Conference bulova::decw_jan-89_to_nov-90

    A Macintosh emulator for DECW?

    Without the unlikely event of Apple "opening" the their proprietary
    technology, this is a practical (and perhaps legal) impossibility.

    Digital chose to use the MIT X Window system and its API, and chose for
    its toolkit an API and UI style, appearance, layout, and behavior quite
    different from the Macintosh.

    Superficially, they share a direct manipulation essence and artifacts
    such as buttons and menus.

    Closer approximations of this interface, Microsoft Windows, and Hewlett
    Packard New Wave, formed the basis of litigation by Apple against those
    vendors.

    Any hunk of glass, circuits and external interface can be a MIT X
    Windows Server, including the Macintosh.  It's a small matter of
    programming.  But it's a giant stretch to say that Macintosh
    applications would run on anything but a Macintosh on that basis. 
    Remember that "X server capability" means "X terminal capability" not
    "X applications capability".

>>    Wouldn't it be nice if there were a MACintosh emulator that could
>>    run ontop of DECwindows?   Is there ever a hope of such a thing?

Actually, I know of two independent efforts going on in this area.
It can certainly be built, and I'm sure that eventually it will be.

-steve-

    Apple has also announced an X-Windows Server for the Macintosh called
    MacX.  It is expected to work with the new Macintosh CommToolBox
    communications interface so that it will be able to use different
    protocols for connecting to X-Window Client machines (including
    DECwindows running on Ultrix and VMS).  I do not know when they expect
    to ship it.
    
    There is also Exodus from White Pines Software which is an X-Windows
    Server for the Macintosh.  I have seen this being demoed at MacWorld in
    August of this year.  I think this is available today.
    
    I don't know of any others, but then again, I don't remember half of
    what I know :-)
    
    As for a Macintosh emulator running over DECwindows, this is a 262144
    byte moving target (the Mac ROM).  It started out as a 64k ROM, grew to
    a 128K ROM, and is now at 256K.  Apple keeps changing the ROM.  For
    someone to reverse engineer the ROM in a clean room environment to
    avoid legal problems would be a massive effort (and an on going
    effort).  To date, the closest anyone has come is to build the
    hardware, but plug real Apple ROMs into it.  You couldn't do this with
    a software emulator.

    EXODUS is available from 800-DIGITAL, Q6-VMZ-CZ, about $230 internal.
    
    m
    

The Commodore Amiga has a product called AMAX which emulates a MAC.

It requires the MAC ROMS and if you want disk data, a MAC floppy drive.
From what I hear it runs better emulated on the Amiga than a real MAC!

Amiga's can emulate MAC's and IBM 286 PC's - all at once! They each run in 
a screen ( Amiga concept is you can have several screens, all of differing
resolution each having several windows in it. Screens sit "on top" of one
another and can be dragged up and down vertically with the mouse or depth
arranged just like windows).

So you can have a screen with Amiga DOS
		a screen with a MAC
		a screen with a 286 pc
But wait!
	and!	a screen with color X windows!

Amiga will even run UNIX soon...

Try that on *any* other machine of it's class (and many of higher 
class as well)!


John

Atari ST has Spectre GCR which with Mac 128k ROMS will run most Mac software
better than a Macplus and will read/write Mac disks in a regular Atari
drive.  Also various forms of PC emulation available.  Sorry, no X yet.
Has Minix, a Unix-like OS.

Mac emulation is possible with the ROMs.  Without, reverse engineering
would be difficult to do legally.  It would be nice however if someone
did it... :-)

Now back to your regularly scheduled DECwindows news.

Chad