OpenSource Windoze Emulation, from BusinessWeek

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
[quote] BusinessWeek: An open-source opening for Apple



February 26 - 12:03 ESTÂ*Â* In BusinessWeek's latest "Byte of the Apple" column, Alex Salkever writes about Microsoft's recent purchase of Virtual PC, and how Apple could gain independence from the software giant by helping to develop Bochs, open-source software that functions as a Windows emulator on Unix machines. "Apple has the financial resources to dedicate a few engineers to the task of polishing Bochs to meet Jobsian ease-of-use and boy-is-it-pretty standards. Ultimately, Apple could weave Bochs into the operating system. Perhaps even as early as the upcoming Panther release (you know, the one after Jaguar OS X 10.2), Apple users could pop a Windows CD or DVD into the drive, and OS X would seamlessly launch Bochs and run the Windows code... What's more, PC emulation is exactly the area where Apple should rely on the open-source community for software and development. Lots of Unix and Linux users need it, so it's highly probable that a strong open-source support group will develop around Bochs or other PC emulation." Â*<hr></blockquote>



I thought this was pretty interesting. I don't know anything about Bochs, but this sounds like something worth pursuing. Do any of you know about this or have thoughts on its inclusion in OSX?





-EDIT- I did a quick search and here are some links:



<a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/bochs/"; target="_blank">http://sourceforge.net/projects/bochs/</a>;



<a href="http://bochs.sourceforge.net/"; target="_blank">http://bochs.sourceforge.net/</a>;



<a href="http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/bochs.html"; target="_blank">http://packages.debian.org/unstable/misc/bochs.html</a>;



<a href="http://freshmeat.net/projects/bochs/?topic_id=74"; target="_blank">http://freshmeat.net/projects/bochs/?topic_id=74</a>;



[ 02-26-2003: Message edited by: Keda ]</p>

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 8
    well, i think its a bit overambitious for it to become part of 'panther'. also, i dont think apple needs to work on this. sure, they could, and, heck, it might end up a good thing, but i dont think they will.
  • Reply 2 of 8
    torifiletorifile Posts: 4,024member
    This "building emulation into the OS" idea has been thrown around repeatedly and most agree: it's not a good idea. OS/2 tried this and it died. Arguably better technology, but no developers because they said, "Why should we develop for OS/2 if Windows code works nearly as well?" Of course, there were no developers for it and then no adopters, so it went under.



    OS X might be able to do better with this because it's just so kickass, but, then again, it might not. I'd rather not take the chance. :/ (And I suspect Apple wouldn't either....)
  • Reply 3 of 8
    kedakeda Posts: 722member
    I'm not very familiar w/ OS/2, but didn't that run on x86? In this case, it wasn't doing emulation. It was going the WINE route.



    Apple is sort of doing this w/ X11. No emulation, but you can run apps from another OS (atleast windowing system).



    This idea excites me because I only use VPC for a few apps. I dont give a sh*t if I have a M$ running behind them. If there were a way to run a framework of an OS as a background app (e.g. TrueBlue) and execute the apps in windows, then I would be happy. I'm sure there would be enough of a performance hit to keep people preferring (and buying) native apps. This would be the motivation for devs to write OSX code.



    Take a look at apps which are lingering in OS9. Anyone who has a choice btwn an OSX app and a Classic will choose the OSX app because of the speed hit in Classic. I think the same thing would apply to x86 apps, running in a 'transparent' emulation environment. They might be a tad better than VPC, but I bet they would still be dog slow...too slow to pass off as an OSX app.
  • Reply 4 of 8
    giantgiant Posts: 6,041member
    [quote]Originally posted by Keda:

    <strong>



    Apple is sort of doing this w/ X11. No emulation, but you can run apps from another OS (atleast windowing system).

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    I've read this a lot recently.



    X11 is a windowing system for unix. Think of it like Aqua. X11 does not allow you to run apps from another OS, since OS X is unix. Think of it as allowing you to run OSX apps that have a non-aqua interface. Think of it as if with X11 you are running unix apps on a unix machine, they just have a different look.



    This is not related in any way to running windows or any other operating system, including OS 9.
  • Reply 5 of 8
    mcqmcq Posts: 1,543member
    Yep... it's two completely different things to be able to support a windowing system, as opposed to emulating an entire pc architecture, which is what Bochs tries to do in emulatng the x86 hardware. I tried Bochs 2.0 and installing Win 98 on my iBook a while back... that was slow and painstaking. Completely unusable.
  • Reply 6 of 8
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    [quote]Originally posted by MCQ:

    <strong>...that was slow and painstaking. Completely unusable.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    alot slower then VPC?
  • Reply 7 of 8
    [quote]Originally posted by ast3r3x:

    <strong>alot slower then VPC?</strong><hr></blockquote>Yes, the current version of VPC easily bests Bochs.



    I believe Bochs is meant more for the hobyist than for someone that needs serious work done in an emulated x86 environment.
  • Reply 8 of 8
    os10geekos10geek Posts: 413member
    Jobsian? What the f u c k ?
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