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Full Version: How do you think to use Cosmos in future?
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Good morning!

I would like to create "retro emulators" similarly to Nes / Snes Mini using Cosmos instead of Linux, Cosmos will be really better than Linux for this type of devices as it could be totally personalized to do this without not useful things as "CUPS" that surely in Snes Mini will be present Big Grin 

Another my idea (I would like to create a real business of this) is to create Satellite / DTT Set Top Box similar to Dreambox & clones, these types of totally open receivers was a little revolution at the start of the 2000s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreambox in this case too having a dedicated OS instead of Linux would be better (and sincerely it will be more stable sometimes my VU+ Duo2 crashes for too use of C code...).

What ideas you have for Cosmos?
The issue is the CPU. Cosmos is pluggable and we plan to do ARM etc, but right now we only support Intel x86 due to limited resources.

If you plan to only run on x86 for now the its theoretically possible but there are still lots of hurdles like performance. Cosmos is still being developed ground up and some foundational pieces are still under construction.
I am personally extremely excited to see this project take off as I've been pursing doing something similar myself. I'm interested in a few projects that could be based off this. I would be looking to host ASP.NET Core web servers for low volume business applications. I am also interested in the GUI side in that I'd like to try and port something like AvaloniaUI to achieve a very basic application-based OS driven by modern UI concepts that can integrate with existing .NET apis and frameworks.
Yes usually set top box like Dreambox or retro-emulators as Snes Mini are done using MIPS or ARM CPUs but surely can be done in x86 too, I think they use ARM because is more easier to do fanless solutions.

Another interesting architecture that I would like to see Cosmos run on in the future is Risc-V in that case would be possible to design all the CPU microcode (for example to have extensions to accelerate managed code), the BIOS / Firmware and so on...

@H3llb0und Cosmos for server web is another perfect application!
Web servers are definitely on our roadmap.
As for the retro-style emulation, I remember someone making a MOS 6502 emulator, that specifically targeted Cosmos
I've no idea whether it worked when it was actively being developed, but it certainly does look good for ideas.

Me and valentinbreiz got a load of ye olde Cosmos projects from the Codeplex Archives and copied em to GitHub so it's all easier to see.
The 6502 emulator project is at 6502 emulator ( https://github.com/Open-Cosmos-Alliance/...BM11/CBM11) whereas all the others are stored in repositories at OCA @ GitHub (https://github.com/Open-Cosmos-Alliance) Smile

a GameBoy emulator working on Cosmos, would be a fair bit of work but would be a dream come true Big Grin
I'm personally looking forward to the TCP/UDP implementation, to make dedicated servers that can use all of the hardware resources fully (CPU, Memory, etc). Particularly useful with extra scrap computers or laptops laying around. I hope there's WI-FI support at some point too
(03-28-2018, 09:20 PM)Arawn-Davies Wrote: [ -> ]As for the retro-style emulation, I remember someone making a MOS 6502 emulator, that specifically targeted Cosmos
I've no idea whether it worked when it was actively being developed, but it certainly does look good for ideas.

Interesting! It could be a first pass to have a Vic 20 o C=64 emulator.

(03-28-2018, 09:20 PM)Arawn-Davies Wrote: [ -> ]Me and valentinbreiz got a load of ye olde Cosmos projects from the Codeplex Archives and copied em to GitHub so it's all easier to see.

Good initiative, all that code would risk to be lost if in future Codeplex will be closed.

I think is yet premature to think to emulate a C=64 now, Cosmos needs to get a good optimizer compiler before, emulation is probably one of the most difficult task.
To emulate a SNES in particular with all his accelerator cards should a really complex task (ever seen Mario RPG? A game that graphically was near PSX!).

The other my "dream" of doing a... Dreambox using Cosmos will be to find collaborative hardware developers: it will not be really Cosmos to decode MPEG2, H264 and H265 but an acceleration card (GPU?) but to write the driver we need documentation (I have no problem to accept binary proprietaries blobs if they are working correctly, I have not the philosophical restrains of the GPL community).