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Propeller Tool and PNut and the new Appel ARM Macs with M1 CPU — Parallax Forums

Propeller Tool and PNut and the new Appel ARM Macs with M1 CPU

Apple will change all Macs to ARM CPUs in the next 2 years.
In the past we can run Propeller Tool and PNut under Parallels/Windows.
I think Windows is not working with the new ARM CPUs.

Is the Parallax Windows Software running under CrossOver (Wine) on the new Macs?
CrossOver (CodeWeavers) says: Run your Windows app on MacOS, Linux, or ChromeOS,

What do you think, anybody testing already?

Uwe

Comments

  • I'm a little biased, but I think the way to go is making plugins that work with existing IDEs/editors, or making something that works in browser. That way Parallax will no longer need to worry so much about keeping up with what devices are popular, what new architecture Apple is switching to, or even which OS is dominant.
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    emiljt wrote: »
    I'm a little biased, but I think the way to go is making plugins that work with existing IDEs/editors, or making something that works in browser. That way Parallax will no longer need to worry so much about keeping up with what devices are popular, what new architecture Apple is switching to, or even which OS is dominant.

    +1 That's a great idea as long as it can be made to work with the most commonly used browsers.
  • wummi wrote: »
    Apple will change all Macs to ARM CPUs in the next 2 years.
    In the past we can run Propeller Tool and PNut under Parallels/Windows.
    I think Windows is not working with the new ARM CPUs.

    Is the Parallax Windows Software running under CrossOver (Wine) on the new Macs?
    CrossOver (CodeWeavers) says: Run your Windows app on MacOS, Linux, or ChromeOS,

    What do you think, anybody testing already?

    Uwe

    See: https://kb.parallels.com/en/125038

    dgately

  • evanhevanh Posts: 15,126
    In theory, Flexspin/FlexProp should work fine. Probably a little more work for Eric though.

  • I run PNut on my ARM chromebook using wine and Eltechs Exagear. Sadly Eltechs is out of business. It should be possible to substitute qemu, it just won't perform as well.
  • <broken_record>Translating the P1 and P2 compilers to C solves the portability problem. It also allows the community to participate in adding improvements like unused code removal.</broken_record>
  • Rewrite the compilers in C would be the best way.
    We can use Visual code studio as editor and integrated this new compilers.
    But do parallax plan to rewrite the compilers in next year?
    And chips graphic debug stuff and the terminal as a separate program in C?
    I think that is a more complex task.

    I think we need a roadmap from parallax for the Prop tools, so we can plan the Investment for the next P2 projects.
  • evanhevanh Posts: 15,126
    FreePascal is still an option for making the Delphi code cross-platform. However, the hand crafted x86 section should then also be replaced with portable source code.

  • The Parallels virtual machine has been closely developed with Apple during the development of the M1 SoC.
    There are built-in hardware accelerators for hypervisors and x86-to-ARM instruction decoding which Rosetta and Parallels utilize.

    The WINE project (CrossOver) will eventually be optimized for the M1 but may not be able to utilize those accelerators.

    I would expect both CrossOver and Parallels (w/ Win10) would be able to run PropTool and PNut.
    Also, the author of the "CoolTerm" terminal for the Mac has a version optimized for the M1 Macs. He has not released it yet but he let me test it and it works as expected with the P2 EVAL boards.

    For those M1 Mac owners looking for an easy place to find M1-Optimized software, just go here:
    https://isapplesiliconready.com

    I'm sure CrossOver will be listed here when it's ready.

    J
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