Re: Virtual PC vs. SoftWindows - PC Emulators for the MAC

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

Mike Pfaiffer <pfaiffer@mbnet.mb.ca> wrote:

>Dulce Isler wrote:
>> 
>> Hi;
>> 
>>         I am a PC person who is seriously considering switching
>> systems to the IMAC DV Special Edition.  I have been told by Apple
>> Tech Support that Virtual PC will execute Windows 95 apps on the MAC
>> seemlessly without problems as long as there is atleast 128Mg RAM on
>> teh MAC.
>
>	I know little about virtual PC. I only know what I've heard from people
>who run it. Before I get into the nitty gritty of what people tell me
>I'll make a couple suggestions you will find useful. First, this is not
>a Macintosh group. You should be looking in the comp.sys.mac hierarchy
>rather than the Apple// hierarchy. Second, if set up properly a Mac is
>far more stable than any PC you will find (I own a few older machines of
>several types). The architecture of the machines differs quite a bit
>with the Mac architecture being about 10 years newer. Third, You should
>get the best Mac you can afford (it will be obsolete in six weeks anyhow
>so at least it will remain reasonable for a little while longer). In
>this case I think the best Mac out there is a G4 rather than the IMac.

10 years newer my ass!  Don't get me wrong, the G4 and the
DV edition iMac are fantastic products.  And that gigaflop
supercomputer rating resulting from the Velocity Engine is
impressive.  But there are some pretty fantastic stuff in the
PC world too, such as the AMD Athlon processor.  I'd like
to see the G4 matched against a 1Ghz kryo-cooled
AMD Athlon system.  The G4 is fast in floating point, but
can it keep up in day to day tasks against a 1Ghz CPU?
Intel Pentium III is not the only game in town, you know.

>>         Has anyone used VIrtual PC and if so, what are the pitfalls
>> and what are the benefits?
>
>	It's an emulator. With a couple of exceptions emulators generally run
>software slower than native mode applications. In short get the Mac
>version where ever possible. You WILL be impressed.

Speed is quite acceptable.  Actually, Pentium emulators
on the Mac are generally MORE optimized than Apple II
emulators for the Mac.  Frankly, the speed hit for running
PC software under the Mac is not going to be much more
than running 68k software under the PowerMac's 68k
emulation.

If I had a Mac, I'd get Virtual PC for sure, though.  There
are more games and software on the PC side of the isle.
Sure, get your Mac apps.  But get the PC ones too.
It is a CAPABILITY of the Mac, so why not use it?

>	Another pitfall is you are running PC software under Windoze. If you
>want a stable PC stay away from Micro$oft. Even if it is an emulator.
>Linux, Solaris, OS/2, DRDOS, and other operating systems may be a
>cheaper alternative.

Windows 95 is quite stable in my use.  I don't like messing
with the registry, though.

>>         Has anyone used Softwindows and if so, what are the pitfalls
>> and what are the benefits?
>
>	A benefit is if you are emulating Windoze and the virtual machine
>crashes, you do not have to restart your computer. Simply restart your
>virtual machine. Windoze seems to be the only "modern" operating system
>which does not have something similar built in.

On the contrary, when a Windows 95 program crashes,
nine times out of ten you can turn off that one
program by hitting Alt-Control-Delete, scrolling to the
frozen program, and ending the task.

One of those tasks can even be MacOS 8.1 running
under Gemulator from http://www.emulators.com/
the Mac emulator people.  ;-)