Re: [ProgSoc] The MacBochs project

[David Batterham <drbatter@nospam.progsoc.uts.edu.au>]

On Sat, 3 Apr 1999, Christian Kent wrote:

> On Fri, 2 Apr 1999, David Batterham wrote:
> 
> > Just curious about whether any Mac programmers here have heard of or are 
> > interested in the MacBochs project.
> 
> Yep, heard the callout the other day on this list.  Just bear in mind that
> the emu market on MacOS has really fragmented in recent times (not
> forgetting that you're talking about open source).  This would have been a
> big deal in the days of Insignia having a monopoly on $400 emulators, but
> today Connectix's product can do just about every Intel OS (not just MSDOS
> and Win9x) and there's now a $US20 product from Blue Label for all comers.

I agree it's a good thing that the PC emulation market is finally opening
up. But I think having a low-end emulator available as shareware is only
going to contribute to that. There are a substantial number of users who
just need to run, for example, simple DOS programs and can get by fine
running them under FreeDOS. They don't need the expensive MS OS's that
come bundled with the commercial emulators.

Having said that, I think Insignia's SoftWindows and Connectix's VirtualPC
are both good products. I'm not so sure about Lismore's "Blue Label", 
since I've never tried it myself. If the problem reports from places like
www.emulation.net and www.macpconline.com are anything to go by, it's
probably not ready for the market yet. At least with shareware you can try
before you buy.

> And as for the open-source inclined, they'd probably be running Apple's
> MkLinux or LinuxPPC already, and recompiling any Linux apps they get.
> 
> The really fervent Mac programmers are soon going to get busy rewriting
> their own apps for the new re-entrant Carbon APIs, so they can run on
> MacOS X with protection and preemption.  Why bother running Win32?  :)

Yep, memory protection and preemptive multitasking are long overdue for 
the MacOS. I'm looking forward to the transition to OS X too. Don't know
if it will mean I never need to run Windows apps again, though...

                                                              David Batterham
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
program /n./ 1.  A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to turn one's
                 input into error messages. (Jargon File 4.0.0)

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