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{{Infobox emulator|title = Clock Signal|logo WIP= CLK_(emulator)_Icon.png|developer = [[User:Tommy|Thomas Harte]]|version = {{clkver}}|active = Yes|platform = macOS<br/>Linux|accuracy = Subcycle|target = [[BBC Micro emulators|Acorn Electron]], [[Amstrad CPC emulators|Amstrad CPC]], [[Apple II emulators|Apple II]], [[Atari 2600 emulators|Atari 2600]], [[ColecoVision emulators|ColecoVision]], Commodore VIC-20, [[MSX emulators|MSX 1]], Oric 1/Atmos/Pravetz, [[SG-1000 emulators|Sega SG-1000]], [[Master System emulators|Master System]], [[Sinclair ZX81 emulators|Sinclair ZX80/ZX81]]|prog-lang = C++; Mac bindings in Objective-C and Swift|download = [https://github.com/TomHarte/CLK/releases Official releases] (macOS)|source = [https://github.com/TomHarte/CLK GitHub]}}
'''Clock Signal''', also known as '''CLK''', is an MIT-licensed open-source emulator of a collection of 8-bit computers and consoles for macOS and Linux.==Emulators on Various platforms==
It is unique in its approach to screen emulation and as a result offers worst-case video latency equal to the refresh rate of the screen [[Emulators on which it is being displayed — 1/60th of a second on a 60Hz monitor, 1/120th of a second on a 120Hz monitor, etc — regardless of the refresh rate of the machine being emulated.Android OS]]
It is also noteworthy for the degree to which it deploys automatic analysis in an attempt automatically to launch class software: in addition to ahead-of-time static analysis, it can simply run and monitor multiple different machines or machine configurations in parallel to determine what the proper hardware configuration for a particular title should be, often offering a seamless continuous display to the user.[[Emulators on iOS]]
It generally emulates components internally at single-cycle or half-cycle precision but seeks to decouple execution wherever possible. E.g. even if video and processor share memory which would naively imply running each component for a single cycle in a round robin fashion, the emulator actually applies something analogous to a write-through cache: the processor writing to the shared region will cause video processing to run just-in-time as though it had been interleaving reads until then.[[Emulators on Windows]]
Regardless of this, Clock Signal does not currently offer a perfect emulation of every supported machine. It is an active, developing emulator.[[Emulators on macOS]]
==Display Emulation==[[File:CLK ZX80.gif|right|alt=The emulated display of a ZX80, showing accurate emulation of synchronization issues.Emulators on Linux]]Clock Signal's emulated machines produce a 1d video signal, just as real machines do. Its emulated display, therefore, has to:* maintain a raster positioning;* run sync-triggered phase-locked loops to place horizontal and vertical retraces; and* decode composite color if that's what the machine is supplying.
It uses this information to paint a virtual phosphor display — in practice just an accumulation of recently-painted material with each new painting undergoing exponential decay. Output to the host screen is simply a capture of that surface as and when the host screen requests a new frame.[[Emulators on PS1]]
An unambiguously desirable result is that machines with variable programmatic sync, such as the Atari 2600, ZX80/81 and Amstrad CPC, should produce the proper display results, even down to rolling, bouncing and other sync issues as and when the programmer diverges, even if only transiently, from PAL or NTSC timing specifications.[[Emulators on PS2]]
A further positive effect is that composite video produces the proper per-platform results simply because the timing is correct: e.g. the Atari 2600 and ColecoVision produce an in-phase signal when outputting NTSC so they show obvious fixed vertical banding between strong color transitions, but the Oric, Electron and PAL Atari are not in-phase so produce undulating diagonals at color transitions.[[Emulators on PS3]]
The emulator goes as far as to use the Oric's original color ROM for Oric composite video generation — it replays the actual PCM-sampled output values generated by the real machine to produce realistic color.[[Emulators on PS4]]
Composite color is optional for all machines [[Emulators on which it was originally optional. Machines such as the Oric, Electron, and MSX originally shipped with the option of RGB output, so the emulator offers the same.PS5]]
==Sound Emulation==Sound emulation is generally performed by internal generation of original megahertz-rate audio, which is resampled to the output frequency of the host computer. Therefore just as the video can scale up to modern low-latency high-refresh-rate displays, the audio can scale up to digital output rates such as 96Khz and 192Khz.[[Emulators on Vita]]
Filling sound packets is an independent trigger of emulation — the emulated machines will run to make sure they're up to date when the display needs a new frame, and they'll also run to produce the next packet of audio when the previous has been consumed.[[Emulators on PSP]]
That generally allows the emulator to maintain audio latency guarantees completely decoupled from the frame rate. It aims for between 5 and 10ms of audio latency.[[Emulators on Xbox]]
==Host Environments==For macOS, Clock Signal is a fully-native document model application, which means that the user can simultaneously launch as many different machines as they want, sizing and positioning each independently across multiple displays, arranging their machines into a tabbed interface or performing any other standard Mac windowing actions.[[Emulators on Xbox 360]]
Clock Signal also has an SDL-based kiosk mode, which is compatible with Linux and any other target offering SDL 2.x, at least OpenGL 3.2 and C++11, and which attempts to follow ordinary UNIX conventions as to file naming and locations. It is intended to be launched however the user would normally launch something from the command-line; the target use case is to set up a file association in the user's preferred desktop environment and launch emulated applications by double-clicking [[Emulators on them exactly like the user would launch native applications.Xbox One]]
In neither case does Clock Signal offer much in terms of appreciable interface. It currently assumes it can always determine the proper machine and machine configuration automatically based [[Emulators on the software the user wants to run and provides those only after the user has nominated their software.Xbox SXS]]
[[Category:Emulators on Switch]] [[Emulators on Wii U]] [[Emulators on Wii]] [[Emulators on GameCube]] [[Emulators on 3DS]] [[Emulators on DS]] [[Emulators on N64]] [[Emulators on GBA]] [[Emulators on GB/GBC]] [[Emulators on SNES]] [[Emulators on Dreamcast]] [[Emulators on Saturn]] [[Emulators on 32X]] [[Emulators on MegaDrive]] [[Emulators on Pandora]] [[Emulators on DragonBox Pyra]] [[Emulators on GP2X]] [[Emulators on Caanoo]] [[Emulators on Wiz]] [[Emulators on GP32]] [[Emulators on Dingoo]] [[Emulators on GCW Zero]] [[Emulators on Gizmondo]] [[Emulators on Zodiac]] [[Emulators on PalmOS]] [[Emulators on Symbian]] [[Emulators on Blackberry]] [[Emulators on J2ME]] [[Emulators on Maemo]] [[Emulators on MeeGo]] [[Emulators on HP Calculators]] [[Emulators on Sharp Calculators]] [[Emulators on TI Calculators]] [[Emulators on Casio Calculators]] [[Emulators on Atari 2600 emulatorsST series]] [[Emulators on Amiga series]] [[Emulators on MSX series]] [[Emulators on Win9x]] [[Emulators on WinCE]] [[Emulators on DOS]] [[Emulators on Windows Phone]] [[Emulators on Windows Mobile]] [[Emulators on Pocket PC]] [[Emulators on Archos PMA400]] [[Emulators on WatchOS]] [[Emulators on BadaOS]] [[Emulators on BeOS]] [[Emulators on MorphOS]] [[Emulators on iPod]] [[Emulators on FM Towns series]] [[Emulators on Didj]] [[Emulators on LeapsterGS]] [[Emulators on Leapfrog Explorer]] [[Emulators on C64]] [[Emulators on PC8801]] [[Emulators on PC9801]] [[Emulators on PC6601]] [[Emulators on X68000]] [[Category:Emulators on ColecoVision emulators]] [[Emulators on SAM Coupe]] [[Emulators on WonderSwan]] [[Emulators on Nuon]] [[Emulators on PocketChip]] [[Emulators on Fantasy Computer]] [[Emulators on Arduino]] [[Emulators on FPGA]] [[Emulators on UEFI]] [[Emulators on P/ECE]] [[Emulators on Yahoo! Mobile]] [[Emulators on Zaurus]] [[Emulators on Raspberry Pi]] [[Emulators on Moto series]] [[Category:Emulatorson Other Systems]] [[Category:Linux emulation softwareEmulators on ODROID-GO]] [[Category:macOS emulation softwareEmulators on RetroFW]] [[Category:MultiEmulators on BittBoy]] + Pocket-emulatorsGo [[Emulators on ESP series]] [[Emulators on STM32]] [[Emulators on IRIX]] ==PSP== [[HuE]] [[nullDC PSP Compatibility List]] [[DaedalusX64 PSP Compatibility List]] [[DeSmuME PSP]] [[nullDC PSP]] [[DaedalusX64]] [[e(mulator) PSP|e[mulator] PSP]] [[NesterJ]] [[Megazeux]] [[SNES9x TYL]] [[eSwan PSP]] [[PicoDrive PSP]] [[DGen PSP]] [[RIN]] ==Android== [[Citra MMJ (Unofficial)]] [[Dolphin MMJR (Unofficial)]] [[MelonDS (Unofficial)]] [[Yaba Sanshiro]] [[NooDS]] [[Firebird]] [[Skyline]] [[Egg NS]] [[FPse]] ==Calc== [[CEmu]] ==J2ME Emulator== [[Kahvibreak]] [[KEmulator]] [[FreeJ2ME]] [[Category:MSX emulatorsJ2ME Loader]] [[Category:SGJL-1000 Mod]] [[PSPKVM]] [[SquirrelJME]] [[Cellphone emulators]] ==Others== [[Adrenaline]] [[New Main page WIP]] (coming soon) [[Leapster Explorer]] [[Leapster Leappad]] [[Video game compilations]] [[Category:Master System Chip8 emulators]]
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