🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 18 Jun 1999 23:38:57 +0800, "Pink" <pink@thewall.com> wrote:

>Is it possible to install the mac os and mac programs on a pc?  I've heard
>that a software called "fusion" can be installed to enable this.  In fact
>what kind of software it is and where i can find it?
>
I haven't heard of Fusion... in general, running one sort of
computer's software on another type of computer is done through
emulation-- using a software layer that translates the programming
commands designed for one platform, into instructions the other CPU
can understand.

On the Mac, for instance, Virtual PC and SoftWindows are two
commercial PC and Windows emulators... and they work. The problem (as
anyone who's tried to translate from one language to another knows) is
that it slows things down-- Virtual PC on my iMac-266 runs Windows 95
slower than my 486-75. It's usable if you're patient.

Emulating the Mac has extra problems, in that much more of the Mac-OS
is dependent on ROM code than is true for PCs. PC-ROM is pretty bare
bones, while Mac ROM has things like QuickDraw, enabling programs to
produce on-screen graphics-- windows, etc.  And Apple is not prone to
share this code. (Ten years or so ago, users wanting to run Mac
software on Ataris could do so-- if they could get a set of real Mac
ROM chips from a dead Mac-- even though the Ataris used the same 68000
CPU as the Macs).

For the past couple of years, I've been following Emulator- a project
of Ardi (www.ardi.com) to develop a workable Mac emulator. They try to
bypass the Finder interface, and have an ugly, clunky user interface,
but it does enable users to install and run SOME older software-- it
works. Sometimes... in my tests, even working with older, System
6-level programs, less than half of the things I tried worked.

But they have a free trial version available for download-- check it
out.

You can find information on several PC-Mac emulation projects at:

http://www.saturn-int.demon.co.uk/emulation/mac.htm



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