[HN Gopher] Apple Approves iDOS Emulator
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Apple Approves iDOS Emulator
Author : gattilorenz
Score : 46 points
Date : 2024-08-25 16:11 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| accrual wrote:
| Given that another Verge article discusses running XP on an iPad
| using this tool, I wonder if it emulates enough PC hardware that
| one could run OpenBSD or Debian on it. That would be pretty cool
| paired with a Bluetooth keyboard!
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/22/24200536/windows-xp-ipad-...
| alargemoose wrote:
| The Emulator in that article, UTM SE, is a a GUI for QEMU. It's
| also a MacOS app. I can confirm the "SE" version on iOS can run
| Linux, though I've not tried BSD.
|
| UTM's site also has a handful of pre-built images of various
| operating systems to make it easy to setup a VM to mess around
| with https://mac.getutm.app/gallery/
| mrkramer wrote:
| I thought emulator is free....but it costs $0.99. Is that even
| legal? Charging for emulating software that is not your.
| deafpolygon wrote:
| You can charge for an emulator as a service for building and
| packaging it on the App Store (assuming you have permission
| somehow) or as long as you can definitively prove that you
| built it via some "clean room design" - that will protect you
| from legal issues should anyone decide to litigate you for
| stealing copyrighted code. Backward engineering something (an
| emulator) to run software (a game) is not illegal, as long as
| said software doesn't run copyrighted code. This is how WINE
| exists, after all. Yes, I know WINE is not an emulator. It's a
| compatibility layer.
|
| Will anyone litigate you for a DOS emulator at this point?
| Likely not.
| mrkramer wrote:
| >You can charge for an emulator as a service for building and
| packaging it on the App Store (assuming you have permission
| somehow) or as long as you can definitively prove that you
| built it via some "clean room design" - that will protect you
| from legal issues should anyone decide to litigate you for
| stealing copyrighted code.
|
| Yea, I get it....emulating is essentially mimicking but if
| you mimic whole bunch of specific features, APIs or whatever,
| it is still tricky legally. Because if you mimic the whole
| thing, then you somewhat copied the complete architectural
| design of hardware/software system that you are emulating.
|
| For example I hear often about Nintendo emulators but if
| emulator devs decide to sell emulators, couldn't Nintendo sue
| emulator devs because Nintendo emulators are creating
| parallel market for Nintendo devices and therefore leaving
| Nintendo completely out of picture.
| deafpolygon wrote:
| Right, it's legally OK to backward engineer something.
| There is no copyright or legal protections on the 'how'.
|
| > but if you mimic whole bunch of specific features, APIs
| or whatever, it is still tricky legally.
|
| If you mimic an API, as long as you can prove you didn't
| copy any of the original code or engineering - you are in
| the clear.
|
| > because Nintendo emulators are creating parallel market
| for Nintendo devices
|
| No, they are not. The parallel market only pertains to
| games (or specifically, the creative work that covers the
| IP for the game).
| Retric wrote:
| It's about the line between what gets protected by patents
| and what gets protected by copyright. The rule is basically
| patents protect function, copyright doesn't.
|
| If the specific design of a windshield wiper blade was
| protected by copyright then its patent would be pointless.
| Therefore patents essentially invalidate copyright where
| they apply. People often hate software patents, but a 20
| year window expires on anything built before 2004.
| lxgr wrote:
| Copyright is about implementations, not architectural
| designs. That would be the domain of patents, and these
| have much stronger limits than copyright.
|
| Most notably, you need to actively apply for them, and they
| expire much sooner than copyright. Besides that, software
| is not patentable in all jurisdictions.
| dbsmith83 wrote:
| Look into Bleem. It was sued, but it won. Though the legal
| costs did hurt the company, it reaffirmed that emulators
| are legal and you can sell them. In fact, there currently
| are nintendo emulators for sale to this day (3dSen)
| kmeisthax wrote:
| No. See Sony v. Connectix or Google v. Oracle if you want
| to know more, but basically, it is fair use to copy
| interface features such as APIs for the purpose of
| interoperability or developer convenience.
|
| Nintendo's counterargument to those cases has to do with
| DMCA 1201, an extremely broadly drafted law that has to do
| with copy protection. A lot of console emulators have to
| implement decryption functions in the emulator because
| people are bringing in ROM images or ISO dumps that are
| encrypted. Console emulation has a habit of just grabbing
| whatever format the piracy scene is using and going from
| there, which is a bad idea and what enables Nintendo to,
| say, sue the shit out of Yuzu.
|
| At the same time, however, this isn't a critical flaw that
| makes all emulation illegal. Yuzu was also extremely
| sketchy in ways that let Nintendo connect the dots and say
| "this is infringement". There are plenty of emulators out
| there written by people who have good copyright hygiene
| that don't have this problem. e.g. WINE, Ruffle, PCem,
| DOSBox, etc. And none of this has to do with whether or not
| the emulator is being sold for money, is licensed as a Free
| Software project, developed by a community, etc.
| charliebwrites wrote:
| How performant is this without JIT support?
|
| I tried using UTM on my iPad to emulate Ubuntu and Kali Linux and
| it was so slow and broken I gave up
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| You need to jailbreak the ipad and the path you will tread will
| be a bit unsupported, but its possible.
|
| https://worthdoingbadly.com/hv/
| charliebwrites wrote:
| Unfortunately I'm not in a spot where it makes sense to
| Jailbreak my iPad
|
| If I build the project from scratch in XCode and put it on my
| iPad from there will JIT work?
| jamesy0ung wrote:
| I've got an M2 iPad Pro, running 16.3.1 and jailbroken with UTM
| HV. It's very fast, about 96% of the native speed, however you
| can only use up to 5 and a bit gigabytes of ram before getting
| terminated. The linux experience isn't too great either. It
| tends to be quite buggy and crashes a lot, I've tested Ubuntu
| 24.04 and Fedora 40. Overall, it's cool but too buggy for me to
| use daily.
| jansommer wrote:
| You could consider zram and get 50%+ more ram by compressing
| it. I use it on a 4gb ram surface go 2 and it works wonders.
| Not even noticing it in games like Divinity: Original Sin
| that requires at least 4gb.
| Firehawke wrote:
| It handled One Must Fall 2097, which needed a high-end 486 or
| low-end Pentium, just fine. Wing Commander 1 and 2 should be
| fine. WC3 I'm not entirely sure about, though.
| crims0n wrote:
| Oh nice, the iPad Pro 12.9 inch has a 4:3 aspect ratio if I
| recall correctly, should make for a decent DOSBox screen.
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