would it be possible to port age of wonders? To play with the original content of course.
It's one of my favorite game.
It's a fantasy turn based game, a HoMM-like
minimum requirement:
Windows® 95/98
Pentium® 133 MHz processor
16 MB RAM
SVGA video card and display capable of 16 bit colour
2X CD-ROM Drive
Windows 95 compatible sound card for music and sound effects
recommended:
Pentium 200 MMX® or Pentium II (for >640x480 resolutions)
32 MB or more RAM
SVGA video card with 2+ MB RAM
4X or faster CD-ROM Drive
28.8 Kbps modem and Internet connection for endless multiplayer options
I tought we didn't need the source codes if the user play with his orginal content...
Something needs to make that original content move, sing, dance, and rescue dragons from damsels. That part would need to be built for the hardware and software that makes up the tablets in order for the game to run.
The other option is emulation of a PC (or Mac, or whatever) on the tablet in order to run games. That works for some games, but not for those that run in Windows. While a few folks have played with running Windows 95/98 inside emulators on tablets, activity inside Windows is measured in geological eras and, therefore, not suitable for gaming.
Programs are compiled for a certain ISA(Instruction set architecture). Compiling source code results in a binary which contains architecture specific calls. The IA-32 and IA-64, more commonly known as the x86 architectures are what AoW is compiled for if it is intended to run in windows. We cannot directly execute a binary on a different architecture(such as our ARM) because the instruction sets, wordsize, register utilization, are different. Microprocessor manufacturers all develop different instruction sets because each have different concerns about how their product should be utilized most efficiently. Thankfully, the programmer is (typically, atleast today) removed from the architecture and Instruction set calls through the use of compilers which translate basic high level source code into machine language for a specific architecture. Trying to execute a binary compiled for a different instruction set would be like trying to talk to our microprocessor in a language it can't understand.
This situation leaves us with two choices. We can first attempt to get our hands on the original source code and all the libraries which are needed and recompile it for our architecture. The ability to do this is what makes open source development so attractive. Unfortunately companies want to (rightly) protect their investments, so unless a commercial game is very old and is owned by a progressive, wise, and benevolent company, releasing the source is unlikely.
Secondly, we can attempt to emulate the original ISA. Developing a high quality(fast) emulator is a non trivial task. But as I understand it, there are two basic methods. One is that a central loop will grab commands from the binary, decode them, and dispatch them to whatever machine call is the equivalent on the local architecture. This can be very slow, as the process can take 10 commands for every original instruction.
Alternatively, we can use a method known as binary translation, which will translate a chunk of code from the guest ISA to the host ISA. This would obviously be faster for repetitive code, though the translation overhead would be expensive, and probably not worth it for code segments executed once. Good emulators will combine the interpretation methods and the translation methods to achieve fast performance.
Now, to answer your question, I saw that someone had gotten windows 95 to work in dosbox. Perhaps this would be worth a try to install it in there. Whether it would be playable or not is another thing all together.
