I intend to buy a new mobile phone, because my old contract will be ended in one month.
These phones are getting faster, nicer and better. Nowadays we got colored displays, polyphonic sound, and so on... (/me wanna have one too!! )

So I wondered, whether there exists one, which can run a MSX-emulator on it.

THX in advance!

Sousuke

afaik, originally a 486 dx/33 was sufficient to emulate an msx 1:1.. have telephones such CPUs onboard these days?

.. has a mobile phone a display of at least 256x212 and preferable 512x212 pixels?

and to get fmpac sound (tho it's not part of the msx1/2 standard), is the phone capable of 9chn FM with 2 waveforms per operator?


emulating a whole computer on a mobile phone is serious business imo

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afaik, originally a 486 dx/33 was sufficient to emulate an msx 1:1.. have telephones such CPUs onboard these days? .. has a mobile phone a display of at least 256x212 and preferable 512x212 pixels? and to get fmpac sound (tho it's not part of the msx1/2 standard), is the phone capable of 9chn FM with 2 waveforms per operator? emulating a whole computer on a mobile phone is serious business imo

Well, most phones have ARM based processors these days. The GBA has a 16Mhz ARM7TDMI (no cache) and it is capable of emulating NES, ZX-Spectrum, etc. Most PocketPC's have 200Mhz ARM based processors on board or faster. I'd guess that phones have a similar CPU, but the devkits for cellphones all use some independant kind of API layer (Mophun, for instance), so it would be tough to reach full speed.

The resolution is way too low as well, as you say. And weird too... (horizontal resolutions of 115 for instance).

A PCM based phone can emulate any sound chip @ the cost of CPU time.

But unfortunately no coder can reach the metal without being very dependant on one particular phone. Besides... I don't know how much storage a phone has these days, but I bet you can't fit many ROM images or even DSK images.

(p/s: am I the only one here without a mobile phone, or are you still with me Thom )

The Ericsson P800 is capable of running MAME, so it should run an MSX emulator too.

There was another talk about an MSX emulator for Symbian based mobile devices here: www.msx.org/forumtopic961.html.

Nokia Series 60 (Nokia 7650, 3650 and N-Gage) have an ARM at 104 Mhz, enough speed to run a good MSX Emulator. There is already GameBoy Color and C64 emulators for this devices...

As I said, these devices are mainly programmed on C, so it could be relative-easy to port fMSX...

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.. has a mobile phone a display of at least 256x212 and preferable 512x212 pixels? and to get fmpac sound (tho it's not part of the msx1/2 standard), is the phone capable of 9chn FM with 2 waveforms per operator? emulating a whole computer on a mobile phone is serious business imo

I agree with you, that it's (still) not possible to emulate a MSX on a phone 1:1. As you already said, it's a serious business

But I thought, when I buy a new one, why not getting one, which can emulate a MSX?
Hmmm... a mobile (emulated) MSX..

Sousuke

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Besides... I don't know how much storage a phone has these days, but I bet you can't fit many ROM images or even DSK images.

I say my friend playing "Splinter Cell" on his Nokia 6610. He downloaded it via WAP. It needs about 60kb.
And most phones can max. store 3 JAVA-applications, 64kb each.

Some other have 3,6 MB dynamic Memory, enough for some ROMs

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Well, most phones have ARM based processors these days. The GBA has a 16Mhz ARM7TDMI (no cache) and it is capable of emulating NES, ZX-Spectrum, etc.

Yes, you are right. But bare in mind that the GBA has diferent screen modes, with support for tiles, which makes a lot easier to emulate those systems. It also has screen layers, sprites, palettes, etc...

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phones have a similar CPU, but the devkits for cellphones all use some independant kind of API layer (Mophun, for instance), so it would be tough to reach full speed.

Yes. API layer is one of the problems. I have developed games for Mophun, J2ME and WGE. And my experience says that the faster one is WGE, but only a few terminals use it. Further more, most of actual terminals (the ones most people has) are not powerfull enough for emulating an MSX, and its screens are small. Of course, memory limits is another problem.

So I think we need to wait some years (1-3) to use our MSX in a common mobile phone.

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So I think we need to wait some years (1-3) to use our MSX in a common mobile phone.

MSX Association already demo-ed MSXPLAYer for several JAVA-phones some time ago, if I'm not mistaken... Perhaps we don't have to wait that long?

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>>So I think we need to wait some years (1-3) to use our MSX in a common mobile phone.<< MSX Association already demo-ed MSXPLAYer for several JAVA-phones some time ago, if I'm not mistaken... Perhaps we don't have to wait that long?

I said for "common" mobile phones (the ones you and me have at home). Japanese phones are far better than "ours".

My Nokia3650 already is a real JAVA phone....And it has Symbian OS....I already have a great GBC emulator for it....So an MSX emulator shouldn't be any problem......

It seems you don't understand me, or I did not explained it right. Of course you can run emulators on some mobile phones as Karloch or GuyveR800 said. WGE is also fast enough (C/C++) to do it, or nGage from Nokia. But do you think that terminals are "common"? I don't think so. Furthermore, how many terminal do you know with at least 256x192?

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My Nokia3650 already is a real JAVA phone....And it has Symbian OS....I already have a great GBC emulator for it....So an MSX emulator shouldn't be any problem......

Uhm, this is as the dutch say 'nogal kort door de bocht'. The thing has a GBC emulator -->> SO a MSX emulator shouldn't be any problem??
MSX is really a much more powerful thing than GBC. MSX has different screenmodes, lots of hardware peripherals, more complex CPU, and probably the biggest hurdle: heaps and heaps of (V)RAM.

Come on, GEM exists! I haven't seen a MSX emulator for GBC, even GBA can't emulate MSX decently...

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>> Well, most phones have ARM based processors these days. The GBA has a 16Mhz ARM7TDMI (no cache) and it is capable of emulating NES, ZX-Spectrum, etc. << Yes, you are right. But bare in mind that the GBA has diferent screen modes, with support for tiles, which makes a lot easier to emulate those systems. It also has screen layers, sprites, palettes, etc...

Well, I never wrote vdp emulation before (although I did emulate some CPU's), but these hardware features won't help you much when you use a scanline based renderer; you would select one of the 3 bitmap modes the GBA has and render to the framebuffer.
It'll help you when using a frame based renderer, I agree.

Maybe someone with vdp emulation experience can comment on this? (GuyveR800?)

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(p/s: am I the only one here without a mobile phone, or are you still with me Thom )

Nope, I recently bought one because I'm job hunting!! However, I NEVER use the darn thing. Hence I'm still with you, Master.