Re: [GNU-linux-libre] emulators and other hosts of foreign applications

[bill-auger]

On Mon, 24 Jul 2023 21:22:50 -0400 Richard wrote:
> In theory, could be.  In practice, usually not.  With a VM or
> interpreter which people use to write new programs, there will be lots
> of new and free programs you can run on it.  With an emulator there
> usually will not be.  Thus, the ScummVM issue will tend to arise for
> emulators like ScummVM.
> 
> The point is that this issue NORMALLY arises for emulators.

i do understand that point - scummvm is not an emulator though, nor a
concentional generic VM - it is a scripted "game engine" - their "guest"
programs are mainly configuration and data, with very little or no extra
executable code generally - generally what code there is, is rather trivial,
based on event hooks - the game "author" only writes bits like:

  [door]
  onActivate: playSound('creak')

  [bomb]
  onActivate: playSound('fuse')
  onCollision: playSound('boom')

the "engine" does most of the work of the application, not merely hosting
external code like an emulator or VM

with modern game engines, the "author" rarely even needs to type -
configuration like "door.onActivate: playSound('creak')" can simply be selected
with a mouse from a menu - games are created more like a drag-and-drop
GUI-builder than a text editor and compiler