Pc Emulation

Date: Sun, 3 Oct 93 6:35 +0200 From: ILANS@DS.HUJI.AC.IL Subject: PC emulation on MAC (summary) Hello netters To the following post I hereby summarize. > Is SoftPC the only option? I heard it emulates only a 286. Does anyone > know of a better version in the works? Thanks for those who responded directly to me: D1437@AppleLink.Apple.COM (Insignia Solutions,PJ Cotton,PRT - Jason Harris) ericb@telecnnct.com (Eric Burger) Don't Panic! <ABRODY@vax.clarku.edu> (anonymous) The subject widened a little, so there is more than just about emulators. There are 5 different approaches, only 2 of them really run PC software: 1. Software emulation - Only by Insigna. Only 286, 3 levels of sophistication prices $100-400. > Response from Insigna: > As a quick answer to your question, all current SoftPCs are 80286 emulators. > For the past several generations of our products, Product Planning and > Engineering have been focussing on improving the performance of our emulation > technologies, in preference to developing a new processor emulation module. > An emulation of a faster processor is not necessarily a faster emulation; in > fact, if the processor is more complex, the emulation tends to be slower. > > As the number of popular applications requiring a 386 processor is increasing, > the company will almost certainly produce a 386 and/or 486 SoftPC within a few > more generations of our product line. However, at this time we have no more > specific information as to when such a product will be available. > Eric Burger says: > "Even on a Centris (for that matter, even on a Quadra), Windows > is *painfully* slow. OTOH, it works!" 2. Hardware - Orange NuBus cards, PC in a MAC, 386 for $600, 486 for $1100. This is a REAL PC inside the MAC case. Requires a NuBus slot and uses MAC disk. Fastest. NO EMULATION HERE but a real PC. > "ABRODY" says: > > OrangePC by OrangeMicro 386: offers 386/33 Mhz speeds in a NuBus Card design > that has a 386 chip built in, to emulate the hardware/software of a 386. > Price advertised in MacWorld magazine $600. > 486: offers 486/33 Mhz speeds offers 486 33Mhz NuBus > Card to emulate the speeds and software/hardware of a standard 486/33 Mhz > machine. Price advertised in MacWorld (June issue) $1100. 3. Data Conversion tools. By DataViz, Apple, and by some programs the can read data from their PC counterpart program. Examples: Apple file Exchange can convert data from/to PC format. Claris Extensions can add options to this ("free") tool. Micro$oft programs have PC versions, and the MAC versions recognize PC data formats. MS Excel reads also Lotus & Lotus like data files from PC (I used this). MS Word can open PC files. etc. DataViz's MacLinkPlusPC is a special purpose tool worth having. > "ABRODY" says: > > For less than SoftPC you can get a graphics/spreadsheet/database/word > processing/page layout translation program that works on any Mac with a > SuperDrive OR Din Serial Port, and any RS232 IBM (and compatible). …