Backwards ROS compatibility.

Hi, This is my biggest wish, Backwards Compatibility for older Risc OS based software.

Now some may have heard of !A310Emu, and the newer version (which I havn’t tested) called ArchiEmu (very last item on page) from:

http://home-1.worldonline.nl/jandboer/

But would it be overly hard for this to be combined into ROOL itself? The way I would see it working would be:

End User:- Nothing difficult. Basically any directory can be converted into a special loader directory. Anything run from within one of these directories runs as the chosen RiscOS version. To do this, a new menu item would be added, such as:

“Set Dir Version”

on clicking this, a further sub-menu would come up allowing the user to select one of the following options:

2.0

3.11

3.7

etc

Depending on choice, the directory would of course have a different folder icon attached to it, so for example 2.0 could have the directory icon with a small Archimedes logo, 3.11 a small Acorn and 3.7 small letters spelling SA (for Strong Arm).

As said, all the end user would then have to do is double click the program that was only compatible with an old OS version and it would load as normal.

Advanced Users:- Of course there’s no fun in things if you don’t get to fiddle with the settings. While the end-user can accept using the defaults a new !Configure or !Boot section (depending on whether ROOL sticks with !Boot or returns to the much nicer !Configure) icon would be made allowing users to tweak the advanced settings of each emulated version, possibly allowing for a custom setting for mad scientists.

This way old software will still work without any need of being updated to perform on ROOL, while still having the advantage of allowing new ROOL based software to work.

As I said, this was my biggest wish for ROOL (and yes, it was for playing games mostly that I personally wanted this).

Chief :)

While this would be very desirable, I feel it should be an option, not a core component.