Classic 99 for Mac OS X?

[Jonathan Hoyle]

There are essentially two Mac emulators for the TI-99/4A: MacV9T9 and
MacMESS. The former is Classic-only, making it unusable on modern
Macs (since Classic does not run on Intel-based Macs, or any Mac
running Leopard). This essentially leaves only MacMESS.

One drawback to MacMESS is that it lacks the ROMs, making it difficult
for any newcomer simply wishing to try it out. However, this can be
overcome with sufficient initiative.

Another drawback is its usability. I notice that my mouse simply
disappears, preventing from me easily swapping between applications.
Furthermore, the keyboard mapping is incorrect for emulation, assuming
the key positions of the TI-99/4A rather than of the emulating
keyboard. For example, my minus/underscore key produces equals/plus
character, the left bracket key produces the forward slash character,
my quote key is Enter, etc. Ideally, an emulator would automatically
map the keys correctly, so (for example) my Backspace key would work,
not forcing me into Option-S, etc.

Part of this I understand has to do with the fact that MacMESS is a
general emulator, being all things to all people. By emulating the
dozens of systems it does, its design decisions are much more general
and will not be tailored specifically to the TI-99/4A.

I noticed that none of these defects are seen in the Classic 99
emulator on Windows. It even includes the TI Roms, licensed from
Texas Instruments. Does anyone know if there are any plans to port
this great program to the Mac?

Regards,

Jonathan

[MarkWills]

The source is distributed with the executable, so any Mac guru could
take a look. I'm not sure if its rather tightly bound to the Windows
OS though.

The author, Tursi, is a very friendly chap and would probably offer
advice to any potential porter. One word of warning: Tursi has
permission from TI to distribute the roms and groms with Classic99,
however I doubt very much if that permission would extend to ports of
his software. I would imagine the author would have to apply to TI in
his own right.

Regards

Mark

[MarkWills]

I mentioned it to Tursi, and got this reply:

> It is very tightly tied to Windows - DirectX and GDI (depending on the mode you
> use), however since it supports both I'd imagine one or the other is portable to
> SDL without too much trouble. Maybe I should just add an SDL mode.
>
> TI's distribution permission was granted to me personally, and not to
> derivatives of my product. I would be hesitant to simply say to someone "go nuts
> and port", in fact I'd want to talk about the actual plans first. The guy who
> ported Classic99 to the XBox did so in violation of my license terms and wasn't
> even polite enough to answer my inquiries about it. Classic99 is open source but
> the license does not include distribution of derived works - you have to talk to
> me about that first. ;)
>
> The source for Classic99 is a bit of a mess after more than 15 years of hacking
> away at it (started this project in 92 or 93 ;) ). If someone wanted to talk to
> me about a port I'd work with them on it, but it's not too simple. I'd say wait
> till I get the VDP rewrite done, since that is intended to substantially improve
> the timing, but I have no idea when I would do that.
>
> Ultimate advice, someone really keen on the idea can take a look, then check
> with me with what they want to do, and we'll go from there.