Very interesting article, but this stood out to me:
> To re-familiarize myself with this bug [...] I downloaded the broken version [...] and tried it out in some virtual machines. Windows 2000 and XP ran it without any trouble on the first try, but Vista and 7 didn’t [...]
Amazing. Emulating an older system in order to debug emulating an even older system. The amount of compute / memory / storage readily available at our fingertips today is astounding. My first computer was a 68k Mac, and back then, I would never imagine such scenarios would be possible!
electroly · 1h ago
The Windows virtual machines aren't emulated; there's still only the one expensive emulation layer going on here.
bluedino · 50m ago
First web job I had, there were a pair of barely working Dell computers in a dark corner. They were there to test Windows XP and IE6
I virtualized that crap a couple weeks later.
MBCook · 8h ago
Allocations moving around sounds a lot like the Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) that was added to Vista as part of the large increase in security hardening MS went through during development.
Great article. I’d love to know why the memory was allocated that way initially.
fredoralive · 5h ago
The two memory allocations makes sense, ROM and RAM are separate chunks of memory, and in the Mac memory map(s) they're non-contiguous, so why not two allocations?
It's only once the C classic of optimising through FUN™ with pointers, and then weird issues with bits of the Mac ROM not liking being mapped into random high memory addresses that we end up with lockups.
rcarmo · 4h ago
This reminds me that I cannot run BasiliskII at a decent resolution under GNOME at 125% - the thing apparently tries to set the window size several times, then goes into a black-bordered resolution mode that is _not_ what I asked for (and I'm used to setting the prefs directly, so I have mag_rate, scale_nearest, etc. all set "correctly"
cardanome · 9h ago
I remember running Basilisk 2 on a PlayStation Portable.
Not sure what the point was but I was happy I could.
> To re-familiarize myself with this bug [...] I downloaded the broken version [...] and tried it out in some virtual machines. Windows 2000 and XP ran it without any trouble on the first try, but Vista and 7 didn’t [...]
Amazing. Emulating an older system in order to debug emulating an even older system. The amount of compute / memory / storage readily available at our fingertips today is astounding. My first computer was a 68k Mac, and back then, I would never imagine such scenarios would be possible!
I virtualized that crap a couple weeks later.
Great article. I’d love to know why the memory was allocated that way initially.
It's only once the C classic of optimising through FUN™ with pointers, and then weird issues with bits of the Mac ROM not liking being mapped into random high memory addresses that we end up with lockups.
Not sure what the point was but I was happy I could.