Apple's emulator ran as an interpreter. It would take a 68K command, translate it, execute the code, then discard the translation.

Connectix's emulator ran as more of a compiler, or at least a caching interpreter. It would translate chunks of code and keep the translation around to be executed. Because most code contains a great many looping structures which are executed over and over again, this scheme saves buckets of interpretation time. Speed Doubler's emulator only needs to interpret a loop of code once and then it executes as many loops as required. Apple's emulator would interpret the loop of code every time through the loop, over and over and over and over.

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Thanks, I always wondered how it worked. Using it on my PPC's with OS 7.6, SpeedDoubler was great...however, my experience with RamDoubler always led me to view Connectix products with suspicion, especially whenever I had stability problems. Connectix had great "hacks", and I say that as a compliment. At a certain point, software hacks can only compensate so much for a hardware issue (i.e., the solution to RamDoubler is to buy more RAM...back when RAM was $$$, even for 8mb, paying $49 for RamDoubler was quite deal).

Nevertheless, my 68k speedup tip is to always run the earliest OS you can on the fastest platform you got. I run 6.0.8 on a IIsi, and I run 7.1 on a Quadra 700. If you need to go online, OT and 7.6.1 are your best bet. I find that 7.6.1 runs well on both the IIsi and 700, but of course, nowhere as speedy as 7.1 or 6.0.8.