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Windows Businesses Operating Systems OS X Software Apple

FWB Admits RealPC for Mac OS X was Vaporware 472

reiggin writes "In a press release on their site, FWB's new management comes clean and says that the former management had been lying about an upcoming RealPC OS X release. Apparently, not one line of code had even been written. This is a huge disappointment for anyone looking for an alternative to the now-MS owned Virtual PC (which, incidentally, Apple and Microsoft have said will not initially run on a G5)."
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FWB Admits RealPC for Mac OS X was Vaporware

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  • There's always bochs (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @11:34AM (#6805834)
    There's always bochs. Open source too.
    http://bochs.sf.net
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @11:35AM (#6805836)
    SCO today announced they would be suing FWB, non-makers of the non-existant RealPC OS, over their use of SCO's intellectual property in their code. "Just like SCO, FWB has not written one line of code in this OS, and for that, they will pay." said SCO's lead attorney Michael Newstrom.
  • by PopeAlien ( 164869 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @11:36AM (#6805853) Homepage Journal
    "Honesty and openness with the user base is a cornerstone of the new management team. "

    This strategy was struck upon after it was discovered that the previous strategy of dishonesty and disceit was not as effective as originally hoped.

    Look out SCO!
  • That's OK... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Meat Blaster ( 578650 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @11:37AM (#6805868)
    If you want to run real PC software, why not get a real PC? It's only like $300 for something that'll run ten times faster than any Apple emulated environment.

    Somebody ought to get to work making emulator cards for the Mac that are essentially one of those mini PCs. It'd be pretty cool to have a true dual environment without having the emulation slowdown.

    • Re:That's OK... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RocketScientist ( 15198 ) * on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @11:40AM (#6805907)
      Because a $300 real pc wouldn't fit into my laptop bag, and would likely weigh more than 6 pounds.
      • Re:That's OK... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by stratjakt ( 596332 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @11:48AM (#6806015) Journal
        If you need to use PC applications why did you buy a mac? Or, what can a mac do that a PC cant? All the aesthetics and battery life discussions aside, you leave me the impression that the laptop you have doesnt do something you need it to.

        I'll get modded flamebait, but big deal. Its like buying a PS2 because you want to play Zelda the Wind Waker.
        • Re:That's OK... (Score:4, Insightful)

          by questionlp ( 58365 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @12:32PM (#6806431) Homepage
          If the person is a web designer or a programmer and needs to test to see how the site renders or the program compiles/runs outside of the Mac environment?

          I think it would be really nice to be able to develop and test web sites on a lone laptop or system... mostly on the go.

          The other use of it is if the company is primarily Mac and has a handful of PCs for some functions, being able to test and support PCs under a virtual environment would be nice. Sure it won't be as fast, but it's still an option.

          Then you have companies that require software that will only run on PCs... by being able to run the software within a window rather than setting aside space for another monitor/keyboard/mouse and PC unit... that can be quite helpful if desk space limited.
        • Re:That's OK... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Jeremy Erwin ( 2054 )
          The occasional use of an obscure, unported windows program should not necessarily dictate one's choice of platform.
        • Re:That's OK... (Score:5, Informative)

          by WillAdams ( 45638 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @12:49PM (#6806583) Homepage
          Stuff a new Mac can do which a Windows PC (default software install on both) can't:

          - make a .pdf from anything one can print
          - Services
          - Miller column browser for filesystem navigation
          - AAT / ATSUI - play w/ Zapfino in TextEdit
          - $10,000 worth of fonts (including non-Latin ones)
          - Mail.app (decent and safe mail client)
          - iApps (iTunes, iMovie, iCal, iSynch)
          - colour calibration which really works

          By contrast:

          - is there any app in a default Windows install which can take full advantage of the spiffy OpenType version of Palatino bundled w/ Windows 2000 or later? (bummer that has Ariadne swash caps instead of the original Palatino swash letters---only available in hot metal, though I did a digital font for a friend who has said letterforms ;)

          Moreover, if one adds in d/l'ing and installing free (libre) software, Mac OS X draws even further ahead w/ stuff like TeXShop (pdf editor lite!) and EquationService.app.

          William
        • Re:That's OK... (Score:3, Informative)

          by mkelley ( 411060 )

          I got a mac, because it's what works for me. I design websites and test them under VirtualPC with Windows 98 & XP along with Linux. Why should I have to buy three boxes to do what some $200 piece of software can do?


          It's a big hassle to have three boxes under a desk, just to test a website. The cost justifcation isn't there, once you add kvms, and additional PCs.
        • Re:That's OK... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by RocketScientist ( 15198 ) * on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @01:50PM (#6807139)
          Wow. Mozilla ate the post I had written.

          To answer your question, here's the short list of what I need VPC for:

          1. SQL Server Management Tools: Enterprise Manager, ISQL/W, and so on.

          2. Outlook to Exchange 5.5 integration. Yeah, Entourage works great for Exchange 2000, but it still don't work worth talking about against Exchange 5.5.

          3. Testing sites on IE 6. It's just wacky enough to need separate testing.

          4. Various Windows network admin apps (User Manager, Share Management, Server Manager).

          All told, I get into it once or twice every 3 or 4 weeks. It's not like buying a PS2 to play zelda, it's more like buing a Torx screwdriver: I don't use it often, but when I need it, I REALLY need it, right then. Am I in it all the time? Nope. But I use it enough to justify buying it (err...making my employer buy it :) )

          Hope that clears things up.

    • They had this in the past. You could buy a Mac witha 486 daughter card. We had one in the dorms. Nobody used Windows on it. When they did, they had a hard time figuring out how to eject the floppy.
    • Several manufacturers have tried this:

      When Apple released the Macintosh LC, one of its selling points was the IIe compatibility card (not quite relevant, but hey)
      Applied Engineering made two models of their PC emulator card for the Apple IIe/IIgs (i forget what they called it)
      Orange Micro made PCs-on-a-card for NuBus Macs.
      Apple even made their own PC Compatibility Card for some the Centris and Quadra machines.
    • Back when I was more of a mac person I had one of those Quadras that had a PC card built in. I was a keystroke away from switching environments at any time. It was pretty spiffy and a lot faster than an emulator but now-a-days I think getting one of those cards costs more than just buying a complete system and it's slower.

      Then there's the laptop people like the other reply mentions that like macs but want to be able to run pc software; they can't put in a daughterboard.
  • by WatertonMan ( 550706 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @11:37AM (#6805873)
    There were always a lot of questioning about whether they could legally even do what they were attempting to do. I believe they had sold the rights to the code some time earlier. That they could go from an old Sys8 era emulator to a OSX quality emulator in a few months seemed...too good to be true.
  • I appreciate that. I didn't know about this RealPC project, don't use a Mac, or had any interest in it, but the company is already a couple of notches ahead in my book for being so straightforward in their answer.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @11:40AM (#6805898)
    #include <stdio.h>

    int main()
    {
    }

    now get to it!
    • "Unfortunately, the same guys that do the development had to do the rebranding," said Prewitt. "We're all wearing different hats. We ended up ceasing development on it for about a week," he said."

      They already had that part, but they had to rebrand it remember.

      /** RealPC
      *
      * TODO:
      * Write Program
      */

      #include <stdio.h>

      int main()
      {
      cout << "Hello World, from RealPC";
      exit(0);
      }

      And it only took them a week

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @11:40AM (#6805910)
    If you look in photo [spymac.com] there is a picture of the G5 motherboards which shows they have two different separate CPU connectors, not one like in most other dual macintoshes. Each connector will take one other of the CPU cards, which lets each have an independent bus to the board. In theory this would be good with something like RealPC or Windows on the G5, as you could have one half running windows and one half running MacOS still, AND NEITHER WOULD INTERFERE WITH THE OTHER as they would still have unique access to memory and things. Does anyone know if the motherboards in all G5 are still blue or is that just development?
  • "I am sorry to have to admit that apparently the company has been a party to vaporware when it comes to the claims regarding RealPC." "In reviewing the status, it was determined that the development cost including licensing fees made the project unattractive."

    With the above statements in mind, and the rest of the article, it's almost like they passed around the idea of RealPC to see if there was enough interest.

    So perhaps we can expect vaporware to be a new marketing approach?

    Mac vs. PC aside, as an IT
  • Other PC emulators (Score:4, Informative)

    by iJed ( 594606 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @11:41AM (#6805923) Homepage
    The other PC emulators are:

    Bochs [sf.net] - Open source emulator with some nice features.

    MS Virtual PC [microsoft.com] - Probably the best PC emulator on the Mac. Now owned by the evil Microsoft corporation.
    • by jandrese ( 485 ) * <kensama@vt.edu> on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @11:47AM (#6805996) Homepage Journal
      I don't know if MS owning VirtualPC is such a bad thing. MS obviously has an interest in stelling their software on Macs, and they're the only ones who have a hope of getting all of the undocumented "features" of Windows right (just look at how much progress the Wine project has made for comparison). The danger here is that VirtualPC will become good enough to run MS software, though not as good as the regular PC version, and then stop, leaving all of those third party application developers out in the cold on the Mac (a market they probably didn't even really consider important in the first place). MS could even subtly break the emulator to prevent most non-MS software from running correctly. Still, selling Windows licenses to Mac users is just too good for MS to pass up.
      • by Minna Kirai ( 624281 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @12:16PM (#6806263)
        and they're the only ones who have a hope of getting all of the undocumented "features" of Windows right

        VirtualPC doesn't need to know anything about Windows(r) features. VirtualPC emulates an Intel ("x86") computer, which you can then install a full (paid) copy of Windows on. One could also install Linux, FreeBSD, or other operating systems.

        But now that Microsoft is selling VirtualPC, the above conditions might change. They will probably bundle a special Windows version, and discourage use of others. We might expect it'll become more difficult to install non-Microsoft OSes on top of the emulated environment.

        MS obviously has an interest in stelling their software on Macs,

        That's not obvious at all. They have 2 goals: sell software, and improve the ubiquity of Windows (which helps sell even more software later). Supporting users of Macs boosts the first goal, but not the second. Microsoft would be better off if there were only one seller of desktop computer OSes.

        VirtualPC, in the nearterm, won't really encourage Mac users to buy MS software. The most popular MS programs (Word, Powerpoint, etc) are already sold in native Mac versions. MS has announced no plans to cancel development of Mac Office.

        The real danger is the opposite of what you suggested- not that VirtualPC will work poorly with 3rd party software, but that it'll work too well. What if Microsoft uses VirtualPC to convince other software vendors (mainly Adobe) to downsize or eliminate their Mac software divisions? If companies can sell programs to Mac users without writing Mac code, why would they bother to program for two separate platforms?

        Then, once Mac-specific development is good and dead, Microsoft can discontinue VirtualPC and kill Apple completely.

        (Naturally, they have motivations to keep Apple alive... they wouldn't have to take the plan through to completetion. It could be just another club in their bargaining arsenal)
  • Bleh (Score:3, Informative)

    by Squidgee ( 565373 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @11:42AM (#6805935)
    Before y'all go blaming Apple, this isn't Apple; instead, it's a different company.

    And if you want a Non-MS Virtual PC solution, check out either Bochs [apple.com], or Blue Label [lismoresoft.com].

    Blue Label is a nice, albeit slow, PC emulator for Mac OS 8/9.x. Sadly, Blue Label isn't Mac OS X native, either; but, for people using Mac on Linux, it works fine. I think it will work in Classic, too, so no worries. Bochs, on the other hand, is Mac OS X native; however, it's open source, and therefore takes some tinkering. It does work very well, however.

    There -are- alternatives; you just need to look around. =)

    • And, if you want a nice, pretty, tinker-free version of Bochs, check out Wintel [openosx.com], from OpenOSX.
      • It's faster to run apps on a slow PocketPC using XT-CE [xt-ce.com], say, than run them under Bochs with a fast Apple. Admittedly XT-CE only emulates up to a 80186 but it's better to emulate that than have something so slow you can't actually do anything useful with it.
    • And if you want a Non-MS Virtual PC solution, check out either Bochs, or Blue Label.

      Blue Label is a nice, albeit slow,

      Do you mean that blue Label is slower than Bochs?

  • by FearUncertaintyDoubt ( 578295 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @11:42AM (#6805936)
    Recent management changes at FWB has led to a major evaluation of the status of development work including Realpc...

    "The previous management had made claims in press interviews and on the company website regarding the status and upcoming release of RealPC OSX claiming it was in late beta and about to be released...I am sorry to have to admit that apparently the company has been a party to vaporware when it comes to the claims regarding RealPC."

    Reminds me of an old joke...

    Stalin is dying, and summons Comrade Khrushchev to his bedside. Wheezing his last few words with difficulty, Stalin tells Khrushchev, "Comrade, the reins of the country are now in your hands. But before I go, I want to give you some advice."

    "Yes, yes, Great Leader, what is it?" says Khrushchev. Reaching under his pillow, Stalin produces two envelopes marked 1 and 2. "Take these letters," he tells Khrushchev. "Keep them safely - don't open them. Only if the country is in turmoil and things start going bad, open the first one. That'll give you some advice on what to do. And, even after that, if things start going REALLY bad, open the second one." And with a gasp Stalin breathed his last.

    Well, Khrushchev succeeded him, and sure enough, within a few years things started going bad - unemployment increased, crops failed, people became restless. Nikita decided it was time to open the first letter. All it said was: "Blame everything on me!" So Khrushchev launched a massive deStalinization campaign, and blamed Josef for all the excesses and purges and ills of the present system, and bought himself some time that way.

    But things continued on the downside - Kennedy successfully rebuffed Soviet missiles in Cuba, unemployment increased even more, crops failed even more, the Politburo was unhappy with Khrushchev's leadership and upstarts like Brezhnev and Gromyko were threatening his credibility. So finally, after much deliberation, Nikita opened the second letter.

    All it said was: "Write two letters."

    • by emptybody ( 12341 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @01:51PM (#6807146) Homepage Journal
      Actually the joke is Three letters.

      The Company President is leaving after a particularly grim period. On the eve of his departure, he speaks with his successor telling him that if he has any problems there are three envelopes in the desk that were presented to him when he took the reigns of the company and that he should open one of them if he really needs help.

      A year goes by and the company is having serious problems that our hero cannot resolve.
      He opens the First envelope and reads:
      "Blame your predecessor."

      He does this and is able to circle the wagons and work with existing management to resolve the problems.

      2 more years pass and again the company is in dire straits. He opens the Second Envelope and reads:
      "Accept the blame for yourself."

      He does this and is yet again able to circle up the wagons and working closely with management and employees is able to resolve the impending crises and bring the company back from the brink.

      A few more years pass and we find our hero sitting at his desk gazing at a sealed envelope. The company is failing. people are leaving in droves. He has done all he can. With his last glimmer of hope he opens the third envelope and begins to read:

      "First, prepare three envelopes..."

  • What would a company get from lying? A extra year or two of publicity and interest? Once the truth comes out that they lied, they will lose all their customers. It is troubling that many executives think lying is an okay part of doing buisness. This is bad.
  • wow.. that is some serious vaporware..
    I have seen vapor'ish-ware.. but not full blown diaphanous-pipe-dream-vapor-ware..

    I think this calls for a new definition.. Perhaps "dream-ware" or "never-ware".. maybe "talk-ware"

    And what is up with all the Apple news today?
    • wow.. that is some serious vaporware.. I have seen vapor'ish-ware.. but not full blown diaphanous-pipe-dream-vapor-ware..

      I think this calls for a new definition.. Perhaps "dream-ware" or "never-ware".. maybe "talk-ware"

      The term is "slideware" meaning someone made up a presentation, but that's about it... ;-)

      And what is up with all the Apple news today?

      Apple is doing some really great things lately. My next few thousand or so of hardware money is likely headed in that direction.

      • Yea, a lot our techs here are getting new apples..
        In particular some of our windows guys who have been hounded by us linux users for a long time (can't resist taking a jab at a guy who gets a new worm every other week) are going mac. Looking around I see several new mac laptops in the office.

        I think that whole deal with this crap about he slideware, as you call it, is more than likely some investor strategy to make a quick buck.. sort of like what those sco monkeys are doing.. but that is whole different
    • What year was it? Maybe 1982 or 1983... Lotus 1-2-3 was the hottest success story in the history of the personal computer.

      Not just the trade press, but the the mainstream business press was raving about the hot new product, Ovation. It was going to have more rows and columns that Lotus ever dreamed of. It had fabulous screen shots and videos showing how it would work. And it had really, really professional management, MBA's all, who were doing the best job yet of raising financing--something like $7 millio
  • Sad, Sad, Sad (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by N8F8 ( 4562 )
    So the liars get to cash in their stock valued with the market expectation of this updated product. Sadly, they'll get away with it too.
  • Vaporware? (Score:3, Funny)

    by siskbc ( 598067 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @11:56AM (#6806086) Homepage
    (Insert obligatory Duke Nukem reference here)
  • by fizban ( 58094 ) <fizban@umich.edu> on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @11:56AM (#6806089) Homepage
    For more information please contact ceo@fwb.com

    So you never have to update your address book when the CEO of the company changes, because it happens a lot...
  • Wait, could it mean...? Holy shit!
  • by frankie ( 91710 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @12:02PM (#6806141) Journal
    Since this article doesn't even include a link about VPC [google.com], I can't curmudgeonly tell you to RTFA. So...

    The G3 and G4 series include support for both big- and little-endian modes. VPC uses assembly-level little-endian instructions for obvious performance reasons. The G5 is only big-endian. Poof.

    • WRONG! The G5 still implements full little-endian mode. MS's blowing smoke out their ass. Even if a few instructions were removed, that would not force them to rewrite it.
      • by frankie ( 91710 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @01:03PM (#6806735) Journal
        G5 still implements full little-endian mode

        Sorry if I mis-phrased my explanation; the last time I did assembly programming was a decade ago on MC68k.

        The exact missing capability is called pseudo little-endian mode [google.com]. According to some old documentation, this will "make memory appear to the processor as true little-endian by playing with the addresses of load/stores, but without reversing any bytes. The result is a fast, simulated little-endian world, but it's not true little-endian in memory - numbers do not have reversed bytes, but their starting addresses are changed."
  • CEO Interview (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Srsen ( 413456 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @12:03PM (#6806156)
    Here's quite an interesting interview with the new CEO that reveals just what a bunch of crooks the former management were. Interesting read:

    http://macdiscussion.com/article_show.php3?artic le _id_var=241
  • by leomekenkamp ( 566309 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @12:07PM (#6806195)

    Other news of today:

    Duke Nukem Forever has gone into beta, according to a spokesman from 3D Realms: "[Duke Nukem Forever] is good on track, and we are looking forward to the moment the code comes out of beta stage and goes into production."

    Rumors about a management buy-out by angry Duke Dukem fans were said to be "(...) completely unfounded and untrue (...)". There were reports of large groups of DNF fans, who collectively put $0.05 in their bank accounts when DNF was first announced; the plan was to use the accumulated interest for the management buy-out.

  • by Glock27 ( 446276 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @12:15PM (#6806253)
    G5s have PCI-X slots. Someone should make an ~$200 x86 card with sufficient performance to run Windows. Perhaps a low-power AMD Duron plus integrated graphics and up to, say, 1 GB RAM (256 MB standard). Mass storage could come from some virtualized Mac resources...perhaps Samba. Low-power Athlons could be used for upscale versions with more performance.

    I'm sure Microsoft would go for an OEM bundle approach on XP Home, so that would only add $30 or so (maybe less). What did the emulators cost?

    The only downside to this approach is that it involves opening the case and inserting a card, anathema for many Mac people. The obvious answer is a micro-form-factor PC hooked up via Firewire 800, with some (simple) custom software to handle display on the Mac. This should go for under $300.

    OK, now that we have a business plan, who's ready to hire me as CTO? :-)

    • sorta done before (Score:4, Informative)

      by boomerny ( 670029 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @12:37PM (#6806470)
      Orange Micro sold PCI card PC's for Macs for years, you can still check the specs on their discontinued product page. A cool idea but it never really caught on.
    • I guess you don't remember the 486 cards from the old days. It was a stunning flop. Too expensive, too underpowered, and almost nobody cared. It was cheaper, simpler, and more flexible to duct tape a real PC to the side of the box and add a KVM switch.

      Oh, and by the way, "integrated graphics" is a codeword for "cheap crappy graphics chip that satsfies Ma and Pa, but any serious gamer will disable in favor of his own card". Oops, there's no AGP slot on your PC-on-a-card!

      What I want to see is Windows ap

  • Funny (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bogie ( 31020 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @12:18PM (#6806282) Journal
    You can Google for this vaporware and see promises from as recent as 2 months ago that everything is on track.

    This Mark Prewitt who was vice president of sales and marketing is caught pretty bad here.

    http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/06/10/f wb /

    "Unfortunately, the same guys that do the development had to do the rebranding," said Prewitt. "We're all wearing different hats. We ended up ceasing development on it for about a week," he said."

    Only a week eh? LOL.
  • Crap (Score:2, Funny)

    by Sir Rhosys ( 84459 )
    How am I suppose to play Duke Nukem Forever on my wife's new Mac?
  • by moankey ( 142715 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @12:37PM (#6806474)
    At this point buying a low end PC can be as much as $199.99 on a good sale day, with or without an OS. Sometimes you get lucky and Windows XX is on it.
    The cost of Virtual PC is already close to $199. Unless having a PC is so visually unappealing that you can only have Apple's around.
  • SunPCi (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pmz ( 462998 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @01:24PM (#6806879) Homepage

    I wonder if Apple would be wise to adopt Sun's SunPCi PC-on-a-PCI-card strategy. All Sun requires is that the customer get their Windows license from somewhere else (Sun is most definitely not a Microsoft OEM).

    Why worry about whether Microsoft will release their VirtualPC, when a PowerMac can have a genuine x86 CPU with dedicated RAM? I don't see why Apple can't resell Sun's own SunPCi cards with different branding and driver software. Actually that would be win-win (Sun gets higher volume, Apple gets a really really neat toy to sell their customers).
    • Re:SunPCi (Score:4, Insightful)

      by WatertonMan ( 550706 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @01:42PM (#6807055)
      I wonder if Apple would be wise to adopt Sun's SunPCi PC-on-a-PCI-card strategy.

      Apple actually did this at one time. They had a DOS card I believe for one of the Quadra models. (I think it was an early 486)

      Today though I don't think that would be too wise a move. After all Apple wants people to port software. If people can run the software without the port, then Apple loses. Also one can effectively do this right now through the ethernet card using Microsoft's remote PC services. I have an old PIII I'm using as a server which I control from my Mac when I need the occasional PC program.

  • by Steve Cowan ( 525271 ) on Wednesday August 27, 2003 @10:25PM (#6810603) Journal
    Check out this link [emulation.net]. (Emulation.net - very cool site)

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