[Coco] Emulation speeds

[KnudsenMJ at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/8/03 11:04:14 PM Eastern Standard Time, wb8tyw at qsl.net 
writes:

> I do not have any personal experience to say one way or another.  It 
>  seems to me that a 50 Mhz machine should have enough horsepower to 
>  emulate a 1.68 Mhz machine.

Experience shows otherwise, plus the Coco3 is really more like 7 MHz in Intel 
clock terms.
 
>  The problem might be in the X-11 interface, and it might depend on what 
>  graphics options are present.

Oddly enough, I was surprised (pleasantly) to find out how fast X Windows 
graphics ran on my old 66 MHz Linux PC.  After hearing all the bad jokes about 
how X is a CPU hog, memory hog, graphics driver hog, etc.  It is MUCH faster 
than, say, K Windows on an MM/1 compared to writing graphics RAM yourself.
  
>  According to the folks that I know that program the graphics cards, one 
>  vendor will not supply any information, just Microsoft drivers, while 
>  another will supply enough information to make the card functional, but 
>  will only supply the graphics accelerator code in the form of a 
>  Microsoft driver.

This is true, and always holds Linux systems back a couple of years.  But if 
you want blazing graphics to play games, run Windoze.  If you want to edit 
video, get a Mac.  The kind of graphics done by serious apps (CAD, music, word 
processing, spreadsheets) is not aided much by hardware accelerations.
  
>  And by the time that someone reverse engineers the driver, that chipset 
>  is end of life, and the old tricks will not work with the new chipset.

Also sadly true.  BTW, this is what helped sink the AT306 and DelMar OSK 
systems -- finding drivers for PC video cards.  
--Mike K.