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- From: arends@Yosemite.metaphor.com (Dale M Arends)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc,comp.unix.misc
- Subject: Liken - Macintosh emulator
- Keywords: Macintosh Emulator UNIX 68000 SPARC
- Message-ID: <2527@cronos.metaphor.com>
- Date: 11 Sep 92 00:28:47 GMT
- Sender: news@cronos.metaphor.com
- Followup-To: comp.sys.mac.misc
- Distribution: na
- Organization: Metaphor Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
- Lines: 220
- Originator: arends@yosemite
-
- I recently had the occasion to evaluate Liken, a Macintosh emulator that
- runs on a SPARCstation. This is a copy of the evaluation report.
-
- Dale
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Dale M. Arends arends@Yosemite.Metaphor.com
- Metaphor Computer Systems, Inc. ...!uunet!metaphor!yosemite!arends
-
- Any opinions expressed herein are my own and not those of my employer. They
- probably aren't interested and maybe don't agree and therefore ...
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-
- Liken Evaluation
-
- by Dale M. Arends
-
-
- What is it Liken to?
-
- Wouldn't it be nice to be able to work on your Macintosh at home and, the next
- day, bring the document to the office and work on it there? "But," you say,
- "all I have at the office is a SPARCstation." Well, if you are using a
- common-platform application like FrameMaker, the only problem is moving the
- file since SPARCstations do not read Macintosh disks. "But," you say again,
- "my document is in a Macintosh only application format. What can I do?" Well,
- you do have an option.
-
- At the August A32 meeting, Sunburst Computers gave us a short demonstration
- of a Macintosh emulator called Liken from Xcelerated Systems, Inc. Critical,
- cynical soul that I am, I obtained an evaluation copy to try out on the
- SPARCstation IPC that I use at work.
-
- Depending on the purchased license, Liken is configurable by the user to
- either single- or multi- user. The licenses can be fixed, where only
- particular machines will be able to run Liken, or with floating licenses.
- This gives a good degree of flexibility for the user environment. During the
- configuration process, a fax to Xcelerated Systems will get an authorization
- key needed to complete the installation. (The return fax with the key came
- to me within one hour.) I tried it with a single user in both fixed and
- floating license mode.
-
- The Liken system itself consists of 2 high capacity diskettes and a users
- manual that I would rate somewhere between 5 and 6 on a scale of 10. The
- manual deals well with the general information and very well with problems
- and errors that may be encountered. It is rather weak in guiding the user
- through somewhat more complex areas like creating a new disk search path and
- having it recognized during boot-up. The information is frequently there,
- but retrieving it often requires playing hopscotch through the manual.
-
- Liken requires a minimum of 8 megabytes of RAM and at least 6 megabytes of
- free disk space plus space for the various Macintosh virtual hard disks.
- Liken actually emulates a 68000 processor onto which you load real Apple
- system software version 6.0.7 (on 1.44 Meg diskettes) for a Macintosh
- Classic. System 7 is not (yet?) supported, nor is MultiFinder.
-
- Short Technical diversion...
-
- Liken creates a 10 megabyte virtual hard disk on a path specified at
- installation time. This path may be local or on a server. More virtual hard
- disks can be defined, either local or on the server. The recommendation is
- to have a shared boot drive and each user having a local private drive.
-
- Since the Sun file system does not truly handle the dual forked Macintosh file
- structure, Liken splits the forks and stores the resources in a hidden
- directory in the user's home directory. In use, the separation is invisible
- to the user. However, care must be taken that files on the Macintosh disks
- are deleted from within the emulator so that both parts are properly removed.
-
- End of technical diversion, on with the good (and not so good) stuff...
-
- Once the installation and configuration is complete, a strangely familiar
- window is presented. Except for the fact that it is framed in an X11 (or
- OpenWindows) window, it looks like a Macintosh desktop, complete with MenuBar,
- Apple menu, and the rest. Icons are the Trash and the boot disk named
- SharedDisk (even if it isn't). Icons open and close with appropriate mouse
- clicks; the menus look complete and correct; even the Control Panel and its
- devices work as you expect. Windows appear almost exactly like the real
- Macintosh windows.
-
- Accessing the "About this Macintosh..." menu item shows
- the first drawback. This Macintosh is only a 4 megabyte machine! There is
- no way to increase the available RAM, despite the amount in the SPARCstation.
- Well, without MultiFinder that should not be too much of a problem. Nor is
- the fixed 10 megabyte size of the boot drive changeable. However, this is
- not too important as you can create a larger virtual drive and use that for
- general purposes. Subsequent virtual disk drives are limited by available
- disk space.
-
- Liken claims to emulate a monochrome Mac Classic. I can't verify the
- comparison to a Classic, but it is definitely slower than my Mac IIcx. This
- may well be due to the fact that Liken emulates a 68000 rather than a 68030.
- Still, it is eminently usable for most things. One difference from
- Macintoshes is that the SPARCstation has a three-button mouse. This fact
- is dealt with in a surprising manner. The left button is recognized as the
- normal Macintosh mouse button. The center button acts as a latching version
- of the Macintosh mouse button. This simply means that it acts as if you
- pressed and held the regular button, and resets at the next button press.
-
- This seems almost counter-intuitive to me so I didn't use this one much.
- The right button is not used as a Macintosh mouse button. Instead it brings
- up Liken's utility menu.
-
- Liken's utility menu allows you to set up the emulation preferences and
- change the configuration. It also deals with another difference between
- the emulation and a real Macintosh. The SPARCstation does not recognize
- diskette insertion events. To deal with this, the utility menu has a
- selection for "Use current diskette" that mounts the floppy diskette in the
- internal drive. External floppy diskette drives are not recognized but an
- external CD-ROM drive can be used. Liken reads and writes real Macintosh
- diskettes. However, it cannot format the diskettes. Diskettes must be
- formatted on another Mac, a PC, or using the SPARCstation's UNIX `fdformat'
- command. Once formatted, the diskettes can be initialized and erased as
- Macintosh diskettes.
-
- Also in this utility menu are selections for changing the screen size.
- Liken allows you to select the desktop size you want from selections that
- include 512x342, 640x480, and 1024x768. If you want, there is also an
- option for 2x magnification.
-
- Ok, what works and what doesn't...
-
- Two biggies do not work! Neither MultiFinder nor System 7 are supported.
- I would hope that they are to be supported soon, or at least System 7. At
- that time the limitation of 4 megabytes of RAM would need to be addressed.
- Also, since the emulation is of a 68000 Mac Classic, programs that require
- a 68020 or 68030 (or MMU/FPU), or color, are out of luck.
-
- In the couple of weeks that I was able to use it, Liken showed that it was
- capable of running most of the applications I needed, including one I wrote
- myself in 1984 and have not recompiled since then. The documentation that
- comes with Liken contains a fairly long list of applications that are supposed
- to work. I won't go into them except to say that the list includes most of
- the common applications for production of documents, spreadsheets, and graphs.
- Microsoft Word 4.0 and Excel 3.0 both were able to deal with the documents
- and problems I gave them. Graphics programs are represented in the list but
- to a smaller degree.
-
- Printing is supported in, what I feel, is a partial solution. As things are
- now, the Liken manuals suggest that the Apple LaserWriter NT be installed.
- This is selected through the Chooser, as usual, and printing goes out through
- the UNIX `lpr' command to the default system printer. Command line parameters
- for the `lpr' command can be modified in the Liken utility menu. I would much
- rather see Liken be able to read the UNIX printcap file and generate named
- printer icons for the Chooser to allow selecting the desired printer. Still,
- printing works as efficiently as on a true Macintosh.
-
- Many of the more popular maintenance utilities, such as Norton Utilities, do
- not work. Nor was I able to get either Disinfectant or Gatekeeper to work.
- On the other hand, while Compact Pro 1.33 worked well, StuffIt Deluxe was very
- touchy and StuffIt Expander worked not at all. Apple's ResEdit 2.1.1 works
- but is very touchy. Font/DA Mover 3.9 gave no trouble at all. From this I get
- the feeling that the slightest unusual circumstance or programming technique
- will crash the system (Liken, not UNIX).
-
- Games have a very poor showing. This is not surprising and probably caused
- by the same situation that will cause many utilities, INITs and CDEVs to fail;
- non-standard coding practices. Emulations usually have a hard time with
- programs that step outside of the basic functional shell. Practices like
- drawing directly to the screen or writing directly into assumed safe memory
- is likely to crash emulators and Liken is no exception. Most programs that
- behave themselves and "follow the rules" seem to work.
-
- Conclusions and other stuff...
-
- In evaluating Liken, I did not give it as thorough a workout as I would have
- if I had more time and applications available. In all, I tried about fifteen
- various applications and utilities. My intent was to see if it could serve
- as a Macintosh adjunct in a mixed Macintosh/Sun business environment. In
- all, I feel that Liken is a viable addition to such an environment if the
- user is predominately a UNIX user with an occasional need for a Macintosh.
- It does not have sufficient speed or capabilities (yet?) to take the place
- of real Macintoshes in a production environment. My main reservations
- are the speed and memory size available. System 7 needs to be supported.
-
- One concern I had is the effect on a server when using Liken across a network.
- With the configuration set for a floating license, I had some timing tests
- running on my machine while using Liken from a remote logon. The impact on
- the server was apparent but not unduly so. A multi-user license would require
- a server with more horsepower than my IPC.
-
- On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the best, I would give Liken a clean,
- solid 7. What it does, it does well; it simply needs the next evolutionary
- step. I look forward to seeing it.
-
- Miscellaneous...
-
- The version of SunOS on the SPARCstation is 4.1 running X11R4.
- The version of Liken evaluated is 1.2.
- The version of the Macintosh OS is 6.0.7 with SuperClock 3.9.1, Preview 1.0
-
- Sunburst Computers can be reached at:
-
- Sunburst Computers
- 500 Mansion Court, Suite 115
- Santa Clara CA 95054
- 408-727-8166
-
- Xcelerated Systems, Inc. can be reached at:
-
- Xcelerated Systems, Inc.
- 3944 Murphy Canyon Road, #C201
- San Diego CA 92123
- 619-576-3080
-
- Liken starts at about $695US for the single user license. Multi-user
- licenses come in 10, 25, and 50 license packages and are significantly
- more expensive.
-
- All registered and non-registered trademarks are the property of their
- respective owners.
-
-
- --
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Dale M. Arends arends@Yosemite.Metaphor.com
- Metaphor Computer Systems, Inc. ...!uunet!metaphor!yosemite!arends
-
- Any opinions expressed herein are my own and not those of my employer. They
- probably aren't interested and maybe don't agree and therefore ...
-