Re: GS Emulator

[phillip@utstat.toronto.edu (Philip McDunnough)]

In article <2vp320$2b6@nuscc.nus.sg> ltchean@iss.nus.sg (Lim Thye Chean) writes:

[ ]

>The PowerMac in not actually a Mac. It is just a RISC machine running Mac
>emulation by DEFAULT. Apple just chose to call it Mac so that Mac people will
>think that it is a successor of Mac, that's all.
>
>If there is a GS emulator, then it is just PowerGS. Of course I don't mind
>running the Mac and GS emulator together. And with SoftWindows, this will be
>a good machine for us.

SoftWindows is not a very satisfactory product. Video refreshes are slow,
you need a lot of RAM and it only (so far) run Windows in standard mode.
Heck, Insignia has a hard time emulating a PC on a 486 under NEXTSTEP. I
really doubt the viability of software emulation of the Ensoniq. This was
tried once on the NeXT (and it had a DSP). In any case, the PowerPC is
yet another proprietary system at this time, at least until PREP comes
out and Apple commits to it. You'd be joining a corporate computing
culture where p.o.'s are the norm. Moreover, it's not as though the Mac OS
is a heck of a lot of fun. In short, I can't see why this would be a
good machine for many people. It would be a business computer, with a
weak OS. The Ensoniq, or an improved one, is key. And that simply won't
be there.

>Of course we all know that it is very difficult to write a GS emulator for
>Power PC. But this is a better way than say creating a new computer such as
>Avatar which runs nothing but the GS software. And as the software, it can
>be cheaper too.

The GS culture would whither away on a PowerPC. 


-- 
Philip McDunnough                    OR     P. McDunnough (U of Toronto-stats)
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