PCEM Skin Wrappers?

[davidinark]

This will probably sound like an insane idea, but that's kinda my thing anyway. So, I have an idea, but no clue how one would implement it. I think it would great if there were "skins" that wrapped around PCEM so that it looks like you are using PCEM on a CRT with specific machine fronts below it/beside it. I don't know if that makes sense, but if there were a skin for, say, a Packard Bell, you could choose it and PCEM would be surrounded by a Packard Bell monitor skin with the PC below it. In my head, it's akin to what folks used to do (still do?) with WinAmp, etc. Heck, for all I know, there might ways to capture disk activity, power, etc to have the skin "LEDs" blink etc.



Anyway, just a thought that popped in my head for no good reason.

[Cheez]

that's such a ridiculous and 2000s idea but I like it.

[leilei]

It'd probably be hell to implement in Wx, but (in theory) it's possible to write a GLSL shader that downsamples the output image and overlay another image on top as specified from a .glslp file. Extra immersion would probably require more shader variables for the num/caps/scroll lock and HDD/Power/Turbo/CDROM/Floppy LEDs however... and i'd also have to unearth more of my ASMR* code for the occasion


* about 3 years back I was hacking in a pc speaker filter, which led to a case filter, then hard drive noises (the spinup/whirring and head), and then floppy drive sounds, and finally mechanical keyboard sounds all of which hurt the CPU thread too much and i've only committed the floppy sound/case filter portion

[j1forPandE]

Great Idea! MAME can do this - or to be exact, some guests can if somebody creates the necessary artworks. Well, in practice I love it but dont use it - and I fear that would be the case here also. You would really need a huge screen to make the smaller PCem window meaningful.

But there is a simple way to implement this: Run PCem in a window with native guest resolution or a fixed multiple. So you would not need to downsamplng anything... Then make the window border area larger and decorate them with the monitor / case images you want. I am not sure about the transparency, but maybe?

[JosepMa]

Well, of course, it would not make sense to use this on a 15'' Wide laptop screen. On the other hand it could make sense on my 27'' screen.
In fact, I sometimes simply open a black command line console and run PCem on a fixed size on top. (I.e. as a fake fullscreen with a 15'' emulated screen.).
Basically, I believe the last bit to get the real feeling is on the screen selection. With the Open GL3 and some of the glsl scripts we are almost there, but it requires manual adjustments.

[szadycbr]

Hi Guys , I think it is great idea, great in the way, as PCem really is an perfect emulator , to preserve. With one click, a person could actually see, how the machine look like back in the day