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1993-07-21
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PC NEWS COMPUTER INDUSTRY NEWS 07/12/93 9:13 PM
TALIGENT, THE OPERATING SYSTEM JOINT VENTURE between IBM and
Apple Computer, may soon have a new partner. PC Week reports that
Hewlett-Packard may provide Cupertino, Cal-based Taligent with cash,
technology or both. Rick Berzle, Taligent's vice president of marketing,
confirmed to the publication that the company is open to investments from
third party firms.
Sources also told PC Week that Mountain View, Cal-based
Kaleida Labs, IBM and Apple's multimedia joint venture, may be looking
for new partners as well. Kaleida officials told PC Week they have
received interest from possible investors.
MACINTOSH COLUMN STEVE ROSENTHAL 07/15/93 1:48 AM
MACINTOSH ON INTEL: APPLE SAYS IT'S SO. After nearly a decade
of fighting an uphill battle against the overwhelming dominance of the
Intel/Microsoft PC and DOS standard, Apple says it will give users another
alternative. In addition to upgrades to the Macintosh and the forthcoming
PowerPC platform, said Apple Vice President Rick Spitz, Apple has finally
decided to produce a version of the Macintosh operating system to run on
Intel processors and PC hardware. However, he cautioned, the statement only
indicates a direction for Apple, not a specific product or ship date.
Already Experimenting
Of course, Apple has long experimented with version of the Macintosh
software running on Intel chips, as have some programmers outside the
company. But while it was quite difficult to transfer code between the
Mac's Motorola 68000-based CPUs and earlier Intel processors, the greater
sophistication and the better memory architecture of the 386 and later
Intel chips make producing an equivalent implementation a feasible project
(technically, what you need is a big linear address space, rather than the
more limited "segmented address" method used in the early Intel chips that
only accessed 64KB of memory at a time).
A Variety of Approaches
Making the ideological decision to offer its software on the PC
still leaves Apple plenty of options for exactly what to offer and how to
deliver the capability. At the most basic level, Apple could offer a
version of the Mac's distinctive Finder program that would run as a shell
or command processor for DOS, leaving the rest of the system unchanged.
More likely, Apple would implement as much as possible of the Macintosh
system services on the PC. Developers would still have to recompile their
code for the PC, but in theory would have to make very few changes.
Complete Emulation
Or Apple could go even further, providing a complete emulation
environment that would look to application programs as if they were
running directly on a Mac--much the way SoftPC now allows PC applications
to run unchanged on a Mac. If this were done well enough, a casual user
wouldn't even need to know whether their machine had an Intel or Motorola
processor.
Finally, for a hardware-based solution, Apple could put a 68000 and
some ROM chips on a board that fit in to the standard PC bus.
Drawbacks of Some Approaches
The Finder on the PC might be interesting, but certainly not enough
to change the overall Mac/PC balance. The hardware approach leaves out
portables and would need a different version for each.
Full emulation would be the most convenient for the user. But given
that Apple thinks a PowerPC chip will just keep up with a current Mac in
emulation, it's probably too much to ask of a 386 or 486. Furthermore,
Apple isn't really anxious to make it easy for current Mac owners to
"upgrade" to a PC machine.
API Looks Best
That leaves the Macintosh services or "API" (applications program
interface) approach. If developers of popular Mac applications cooperated,
any application developed for the Mac could quickly become a PC application
as well. Because this approach is all software, the result would work on
portables as well as on desktop machines. And because it wouldn't run
existing programs, there still would be an advantage to current Mac owners
to stay with Apple's hardware.
Far From Trivial Task
Given the complexity of the Mac operating system and Toolbox,
actually delivering even the API approach is far from a trivial task. So
if you need another Mac, don't start shopping for one of those low-cost
PC clones just yet. COMMENT? Port your public note over to the Computer
bulletin board. To send a comment or question to me, address it as public
note with EXPT43B in the "TO:" field. I read all messages sent to me and
answer as many questions of general interest as time allows.