Will I have many problems with helping to code an emulator someday?

[Bright-Warrior]

Hey guys,

I know that the title is not well chosen, but I couldn't think of another one. Sorry for this^^.

I was just wondering: Since I'm going to study informatics and am very interested in emulation, I thought that I might perhaps someday (please note the last three words ) be able to help coding an emulator. But I'm not going to study the "normal" informatics, but bioinformatics. This is some kind of a hybrid study course between biology and informatics. I will be a computer scientist (this word sounds so bumptious, sorry, but leo.org gave me no other one^^), but my studies will somewhat ignore the lectures about hardware (since this is not really needed for bioinformatics). Now my question, since I don't know what the devs have studied a.s.o.: Will I have very much problems with learning about emulation without knowledge about hardware for the university?

I hope you understand my problem. Sorry, I was absent from this forum for too long, my English suffered a bit^^.

[Bright-Warrior]

Hmm, perhaps I should formulate my question a bit different:

To the devs: Where did you got your knowledge you need for this work from? Do you have most of it or basics from the university or did you teach almost all of this alone through books etc.? And do you think that it'll be a big problem if I don't hear lectures about hardware at the university?

[haxor]

bioinformatics sounds like you should try to run an emulation of a fly's behaviour inside of a human brain. that's some hardware for ya. ;P

And well. You have to atleast know what the hardware you're emulating does to know howto emulate it properly. Running PCSX2 on the PC itself is mostly using API calls to the OS for the specific hardware endpoints. Also alot of code optimization and doing custom assembly to run as fast as possible.

blah. just read into the code and see if you can do anything.

[rama]

PCSX2 for example is a really broad project. Anybody with coding skill and time can help working on it.
To understand a system and code the full emulator for it is generally a matter of some basic coding
skill and then a *lot of determination*.
Oh, and bitwise maths helps

Really, with a background in some informatics you're golden. Just need the time and effort then

[dralor]

Not only that but you also need to read documentation to understand what is trying to be done with the code. That and likely you might want to spend some time learning project management.

[z-man2994]

I ain't no programmer, but you need to study Computer Programming. Bioinformatics is has nothing to due with software or emulator programming.

[ChickenLiver]

I ain't no programmer, but you need to study Computer Programming. Bioinformatics is has nothing to due with software or emulator programming.

Actually...Bioinformatics is what one calls computational biology if one listens more to biologists than computer scientists...And, as the name implies, it generally involves solving biological problems computationally (Often, though by no means always, with one's own code).

[z-man2994]

Oh, I understand the gist of it. Hmm, I guess knowing the basics of programming is a good start. I took "Intro to Visual Basic" and "Intro to C++ Programming" at my college.

[Bright-Warrior]

[...]
Really, with a background in some informatics you're golden. Just need the time and effort then

That's great to here ! Is it really not "that" complicated for a coder to help an emulation project? I always thought so, because you guys are not that many at number. Ah well, I guess here the "time and effort" comes into play^^.

[...]likely you might want to spend some time learning project management.

If I'm not mistaken, this is integrated in my course. But it will just come in the Master Course, so nothing of the near future .

Oh, I understand the gist of it. Hmm, I guess knowing the basics of programming is a good start. I took "Intro to Visual Basic" and "Intro to C++ Programming" at my college.

I plan to take the C++ course at my university as well. Hopefully everything runs well with my studies !


Small question to the devs: Where did you got your knowledge about emulation and hardware you need to code this emulator from? I guess this is not only college stuff, is it? Have you read many books and documentations about this?