- OpenEmulator
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OpenEmulator 
Developer(s) OpenEmulator Team Stable release 1.0.1 / October 27, 2011 Operating system Cross-platform Type Emulator License GPL Website www.openemulator.org OpenEmulator is an emulator of legacy computer systems.
Contents
Features
The approach to this emulator is totally different from other emulators. The emphasis is on a framework on which (hopefully) many authors will be able to build their creations. Some of the features are listed below:
Component Framework
The first pillar of OpenEmulator is a component framework. The "Inversion of Control" design pattern is used to wire software components through an XML description, therefore increasing the level of abstraction. This XML file also stores the configuration and state of the components, thus saving an emulation to disk is straightforward. Another advantage is that it is possible to add virtual devices to an emulation, even while running. Thus a particular sound card or a certain kind of monitor can be added in real time, exactly as a physical system could be set up.
User Interface
The second pillar is a state-of-the-art user interface. An easy-to-use yet powerful emulation window lists connected devices and allows modifying its properties. This can be used for changing the settings of a video monitor, or adjusting motherboard jumpers. "Mountable" devices accept disk or cartridge images, and "canvas" devices visualize the details of a device in a separate window. These can capture keyboard, mouse and joystick input, and are a great way for implementing video monitors, printers, keypads and LCD displays.
Video rendering
A third pillar is awesome video rendering with OpenGL and GLSL shaders. Through a GPU accelerated shader program most visual subtleties of the history of computing are emulated. Some of these are: video bandwidth, barrel distortion, shadow masks, scanlines, and screen persistance. A paper mode simulates the properties of paper for implementing virtual printers, and the NTSC/PAL decoder accurately mirrors the appearance of old composite video monitors.
Systems
OpenEmulator supports at the moment the Apple-1 computer and clones, and work is being prepared for emulating the Apple II line of computers.
See also
References
External links
Categories:- Multi-emulators
- Retrocomputing
- Mac OS X emulation software
- Cross-platform software
- Free emulation software
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