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Re: Apple Roms



>>>>> "Stu" == Stuart Friedman <stufried@ix.netcom.com> writes:
In article <4hsgtl$rb2@dfw-ixnews2.ix.netcom.com> stufried@ix.netcom.com (Stuart Friedman ) writes:


    Stu> In <4hr0as$ltg@newsbf02.news.aol.com> compexpr@aol.com
    Stu> (CompExpr) writes:
    >>  There was a company that tried to clone Mac ROMS by
    >> substituting
    Stu> X-Windows for the MAC OS. I don't remember the company name,
    Stu> but I'm sure that they're now out of business.
    >>  The last I heard, their computers were not 100% compatible
    >> with
    Stu> Macintosh programs.
    >>

    Stu> I remember the machine well and also cann't remember the
    Stu> name.  It had a few nice writeups but died before the machine
    Stu> is ever released.  The X Windows was the interface that they
    Stu> licensed to get around the Mac look and feel issue.  I think
    Stu> that the company's name began with "New" something or other.

Two companys partially fit this description:

	NuTek had a 68030 based board that ran Mac software, but
	it was *much* less compatible when it was released than
	Executor is now.  In fact, even then, Executor could run
	the latest version of Excel (then it was Excel 3, I believe)
	and NuTek's product couldn't.  Ouch.

	Quorum produced a software only solution that used their
	own rewrite of the ROMs on top of X.  They too had compatibility
	problems and were very slow.

*Both* of those companys had much more funding than ARDI had.  This
was a real shame, since at one time a large workstation company was
considering funding ARDI's work.  They decided to fund Quorum's work
instead.  At that time Quorum was spending on the order of $100,000 a
month in development expenses.  But that's the tradeoff, by doing
things the right way we needed less money but we were less attractive
to the folks who could potentially fund us.  After Executor/DOS 1.0
was released we thought we were going to be funded by NTK, a Korean
firm, but things didn't go as discussed and we wound up having to fund
ourselves.  After Executor 2 is released we'll play the search for
funding game again.  By now I think people are willing to admit that
technically we know what we're doing, but all the doom and gloom
associated with Apple may make it hard to find funding, but hopefully
Executor 2 sales will be strong enough that we won't need it at this
stage.

--Cliff
ctm@ardi.com



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