[Squeak-VMdev] Request for help with simulation in 3.7

[Dan I. <Da...@Sq...>]

Hi, Guys -

In starting to work on the 64-bit system, i was never able to get any current version of Squeak to simulate itself fully.  Tim Rowledge had a couple of work-arounds that at least allowed some windows to paint, and an early MVC image to run, so I took those and have been using them, in hopes that by the time I got well through the 64-bit work I would find a solid base to work from.

I am now at the point where the 64-bit system works essentially as well as the 32-bit system in simulation, but that is not good enough.  There are failures in both during morphic display, and these become fatal as they recur during attempts to put up error windows.  Moreover the latest system, even when running MVC, uses outline fonts, and there are failures in simulating these.

I need to know some very basic information, which has changed since I was last in control of the VM and simulation.

1.  If everything worked right, is it the case that a current system should be able to simulate itself?  What this means is that, provided that the plugin interface all works (and fails) properly, does all the necessary failure code exist such that the system will run completely and with integrity?  If this is not so, then a further question is, apart from whatever fixes may be needed, how much new code would need to be written?

2.  Assuming the answer to (1) is yes (and I sure hope it is), then the question is, does anyone anywhere have a recent version of Squeak that can simulate itself successfully in Morphic?  This means displaying the mouse ( ideally), and a browser in which one can at least type 3+4, and print the value.  If so, then this is all I need, as I can use that to find whatever problems there are in the latest 3.7 and VMMaker that I am using for the basis of the 64-bit work.

I would be happy to supply further debugging info, and you can, of course, see it all for yourself if you have time to load up VMMaker in the latest 3.7, and try simulating itself.

Most of my current failures stem from BalloonEngine>>#primInitializeBuffer:, which either was written to fail, or fails as a side-effect of other work-arounds.  Unfortunately I cannot figure out what should happen here.  I am similarly in the dark about, eg, transformations in the 3DMatrix plugin, but I believe that I'm getting by by making things fail.

I have asked Craig Latta about this, since he claims to have achieved full simulation of 3.6 in 3.6, but now he's not sure.  I think you two are the only others who may know more or may have gone farther at vairous times in the past, but I'm also CC'ing the VM list in case someone else has more info.

I don't need much here, I don't think.  Either a single working system, or some documentation that relates to simulating the complex plugins.  I can supply lots of traces, and diagnostic info from the simulator transcript if that would be of use.

Thanks in advance for any guidance you can offer.

	- Dan