device code.

> Gregg C Levine drwho8@worldnet.att.net
> "How many floors does this TARDIS of yours have, anyway?"

-- 
JP Morris - aka DOUG the Eagle (Dragon) -=UDIC=-  jpm@it-he.org
Fun things to do with the Ultima games            http://www.it-he.org
Developing a U6/U7 clone                          http://ire.it-he.org
d+++ e+ N+ T++ Om U1234!56!7'!S'!8!9!KA u++ uC+++ uF+++ uG---- uLB----
uA--- nC+ nR---- nH+++ nP++ nI nPT nS nT wM- wC- y a(YEAR - 1976)

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