Replacement for "Microsoft's" Virtual PC? 136
Rien writes "I saw this BusinessWeek article referenced over at MacSlash. The author makes the case for Apple utilizing the Bochs Open Source IA-32 (x86) PC emulator to help counter Microsoft's recent purchase of Virtual PC from Connectix." I looked at Bochs, and maybe I R Dum, but I couldn't figure out how to install Windows on it.
Wine Bochs? (Score:2)
Potentially more interesting than Apple just using Bochs, would be if they combined Bochs and Wine and came out with a system that could run (some) Windows binaries on OSX without the need for Windows at all!
Re:Wine Bochs? (Score:2)
Tut, Essex people! <g>
Re:Wine Bochs? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not quite as crazy as it seems: the use of something like Wine would mean that the "Windows API" would run at native (PowerPC) speeds while the rest of the application would be emulated. It all depends on the type of application of course - something with a rich user interface may experience pretty good speeds as it spends a lot of time in the Windows (Wine) code, but you'd have to be mad to run the x86 version of RC5 cracking client on it which use mostly just user mode code.
Re:Wine Bochs? (Score:2, Insightful)
There's nothing wrong with VPC. I use it occasionally myself. But I honestly can't see Apple wasting time writing an emulator. Further I doubt that Microsoft is going to kill VPC development. If anything we may get better VPC performance due to it all being under the same roof.
If Apple was going to do something, it'd probably go buy the old source code to SoftPC (a competitor to VPC from a few years ago) and then improve it. I can't see them using Bochs which really isn't targetted at the same market as VPC.
Re:Wine Bochs? (Score:4, Insightful)
If Wine were ported to the PPC, then the x86 instructions *would* have to be emulated. For example, they could have the following situation:
If done well, you could run most windows apps out of the box, and run them much faster than if they were purely emulated (since the Win32 API's, and any other API's where it made sense, would be native PPC code, and not emulated x86 code).
Re:Wine Bochs? (Score:2)
What you describe is basically what Apple did with the transition from the 68k to the PPC. However even now there is still a lot of emulated code.
Red Bochs? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Red Bochs? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Red Bochs? (Score:1)
Boxed Wine? (Score:2)
Nah... that stuff is gross.
Re:Wine Bochs? (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, having access to your own source code is a *big* help. So it's something MS could do, not something Apple/Bochs/WINE could do.
Anyhow, once the world moves to .net clr, it won't matter if it's Windows.NET on a P4, rotor with OpenBSD on a Sparc III Ultra, mono/linux on a 486, or OSX/.NET on a PPC. right? :)
Re:Wine Bochs? (Score:1)
*sigh* You're young aren't you?
Nope, he's just a cheerful cynic (Score:2, Funny)
-fred
Re:Wine Bochs? = RedBox (Score:3, Interesting)
(yes I even had this OS that shipped from apple that ran on Intel had an apple in the top left corner but came in a NEXT box)
No, it didn't (Score:1)
What you may be thinking of was the Yellow Box for Windows, which was basically supposed to be the Cocoa API implemented on Windows. Don't know why they canned it, but I could speculate.
-fred
VirtualPC vs. Bochs (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:VirtualPC vs. Bochs (Score:1)
Re:VirtualPC vs. Bochs (Score:1)
Now before you respond and say, "You're screwball! VPC is nowhere near native speed!", you should note that the biggest bottleneck in VPC isn't the CPU, isn't the memory, it's not even the hard disk emulation. It's the graphics. Graphics speed in VPC is terrible, and we all know that what we really respond to is "perceived" speed, and graphics speed is probably the #1 element of perceived speed.
Therefore, the best thing MS could do for VPC is to port windows' GFX code to native PPC, complete with AltiVec enhancements. For even better speed, they could just port XP itself to Mac OS X as a VM environment where all XP code would be native and only user apps would run in x86 emulation.
Whether or not they do this is a big fat question mark. If they do, they run the risk of pushing on the fencers right into switcher-land. If they don't, everyone will get PO'd and say "Why the hey didn't you do that?"
Just my 2 cents.
Re:VirtualPC vs. Bochs (Score:1)
Oh, come on now. I don't even expect them to be shipping a real version of VPC after a year or two.
I *do* expect them to take the emulation environment, paste an app (say Microsoft Access) into it, and then sell the resulting sludge as an application. In the blink of an eye, they get to 'support' the Mac with one of their applications, and at the same time prove that the Mac is an order of magnitude slower than the PC, thus luring more people to abandon the platform.
-fred
Pur-lease. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Pur-lease. (Score:2)
Heeee. Ironic, since my previous post to this was telling someone off for their spelling.
Re:Pur-lease. (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting that with every revision of Windows the DOS layer (and printing) changed enough that it required minor tweaks to MAJOR re-writes of code to make it work seemlessly across the platforms.
Interesting that my original 1992 code in VirtualPC (DOS) had no issues at all. The accounting program used is a custom job and can easily handle payroll in all 50 US States (which we need/do). In addition there has been added/custom in-house programming to add functionality to cover ACH (Automated Clearning House -- direct deposit) and IDES (Illinois Department of Employment Security). Functionality that re-working in a Windows package is non-trivial
VirtualPC on the Mac was my "out". Now with updates to OS X VirtualPC may die REQUIRING a update to VPC. A normal update, from Microsoft, can (and will) very easily just DISABLE DOS, Windows 95, or anything else I may decide I want to run. Boycott? Oh yeah...
Obviously.... (Score:1, Insightful)
I guess
Re:Pur-lease. (Score:1)
Re:Pur-lease. (Score:2)
All together now....Change is good.
Functionality that re-working in a Windows package is non-trivial
That's where your entire approach to this is going wrong...
You should not simply think of 're-working' the software (in the sense of replicating the way the application behaves), you analyze it and see how it could be better done differently. With something so old that it was implimented in DOS it's all but beyond doubt that you'll need to look at re-inventing the solution.
Times change - accounting practices and ways of doing business evolve.
and NO Windows package can handle our payroll and jobcosting needs/wants.
While I agree that the majority of off the shelf accounting solutions are very poor - never the less: tosh and piffle. And I say this as someone who's just spent 12 months designing and developing the accounting libraries in a commercial software package.
Unless you have trivial and extremly common requirements, no one out there is going to have a solution that does exactly what you want. You need to build a solution that suits *your situation*, using Visual Basic and Access, or Perl and XML, or Java and SQL - whatever suits your needs best, but it should leverage new technolgies and approaches to business and accounting that your existing solution cannot take advantage of, and of course it should be built with the next wave of software development in mind, so that you don't need to throw out all your old code next time you upgrade (Visual Basic, Java and Perl all being good for this).
The focus should be on thinking about applications working collaboratively together in an efficent, user friendly, and time and cost savinging manner - in other words - How can I do business better?
Modern programming languages, graphical interfaces, XML and SQL databases are not just industry hoopla - large modern companies have moved away from DOS based applications and embraced these new technologies not for fun but for profit.
Those who resist change simply because they are frightened of it, or who lack the vision to see the the scope for better alternatives, will see their organization slowly wither until it is replaced or made irrelevant.
Re:Pur-lease. (Score:4, Insightful)
On top of that, bear in mind that right now VPC will run *any* PC operating system, not just Windows. While it's unlikely MS would discontinue VPC, I don't think anyone here would have a hard time imagining them dropping support for any non-Windows OS. Or even "legacy" OSs like Win95 or 3.1.
So if I were a VPC user, I wouldn't personally be concerned about this. But politically, Apple may have an interest.
Re:Pur-lease. (Score:2)
The silver lining (Score:2, Funny)
Itanium (Score:4, Informative)
Virtual PC is far and away the best x86 emulator on the market. Connetic could write an x86 emulator for Itanium.
Re:Itanium (Score:1)
The Itanium market is small, its going to be years before it makes it to the desktop (if then), so why write an emulator for a small market when the chip already emulates the target in hardware....
Re:Itanium (Score:2)
Re:Pur-lease. (Score:1)
It would be a big project (Score:5, Interesting)
Finally, since most copies of Virtual PC are bundled with a Windows licence, and are sold to people who would not otherwise be buying a Windows license, I don't see how it would be terribly advantageous for Microsoft to kill it.
Re:It would be a big project (Score:3, Informative)
Neither does Virtual PC - an older version used to support Glide (3Dfx's API) and map that onto RAVE (Apple's API), but this was dropped and never really followed through on (e.g., a D3D->OpenGL translator would have been the logical step, but they presumably felt it wouldn't be very heavily used by their typical customer).
Re:It would be a big project (Score:1)
But now it has the power to do so, in the future, should they ever choose.
Re:It would be a big project (Score:2)
I will continue to use Virtual PC 6 on my Mac for now (I use Windows 2000 to control my windows domain controllers and Linux for software development and testing), but I understand the fears created by this purchase and will be testing replacement software where available.
MS has proven time and time again that they will do anything they can get away with to squash competing platforms.
Unfortunately in the US, "what they can get away with" seems no longer related to what is legal.
Bochs and Installing (Score:5, Interesting)
However, unlike VPC, Bochs runs slower than molasses. Too slow to be useful, IMO. I can't remember how many minutes it took for startx to finally bring up TWM and an xterm on a simple Linux install, but it was a long time, on a dual G4/500. VPC has been very optimized (in general and for the G4) and runs at a usable speed. Hell, it can even utilize OpenGL and Glide cards directly, making some (older, but still) PC-only games run somewhat decently.
Yes, it'd be nice to have a purely open source emulator, but until Bochs is useful for more than testing (in my case), I won't be using it for anything but a toy.
Re:Bochs and Installing (Score:3, Informative)
It's far more useful to get "3rd exception" message from bochs, than to see your computer reboot. Also it can give you all the values of different registers, and so on. This is where bochs is really useful.
Re:Bochs and Installing (Score:3, Insightful)
VPC does this also, it's just heavily optimized for the PowerPC. That's why you can run Linux and OpenStep and other OSes easily. Unfortunately I wouldn't be surprised if MS improves" VPC by adding Windows-specific "enhancements" that break support for anything other than WinXP.
Re:Bochs and Installing (Score:4, Insightful)
But that's exactly why Apple should devote some resources to the project.
They could take bochs, make speed improvements to it and release the changes back to the community, then create a nice UI to define your machines.
Bochs isn't a VPC-killer *yet*, but I'm sure with a little Cupertino-assistance it shure could be.
rOD.
Re:Bochs and Installing (Score:1)
I'm curious about this: Connectix's FAQ (http://www.connectix.com/downloadcenter/pdf/vpcm
I've tried Sudden Strike 2 on a Dual GhZ G4. It runs OK, somewhat choppy, but I think multiplayer (with hundreds of units on the map) maps would be unplayable. Tried worms world party, but there is a bug with mouse management that makes it unplayable.
Re:Bochs and Installing (Score:2)
VPC used to support Voodoo cards for sure, but I don't know what else. The only thing I've ever seen it done on was my girlfriend's rev B iMac (with a Voodoo2 in the mezzanine slot). Can't remember what the game was, but it was something we were trying under Glide just to see if it worked. (VPC used to advertise the ability)
Re:Bochs and Installing (Score:1)
Re:Bochs and Installing (Score:2)
Re:Bochs and Installing (Score:2)
Re:Bochs and Installing (Score:1)
The alternatives (Score:4, Interesting)
There's also Blue Label but that apparently hasn't been updated to OS X yet either. http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=69
I have tried Bochs and it looks to me like it needs a lot of work in the area of making the configuration easier but it is supposed to be able to run any x86 OS.
VM Ware (Score:1)
Another 2 cents,
Queen B
Re:VM Ware (Score:1)
I Am Weasle and... (Score:2, Funny)
I R Spinning off! I R Spinning off!
It's funny. Laugh.
Bochs is too slow to be usable (Score:3, Informative)
MOL or VMware (Score:3, Interesting)
VMware's stability and success in selling contracts to US Governmental departments is a strong point in my view. The fact that they don't have a PPC version, obviously, is a strike against.
Oh well. And no, I don't think it's a good idea to have emulations on Macs dominated by MS. Not trolling, but evidently MS is thinking the Connectix technology would be a good thing to add to their
Re:MOL or VMware (Score:3, Interesting)
The technique used by VMWare is known as virtualization, which still relies on having an x86 chip to actually process instructions. For VMWare to support the PowerPC, they have to essentially create a new product. MOL and Plex86 also use the same technique.
Of course, with 1.3 GHz Durons costing just $30 in retail, I wonder why nobody has come up with a x86-on-a-PCI with (a lot less) associated software to solve this problem.
Re:MOL or VMware (Score:1)
Re:MOL or VMware (Score:1)
Doesn't look like they're selling them any more, though. There's probably not enough of a market, and doing emulation in software (like Virtual PC) is cheaper and more flexible.
Gimme a Win32 LAYER! (Score:1)
While I'm dreaming... I'll have transparent clever clustering of apps.
With a Win32 layer and inherent Beowulf'n I would only buy macs (even @ $10k) rather than never....
maaannn, even ms has problems with the win32 layer (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Gimme a Win32 LAYER! (Score:2)
Re:Gimme a Win32 LAYER! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Gimme a Win32 LAYER! (Score:2)
hell, via c3's wouldnt cost that much either..
The main problem isn't heat (Score:1)
Apple did it. Orange Micro did it. Neither one does it any more. The reason was that it was a gigantic pain in the tuchas.
Reply didn't do it, by the way... they just bought Apple's design.
-fred
Re:Gimme a Win32 LAYER! (Score:1)
Re:Gimme a Win32 LAYER! (Score:1)
Actually, I'm surprised it didn't continue on from the pre-OS X days. Anyone know if there's something like this in the works?
Re: inherent Beowulf'n (Score:1)
Re: inherent Beowulf'n (Score:1)
I meant every app automatically uses any compute nodes available, not just specialised apps.
The win32 layer is NOT an emulator in a window - I mean a layer like MacOS layer and the UNIX layer. It would be transparent. kinda like wine...
Re:Gimme a Win32 LAYER! (Score:2)
Don't Hate MS VPC Just Because. (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft is many things, but it's Mac Business Unit has shown that it is not stupid. I expect good things from this buyout, in retrospect. I also expect the OSS world to kick it up a notch and improve their offerings if VPC loses its luster.
The only worry from Microsoft VPC is (1) feature glutting as all MS programs tend to do (2) Microsoft's very slow reaction to release bug fixes. They need to take a lesson from Connectix on keeping the customer happy, or someone may appear with a new product that makes VPC a has-been, and leave MS with an expensive, malfunctioning dud.
Re:Don't Hate MS VPC Just Because. (Score:2)
Um, are you expecting it or is it in retrospect. Or are you looking back on something that has not happened yet? Hmm...
;)
Re:Don't Hate MS VPC Just Because. (Score:2)
In other words, he's saying that this will have been going to be a good thing.
Re:Don't Hate MS VPC Just Because. (Score:1)
He's saying that this is going to eventually be having been a good thing?
-fred
Re:Don't Hate MS VPC Just Because. (Score:2)
The above can now be said about emulation software, web browser, email client, and office software.
It's not this alone that's problematic. It's this when looked at as part of the big picture. Microsoft has Apple & its users by the cajones. This acquisition tightens the grip. Apple may be trying to wriggle out, but it's going to keep getting harder and harder to do so.
Re:Don't Hate MS VPC Just Because. (Score:2)
Ummm ... no. (Score:1)
I 'switched' to OSX from Windows/Linux (though I still use Linux for many, many things) as my main use operating system because I decided I want *nothing* to do with Microsoft as a company any more. Zero. Zilch.
It's not politics.
I have seen this company grow from when it was just 3 folks burning BASIC ROM's to what it is now, and I am sick of their shit.
So, I want nothing more to do with them.
VirtualPC was a way for me to have nothing more to do with them, safely and comfortably, and still be able to get access to my Windows-specific data for the switch process.
Now that switch process - or at least, a key element of it - is under the control of the very company that prompted my switching in the first place.
Well, great.
Looks like there's a market for PC emulators
Re:Ummm ... no. (Score:1)
Re:Ummm ... no. (Score:1)
I paid for this Windows license, I see nothing wrong with using it under VPC to access files. I don't use this VPC session productively, other than to remove even more worth from it as time goes by, if/when I need to find something I haven't already moved over.
My point, since you missed it, is that the very tool that I'm using to perform a comfortable switch, done at my own pace rather than at the pace of Microsoft, is now under their control.
That's the point.
Incidentally, I also use VPC for Linux sessions, which I find to be extremely useful in my Linux hacking efforts.
If I can't keep doing that - doubtful, perhaps - then it'll only be because Microsoft deemed the ability to do so to be counter-Microsoft...
Re:Don't Hate MS VPC Just Because. (Score:2)
I'm getting tired of people trashing Microsoft to trash Microsoft, but equally tired of people promoting Open Source on the basis that it's Open Source. Bochs is no replacement for VPC, and without a few hundred thousand dollars to dedicate towards some full-time hard-core emulation staff, it won't be for a long long time. Sure, it works, if you can call it that, but that's about all it does.
Virtual PC is the only solution, period, if you want to do quality x86 emulation on the MacOS, and after using it on Windows XP, I can't much imagine using anything else. If Microsoft makes it better, then I'll buy the next version. If they make it worse, then I'll keep VPC 5.
The way I see it, the worst thing they could do (unless they intentionally try to run it into the ground) is bundle it with a copy of Windows XP, and change the price to reflect the added 'value'. Oddly, not a single person has mentioned this in the comments that I've seen.
Well, or they could cancel the product line and integrate it into Windows to allow users to run a 'Classic' version of their os on Longhorn, which will be fundimentally incompatible with previous versions of windows at the filesystem level, in a virtual machine in order to allow those programs to continue on with the older APIs and filesystems that were implemented before.
Hmm, I wonder if Apple's applied for a patent on 'running old OS paradigms in virtual machines on new OS paradigms' or whatever. Boy, wouldn't that be cool.
--Dan
OK bochs is slow now, but... (Score:2)
2003 is destined to be one of the most interesting years in the history of computing.
Every year in computing is interesting... (Score:2)
Re:OK bochs is slow now, but... (Score:1)
Yes. And you don't know they're shipping the 970 this year.
Yes, it will (Score:2, Interesting)
The x86 has been picked over until the cows come home, and it's still not as good as some of the competing stuff. Why? Because a lot of very important ways to do optimization are, you guessed it, patented. You can license these and include them in your proprietary compiler, but if you're altering gcc and actually releasing the alterations back to the community, as Apple is, you can't use them at all.
This is why MrC, Apple's ancient optimizing PPC C compiler, still (as of last year, anyway, and I doubt anything has changed) produces code that iss on average between 15 and 30 percent faster than gcc's. I saw some bottlenecks entirely removed by MrC, where the code went up to 3 times as fast.
So yes, it will still be slow when compiled with the optimized gcc that is built for the blah blah blah. If you want to speed up the program, spend some time optimizing IT.
-fred
RED-BOCHS (Score:3, Informative)
Eric Traut (Score:5, Interesting)
Before Connectix, he worked at Apple as a Senior Software Engineer.
Per his resume, his work at Apple included " Researched, designed, and implemented second-generation 680x0 emulator for PowerPC-based Macintoshes. New emulator design involved "dynamic recompilation," or on-the-fly code translation, from 680x0 to PowerPC instruction sets. Implementation required extensive knowledge of both 680x0 and PowerPC architectures and optimizing compiler techniques. Several patents pending in the area of emulation."
I'm very interested in seeing whether he stays at Connectix or goes somewhere else. Like back to Apple.
Here's his resume. [traut.com] Connectix Executive bios are here. [connectix.com]
Re:Eric Traut (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmm.. Mac OS and Win on the same box... natively...
Why? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Nope, just sarcastic.
Give me a Crusoe on a PCI card (Score:2, Interesting)
With PC components being so cheap, why aren't there any products like this? I'd rather buy a product like that than pay for MS VPC.
Re:Give me a Crusoe on a PCI card (Score:3, Interesting)
The right idea would be a small box with an Intel compatible CPU (transmeta? AMD? Not Intel, please), shraing verything with the Mac through a Firewire connectio... Would that be fast enough?
If it can be done in for about 300$, it could be a big hit...
Re:Give me a Crusoe on a PCI card (Score:1)
Re:Give me a Crusoe on a PCI card (Score:1)
But that's not the important quesstion. The important question is if Firewire is fast enough...
It is certainly fast enough for external hard drives... How much info passes from a CPU to a BUS? How fast is that?
I don't know. I'm just saying that most Mac users can't use a PCI card...
Re:Give me a Crusoe on a PCI card (Score:2)
I'm almost certain that it is faster. [Comparing Firewire To PCI]
Um, no. Not even close.
Firewire = 1-bit * 400MHz (or 800MHz now) = 400-800 MbpsPCI = 32-bit (or 64-bit) * 33MHz (or 66MHz) = 1056-4224Mbps
Of course, this completely ignores the relative operational overhead of each protocol. Which is irrelevant since I can almost guarentee your firewire is going to be running over PCI or some PCI-like bus anyway.
Re:Give me a Crusoe on a PCI card (Score:1, Informative)
Umm... check the Apple page, and you will see that Tower Macs do in fact have PCI slots. PowerBooks and iMacs don't.
Re:Give me a Crusoe on a PCI card (Score:1)
Check Apple Sales, Powerbooks+iMacs outsell towers...
Poor Article (Score:4, Informative)
For anybody wanting to try Bochs, here's a tip: (Score:2)
It's slow, it's buggy, it has a HORRID HORRID HORRID interface. Absolutely HORRID!
VPC beat out many commercial products. RealPC, SoftWindows, Blue Label, and various DOS cards from Apple and OrangePC. When I say beat out I don't mean out-sell, I mean beat them out of the market with a boot up their ass!
Comparing VPC to Bochs is LAUGHABLE!
If Apple wants to make a VPC-like product they would be better off starting from scratch than trying to hold Bochs above water. Seriously.
Re:For anybody wanting to try Bochs, here's a tip: (Score:3, Informative)
On a TiBook/400, it is barely useable under DOS, and terrible under Win95. In addition, no effort has been made to accelerate it on the G3 or G4, except maybe with WinTel, who seem to have provided proprietary Altivec enhancements in their distribution.
To speed it up, I believe you would need
- XVGA implementation so you can use more elaborated graphics primitives, maybe with Altivec enhancement.
- Use Altivec for CPU instructions decoding.
- Create native PPC versions of Windows drivers.
- Use a JIT. However, this may be detrimental to the first goal of correct hardware simulation.
- Desynchronize the main CPU loop from actual CPU consumption. The same comment as above may apply, though.
Of these enhancements, the first is currently being throught about. The second might be possible if OpenOSX released its sources or Apple put a proficient resource on the problem. The impact would already be huge. The others are more problematic.
Finally note that VPC is a commercial product with a lot of history. Connectix owns a number of patents on techniques they have developped to spped-up the simulation and looking from the outside since I do not use it, I feel that the product is worth its price. I think that many people do not appreciate the effort put into that kind of product.
Bochs is Freeware. Following the mailing lists show that the emphasis is not on performance but on correctness. Furthermore, the OSX community is only a tiny part of the people working on Bochs.
VPC and Why MS May Actually Do Something Good (Score:2)
However, on the down side, chances are, if they make it good enough, they will kill Office for X altogether...why have Office X, just buy Office for Windows and that nice copy of Virtual PC and Windows. Its more money for them that way. But if we are fortunate, Sun and Apple will pick up that with Appleworks and Sun's office suite (which I recall they said they would put on X once MS was gone from the picture)
Re:VPC and Why MS May Actually Do Something Good (Score:2)
As to why would we start buying both Office and Windows? Simple. If they kill Office X, and no make ANY Mac software, except VPC, we have no choice....if we want to run Office, we have to run Windows on VPC. Yes it will piss off their customers, but in Microsofts opinions, we're only Mac users.
Winamp? (Score:1)
I use Virtual PC when I need to run Windows programs, such as music jukebox Winamp, that have Mac versions but are markedly superior on PC platforms.
WTF?
He spends hundreds of dollars on PC emulation software because he "needs" to run Winamp?!?
Curious about Windows emulation hardware? (Score:3, Informative)
First off, a general idea of what these were. Basically, in the most recent incarnations, you had a PCI card. On this PCI card you had:
An Intel-compatible CPU of some sort, usually socketed
Memory, usually on removable DIMMs
A graphics processor with its own RAM
A soundblaster 16 chip
A whole bus architecture, and all the support chips
Basically, an entire motherboard, except for the PCI slots, on a PCI card. The only thing the card used the Mac for was
The keyboard and mouse
Sometimes other USB devices (on the last generation of cards)
Mass storage devices
The back of one of these cards was educational, because right up until the end a lot of them had a giant dongol that you hooked to the back of the card. One end of the dongol was this thing with about six zillion pins. On the other end was a set of connectors, thus:
A video-out port to go to a monitor
A video-in port, to plug your Mac video into if you wanted to share one monitor
A printer port
A joystick port
In addition, there was usually an internal connector that connected the audio out from the card to the internal audio in port for the CD player.
So basically what you had was an entire special-purpose Intel motherboard, complete with most of what you would find on a basic motherboard, in a form factor 1/4 the size of an ATX.
And the software was bloody expensive and very difficult to write, requiring a very close interfacing between the computer and the card. It had sync issues, it had DMA issues, it had all sorts of issues.
And you need to offer your solution at less than the price of a comparable PC system.
So basically, you need to provide:
1/4-size full-featured Intel motherboard-on-a-stick
memory
CPU
Highly-engin
For the same price that Dell provides:
generic Intel motherboard
memory
CPU
hard drive
CD-ROM drive (or whatever)
So basically, if you want a Mac that can run both Mac and PC software at full speeds, here's what you do:
Buy a Mac.
Buy a PC.
Buy a KVM switch and hook them both to the same monitor and keyboard.
Set up file sharing correctly.
And yes, I'm speaking as someone who has used two different and perfectly functional PC Compatibility cards, one an Apple-brand and one by Orange Micro. They were great, just as good as any PC I've ever used... and 50% more expensive.
-fred
Dont get it (Score:2, Funny)