Future OS X only machines....

13»

Comments

  • Reply 41 of 51
    engpjpengpjp Posts: 124member
    [quote]Originally posted by Chucker:

    <strong>Now, Windows NT has something called HAL, Hardware Abstraction layer. There were NT versions for the PPC, for Alpha, and so on. At the same time, there was Rhapsody, which had the Red Box, which as far as I know as an API to run Win32, but was only available on the x86 version of Rhapsody.



    My idea is that there might be a way to (ab)use the HAL to run Win32 apps on PPC, through a modernized "Red Box".</strong><hr></blockquote>



    The Red Box project was never presented officially, at least not as anything other than a PowerPoint (it was back in the dark Middle Ages) presentation.



    engpjp
  • Reply 42 of 51
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    [quote]Originally posted by JBL:

    <strong>Hmmm. A year ago the guy I who sold me my cell phone saw my Apple tshirt and started going on about how his brother worked at Apple. I asked him what he did, and he said the brother was working on some top secret program that allowed you to open programs written for Windows on OS X and they would work just like regular Aqua programs. He said he had seen it and it was much faster than VPC. To me it still sounds like BS but it is almost exactly what you guys are talking about.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I'd love to see how they've managed to put an Aqua interface on Windows software without redoing it. They'd have to reflow and resize elements that were laid out staticly, and there would still be train wrecks and custom widgets and painting in Windows colors sticking out here and there.



    That's not even to go into the perils of expanding the Windows market into the Mac market. Maybe Apple's working on a project like this. Maybe it'll never leave the skunkworks.



    [ 01-15-2003: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
  • Reply 43 of 51
    [quote]Originally posted by Barto:

    <strong>

    However, all this would be useful for is some tiny little app for which there is no Mac equivilent. Would it be worth Apple building a "Windows.app" just for that? After all, Virtual PC is pretty effective.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Virtual PC is a very expensive way to run "some tiny little app" - an included "Windows.app" would go down much better.



    However, to those people who say that win32-on Mach-on PPC (or whatever) will encourage switchers who are put off by compatibility issues, I am not sure that this is really the case. Most of the compatibility issues for consumers are more in perception than in reality. In practice we can all exchange Office documents fairly freely and whilst there is obviously far less choice of software for Macs, there isn't a huge amount you cannot do on a Mac that you can on a PC.



    We Mac users know that, but many potential switchers still think that Apples have no software at all and cannot run Office etc.



    Compatibility is more of an issue for the enterprise market that needs to run enterprise software or custom software that is PC-only. However for that market these are issues that emulation will not really solve as it is unlikely that Apple could ever demonstrate that "Windows.app" runs their business-critical software as well as Windows itself.



    Whilst an ability to run emulated windows software on a PPC faster and cheaper (free?) than Virtual PC would be very handy indeed, I don't think it will be a killer app.





    typo



    [ 01-15-2003: Message edited by: tompage ]</p>
  • Reply 44 of 51
    An interesting possibility is this: a supported wine-on-osx (win32 apis ported to X) won't help you run x86 code at all, but it would be a big boost for developers that have an eye on porting their win32 apps to OSX but don't want a lot of hassle...
  • Reply 45 of 51
    97%. It's a big number. If Apple could only reach 1 million proprietary x86 towers with shake, elogic, final cut express on it, a bunch of iapps free, Safari etc, that would be a good start. I'm sure some developers would get behind it. Marklar could purely be another Apple controlled revenue stream.



    Lemon Bon Bon :cool:
  • Reply 46 of 51
    cliveclive Posts: 720member
    [quote]Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon:

    <strong>...and could this 'Windows compatability layer' mean 'Marklar'?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    No, the Windows compatibility layer is/was "Yellow Box". My recollection is something like:



    Red Box: Rhapsody

    Blue Box: Classic Mac (look in the Process Viewer for "TruBlueEnvironment")

    Yellow Box: X86/Windows



    It was never really clear, to me, whether Yellow Box was to run under PPC or whether it was some library add-on to Window to have X86 machines run Rhapsody apps, or to have Rhapsody backwards compatible to run Windows apps, on X86 machines - essentially the same job that Classic does on PPC.
  • Reply 47 of 51
    cliveclive Posts: 720member
    [quote]Originally posted by Programmer:

    <strong>Wow, a lot of people talking about stuff they really don't understand.</strong><hr></blockquote>





    Spot on!
  • Reply 48 of 51
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    [quote]Originally posted by Clive:

    <strong>



    No, the Windows compatibility layer is/was "Yellow Box". My recollection is something like:



    Red Box: Rhapsody

    Blue Box: Classic Mac (look in the Process Viewer for "TruBlueEnvironment")

    Yellow Box: X86/Windows



    It was never really clear, to me, whether Yellow Box was to run under PPC or whether it was some library add-on to Window to have X86 machines run Rhapsody apps.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    The latter. Yellow Box was essentially the Cocoa frameworks ported to Windows, so that you could deploy cross-platform with two binaries hidden in the same bundle.



    I've always thought the mythical Win32-on-PPC layer should be called "Beige Box," but that apparently didn't catch on.
  • Reply 49 of 51
    "The latter. Yellow Box was essentially the Cocoa frameworks ported to Windows, so that you could deploy cross-platform with two binaries hidden in the same bundle."



    Given that the new Apple likes open standards as opposed to the 'not invented here syndrome' (which still seems to prevail with general Apple Insider boarders it seems...) then it seems reasonable that Apple will tackle the x86 puzzle at some point. It's in the implementation.



    'X' is proving quite adept at being Unix/x11, Linux, Mac...Virtual PC gives you 'x86'. I wonder if 'Marklar' may not be an exit strategy but a genuine 'weapon'...



    A 'Big Gun' so to speak. Apple appear to be squaring up to M$. Or they're certainly reducing their 'dependence' on M$. The veneer appears quite polite? But isn't that always the case in business...before you reach for the baseball bat?



    Lemon Bon Bon



    [ 01-16-2003: Message edited by: Lemon Bon Bon ]</p>
  • Reply 50 of 51
    mr. memr. me Posts: 3,221member
    [quote]Originally posted by Clive:

    <strong>



    No, the Windows compatibility layer is/was "Yellow Box". My recollection is something like:



    Red Box: Rhapsody

    Blue Box: Classic Mac (look in the Process Viewer for "TruBlueEnvironment")

    Yellow Box: X86/Windows



    It was never really clear, to me, whether Yellow Box was to run under PPC or whether it was some library add-on to Window to have X86 machines run Rhapsody apps, or to have Rhapsody backwards compatible to run Windows apps, on X86 machines - essentially the same job that Classic does on PPC.</strong><hr></blockquote>

    Nope.



    Yellow Box: Began as OpenSTEP. Evolved into Cocoa. This layer was supposed to be deployed across multiple platforms including Windows and the traditional MacOS.



    Blue Box: The traditional MacOS compatibility layer. You know it as Classic.



    Red Box: Rumored Windows compatibility layer. The Red Box was to Windows what the Blue Box was to the Mac OS, sort of. Since it would have required an emulator on PPC machines, it would have been slower.



    Your memory has somehow combined the Red Box and Yellow Box--Orange Box? <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
  • Reply 51 of 51
    cliveclive Posts: 720member
    [quote]Originally posted by Mr. Me:

    <strong>Red Box: Rumored Windows compatibility layer. The Red Box was to Windows what the Blue Box was to the Mac OS, sort of. Since it would have required an emulator on PPC machines, it would have been slower. </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Whatever way around it is the library for X86 has been there since Rhapsody was announced: people going on about it now are just living in cloud cuckoo land.



    I don't think the X86 lib was ever supposed to run under PPC, it was a compatibility layer for X86 machines to run Windows and Rhapsody apps in the same way that Blue Box allowed PPC to run "Classic" as well as Rhapsody apps.



    Anyone talking about trying to run Windows apps seamlessly in X should think about what is really involved - it's really not feasible.



    [ 01-16-2003: Message edited by: Clive ]</p>
Sign In or Register to comment.