[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

PowerMac DOS Compatibles, linux, A/UX and MAE



"I see Apple's launched a new range of DOS Compatible cards. Going
 to buy one for that old Mac of yours and finally get out of Macs and
 into the mainstream?"

"Nope. They only work in Macs with PCI buses. I'm buying a 6100
 DOS Compatible instead."

"Why? Isn't PCI the way of the future? Isn't it standard?"

"When you're plugging an Apple card into an Apple Mac, it doesn't
 matter what the bus standard is. All that matters is that the
 Mac and card are compatible."

"So PCI isn't important?"

"Do you think that if I plug Apple's new Pentium card into a
 no-name PC with a PCI bus, it would work? That I'd be able
 to do anything useful between the Pentium on the card and
 the Pentium on the PC's motherboard, like that fabled Pentium
 multiprocessing?"

"Er, no. These cards are for Macs, aren't they?"

"Exactly. Who'd want a PC in a PC when they could just buy a 
 complete PC for less than what the PC in a PC would cost them?
 Mind you, I can't see the point of selling a card that meets a
 standard unless you can sell it to everyone who bought into the
 standard. Adopting PCI made no sense to me at all, since it
 broke the 'Mac and card are compatible' rule for the entire
 user base, too."

"Well, you can always plug one of those cards into a new Mac, which
 is what it's intended for. It's not that expensive, is it? You've
 been making noises about buying a new Mac, and you can
 share memory with the Mac motherboard, after all, so you
 save on buying RAM, right?"

"Nope, these new PCI cards can't share motherboard RAM. You've
 got to buy separate RAM for them."

"Really? How much can they take?"

"Well, that new Pentium card maxes out at 24Mb of RAM."

"24Mb? That's not much, is it? NT likes at least 32Mb..."

"Are you sure NT will run on these cards?"

"Ah. But you're buying a 6100 DOS Compatible?"

"Yup. Unlike the PCI cards, the 6100 card shares up to 64Mb of
 motherboard memory, for a performance hit, mind you. The entire 
 box costs less than one of those new Pentium PCI cards. It's been
 seen running Apple's port of linux native in select
 locations now, too. No idea when they'll port linux to the PCI
 PowerMacs, and given their A/UX porting promises I'm playing safe."

"Can't you install x86 linux on the DOS card right now, anyway?"

"Nope, there's a question of drivers. When I get my hands
 on the powerpc linux it ought to be possible to reverse-engineer
 them and get linux running on the dos card in a fraction of the
 time it took to do the powerpc linux port - actually, Apple
 might have done this as an interim stage for driver development
 anyway - but sorting out the networking aspects of two unixes in
 one box with only one lot of ethernet hardware could
 be tricky, to put it mildly. Could become an interesting
 two-screen Xserver, though, although the 16" screen resolutions
 are barely up to it."

"So instead of using this 6100 to run Mac and Windows at the same
 time, you're heading for linux and dos or windows at the same
 time, but you really want to use it to run Mac and
 linux on the DOS card at the same time, and possibly linux with
 linux at the same time."

"Right. Although I'm going to be stuck with choosing
 between linux or MacOS with DOS or Windows every time I boot,
 until I get it all sorted out and get rid of the Microsoft
 bits. Linux OR MacOS? Some choice. I want linux *AND* MacOS,
 not windoze and go-on-pick-one."

"Couldn't you run the Mac Application Environment on linux?"

"MAE's only available for HP and Solaris machines. Not linux.
 The idea's not that bad, though. A/UX sat under System 7, so 
 you could do something similar, but linux is free and Apple charges a
 fortune for MAE, which would mean that Apple would then go and
 do something stupid like try and charge for linux. A 'proper' PowerPC
 MAE as a linux/Mac environment combination would really please all
 three of those remaining A/UX users, and that's a good enough
 reason for Apple not to do it. And if Apple did do a PowerPC
 MAE on PowerPC linux, there would be pressure for MAE on x86
 linux, then everyone would buy fast PCs and run linux with MAE on
 top even though x86 MAE wouldn't be a patch on powerpc MAE, and we'd
 finally discover that Apple was a software company. A powerpc
 MAE on a powerpc-native linux running on a powermac would really
 kick ass, though. Those A/UX guys would love it, although they'd
 probably grumble about all the things that A/UX got right that
 linux gets wrong, religious fanatics that they are."

"But if MAE runs on Solaris, can't you just buy it for your Sparc?"

"The 6100 is only a few hundred dollars more, and it runs PowerPC
 binaries. MAE looks pretty bad next to an LC475, and won't do PowerPC
 native apps. It's really a way for Apple to repackage and resell the
 neat 68K emulator code that made the PowerMacs possible,
 nothing more. They've made noises about doing PowerMac emulation,
 but never in a million years will they do it. Emulating a RISC
 processor with a different RISC processor is a development
 nightmare, and performance would just suck."

"So if you want performance..."

"You go and you buy a real Pentium PC and stick linux or NT
 on it and you go and buy a 604-based Mac for doing Neat Stuff
 and you run real commercial shrinkware unix apps on the Sparc.
 You don't dick around with these weird 'compatible' cards."

"Exactly. Right. So why are you buying a 6100 anyway?"

"Oh, I like Macs, budget money is tight, they're dirt cheap and I
 wanted a memento of Apple. The DOS card is just a bonus.
 Besides, Word on the IIsi is a dog and I loathe using Framemaker
 on the Sparcs."

L.

linux - see <URL:http://mklinux.apple.com/>
MAE   - see <URL:http://www.mae.apple.com/>
-- 
<URL:http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/><mailto:L.Wood@surrey.ac.uk>


Follow-Ups: