Popular Intel-PC emulation software VirtualPC will not run on the G5 Powermacs. Microsoft, the new VirtualPC owner, says that compatability will have to wait until the next full version of the software, a year away. In other news, FWB, the makers of once VirtualPC-rival RealPC, will not be porting their product to Mac OS X. The current management decries the former management’s hyping “vaporware” by promising a new version of RealPC.
<sarcasm>Well now I’m shocked. Microsoft won’t make the modifications to allow the VirtualPC program run on G5’s, which now presents their platform with major competition again? What’s next? HBO not selling “Sex and the City” to Showtime?</sarcasm>
this is a perfect example of Microsoft stifiling the competition. Now, if Microsoft hadn’t bought VirtualPC back in march, you know that VirtualPC would have been working their buns off to make a 6.5 update to allow it to work on the PowerMac G5, especially considering it would actually RUN smooth enough to use when using the new hardware.
Microsoft is now in a position to sit on the project, and customers that depend on this software for proprietary in house applications made only for windows can’t upgrade to a G5. So Microsoft essentially is costing many many orders for Apple’s newest hit of a machine.
I have to wonder how similar the G4 archecture (sp) to the G5? What I mean is, how much work would it take to emulate an Intel Pentium CPU on a G5? Is it simply a matter of patching up the G4 code, or would it take a massive rewrite?
Is MS really just ‘sitting on the project’, or does this kind of thing actually take time to code?
that’s how the game is played and MS plays it TOO well. Perhaps Apple should have purchased connectix then ..gee, if they did it would just be called a purchase and not stifling.
While you can bitch about Microsoft all you want, I wonder how much effect this will have for most users. I mean, I have used Macs as a daily platform on and off for almost 10 years, and when I use them, there are all the same, or equally good replecments of, the programs I use on Windows. Anyways, you should be supporting programmers and companies that support your platform, IMHO! I know that there are some people out ther who are absolutly stuck, but for the vast majority of users, I have to seriously wonder how much this is really going to matter.
As for the P4 emulation issue that Darius asked about, it is almost a non-issue. It is almost trivial (as far as emulation work goes) to emulate an x86 chip on a PPC chip, due to the ubundance of registers of the PPC. This is also why you will never see a PPC emulator on x86. The x86 doesn’t have enough registers to properly emulate a PPC ISA without a LOAD of kludgy work arounds. The real issue is how much of VPC is written in G3-4 optimized assembly language. I am willing to wager that it is quite a lot (every emulation routine to be sure, plus probably quite a few other more general routines). I think that is the fact that they will have to port all this asm that is holding them back. That, and the fact that they probably have one guy with a BSc working on it
who has first presented the news? fwb or m$?
Sounds so much like MS,,,,,,,they will end up blaming Apple again for thier own problem of “sitting on the project”. Adobe on the other hand came right out with a patch for Photoshop, and so did other companies for the new G5’s.
I hope some other company picks up on Microsofts failures like Adobe did to Quark and gain market share. It’s MS’s own fault if it continues to loose shares to Linux and Apple.
Gates lives in his own distortion field!
It uses G3/4 (Motorola) specific features:
“Virtual PC relies on a feature of the G3/G4 processors called ‘pseudo little-endian mode’ for increased performance when emulating a Pentium processor…. Because the new G5 processor does not support this feature, large portions of the VPC for Mac program must be rewritten and carefully tested to work properly on the G5 CPU.”
There is no ‘Global Conspiracy’ folks. Though MS my not be working very hard on it, a computer emulator is a lot more difficult and CPU dependant than something like Adobe Photoshop that another poster mentioned. Comparing the two is like comparing a watermellon with an ’59 Cadillac Coupe DeVille, they are really that different.
the g5 supports the “pseudo little-endian mode” as defined in the technical paper (ibm).
So typical of Mac users to blame MS for everything. I think someone on Slashdot said it best: There’s no need for a MS emulator because you can easily buy a PC for $300!!!!!
I don’t doubt that to convert something like this would take a lot of effort on the part of the developers, but really, M$ is the richest company in the world, with a daily income of something aproaching $1 Billion US a day, I’m sorry, but if they wanted to they could have this done in a week it would be so. The fact that its being held back (by lack of funding) shows us all what we already knew: Microsoft will attempt to stomp any competition it sees in the shortest possible time. This is what most monopolies do when they are given as much power as they have.
We all knew that when Gates bought up the company that this sort of tactic was on the cards and people get suprised when it happens…. Come off it folks.
Conspiricy theory? nope, just look at their actions at every stage when M$ have been presented with a threat. Better yet, talk to some of their former partners (The smart phone people come to mind at this point….).
A final point would be that as an Apple Developer they would have had ample time to get ready for this. IE they would have known about the upcomming PPC macs long before the public did. The fact that they are so behind can be partly layed off on the fact of the buyout, but by no means all of that time can be explained away.
“I hope some other company picks up on Microsofts failures like Adobe did to Quark and gain market share.”
Hence the significance of the FWB announcement. RealPC was way behind VPC, and that was the ONLY hope for some competition.
Hopefully, FWB can right the ship quickly and find value in renewing the project.
Damn you, Incompetent Executives!
I wonder, why every time something goes wrong people start to blame Microsoft. In this particular case, why not blame Apple? I hardly beleive that Apple was unaware of the issue with VirtualPC. I also hardly beleive that Apple, when announced its new G5s, was unaware of the fact that many people will buy new machines mostly to improve the speed of VirtualPC. So, I would like to ask: why early G5 buyers became aware of the incompatibility only when they received their orders?
With all respect TC, you are severly missing the point. The target market for a VPC buyer is someone who uses the Mac primarily but needs a few select Windows programs that do not exist on the Mac. Why go through the hassle of maintaining TWO computers just for a few apps? Really. What, with the switch-box you’d need and the trouble-shooting skills you’d now have to learn on a new platform. UGH! The headache !
I really hope Apple will make a change in their strategy, so that they won’t signal “We’ve got the same programs as Windows”, but instead “We’ve got better programs than Windows. All of the Microsoft programs on Macintosh are old versions of crappy software anyway (IE 5 anyone??), except maybe the Office X – but that’s still a major income. Safari needs to be the default browser and they could market the Mac as having an exclusive, fast and stable Browser, as opposed to the having the slowest, most featurelacking (no tabs??) browser. Think different I tell you!
I’m not a Mac-user, but I’ve fallen in love with the machines lately, trying them out when ever I can and some day I hope to finally get to own one… with an Ipod of course!
Is VirtualPC or RealPC necessary. If Apple were to back the Bochs project, could they not do for it what they have done for XFree86 on Apple? Maybe even use this as a sub system to run windows programs rootless
The idea that a program such as VirtualPC can emulate another platform with any reasonable speed is laughable. The only time I have recommended VirtualPC is when a user has a program that is available only for Windows and only when they need to use that program OCCASIONALLY! If they find themselves using VirtualPC on a regular basis then they should really consider buying a PC.
Maybe it will run Linux on Windows XP. The stability of XP and the compatibility of Linux and the raw processing power of the i86.
Apple has demonstrated that if there are apps that their customers want or an app that is stagnanting them in a particular field then Apple will do the job themselves. If there is a massive demand for X86 emulation on Mac then Apple will make an X86 emulator.
I would advocate that people look to Mac software developers for native software programs. I think X86 emulators come in handy but for the majority of Mac users its not necessary. An old PC with an OS will be cheaper than a retail copy of VPC anyway.
So typical of Mac users to blame MS for everything. I think someone on Slashdot said it best: There’s no need for a MS emulator because you can easily buy a PC for $300!!!!!
I have to agree. While emulation is in some ways more convenient because you can just run it on your single Mac, buying a PC makes sense. Get the cheapest thing out there for about the price of the emulation software and use it for your Windows-only software packages. There’s plenty of cheap, low/zero footprint pc’s (like the ones built into a keyboard) that would do the trick. It would work out better than emulation ever will and you can even use one of those monitor switchers to share a monitor. Best part is the Mac networks very well with Windows. Heck, you have the added advantage of using the Windows drive for backups, etc.
I’m a full blown Mac user (I currently have six) but I also have a PC laptop. The stuff’s cheap – so who cares, just buy one. Heck pick up the deal at your local store with the free printer and software – there’s always a deal.
yeah I have to agree, buying a cheapo pc probably is the way to go,,,,,,,,forget virtual pc, buy a real one!
I was just wondering if any one knows if it’s possible that there’s a PCI card that could effectively hold a mobo and processor so you could boot into Windows. I don’t claim to know the logistics of such a thing, but wondered if it was possible – I’ve heard of things like that in the past. I even think there used to be a Mac that would boot into DOS becasue of a PC card (Post-Pre-Jobs).
Back in the day there was a company called orange PC they made a really basic PC addin board for MAC. That should be reinstated.
Those PC’s on a card were hideously expensive and just a major pain. Your back to just buying a PC and being done with it.
I remember those old macs that ran dos as well as macOS. You could actually be running both at the same time and switch back and forth with a hotkey combination. I don’t think you’d be able to do exactly that through a PCI card, but I bet you could do something that mimmics VPC.
My wife uses a Geninue Apple PCI card 166MHz Pentium today on a OS 9 Mac. It is considerably faster than VPC on the G3/500 machine. I picked it up for $50 on eBay, but was $$$ when new.
I also use a $299 eMachine (1.8GHz) for misc stuff, feeding my MP3, and working on my TiVo.
Or did the majority of you just start knee jerking from the title ?
It stated the G5 does not support a function of the G3 and G4 that VPC relied upon heavily.
The same developers at connectix are still working on the project I’m sure. You think they would have told MS it was going to take a year if it didn’t ?
Get real and grow up.
I think thats probably the best idea. Get a used one. PC’s resell for dirt cheap. People will often give their PC’s away when they upgrade.
there’s an addition for wine allowing cpu emulation at much the same level virtualpc or vmware use – meaning not as perfect as bochs, but perfect enough to run most software.
it’s meant to someday allow wine to run windows software even on other hardware (like ppc).
i wonder if this little beast wouldn’t be a better solution for the current x86-emulation-lack than bochs (for bochs being slow).
http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/qemu-doc.html
does anyone in here have some insight? would qemu be usefull in this context?
I believe I know exactly what those guys in Redmond are up to. They no
longer want to develop apps for the Mac so they plan to use Virtual PC to
seamlessly run Windows Office on the Mac. It will work just like Mac
Classic in OS-X and will be an integrated part of the MS Office suite for
Mac. So when MS Word is launched the emulator kicks in and now you are using the full current Windows version of MS Office. If they actually
implement this then this would be a plus for Mac Office users since the Mac and PC version would fully 100% compatible, this is not the case with Office v.X.
I have Virtual PC running on my work Mac with Windows2000 and MS Office and I can say that on my dual 800 MHz system the emulated windows version of Excel and Word launch faster than the Office v.X on the Mac. Once inside the app it does run slower but not horrendously slow. So I think speed will not be an issue especially once MS tweaks the source code to exploit the Office and windows specific features- besides how dam fast do you need to add/subtract numbers and do basic word processing – I know MS needs a lot more than other companies but still this is no sweat for 1+ GHz machines.
So I suspect that the next version of Office for the Mac will be the last OS-X specific version and the rest will be Windows emulated versions.
The part about the G5 being different than the G3/G4 and requiring a re-write appears to be legit but this also affords MS the perfect time to make the Mac Office transition to Windows Office.
When it comes to MS or Linux all Apple users cry foul when something goes wrong, its in their nature, Tyhe only computing poulation that sits there and buys Public Beta after Public Beta and doesnt complain. They are only complaining because the muck up is MS related, if it was, Apples new G5 explodes when you turn on the tower, you would not hear one complaint, but as soon as MS says that a Mac product isnt ready for market you hear, MS hates Apple, MS is stifling the market, MS is trying to enhance its monopoly position, and my favorite, MS sucks. Dont get all bent out of shape folks Im almost positive that there is some smart guy or gal out there working on a Hack so you will be able to run VPC on the G5
I agree, for the price of the software, it makes more sense to just pick up a cheap PC. Heck, I’ve seen tons of used 450 to 500 Mhz P3’s with 128mb of ram and decent sized hard drives for under $200!! Just hit a local computer show and pick up a cheap PC.
It’ll work MUCH better than vpc. I know I’d rather put my money into hardware than software. But that’s just me…
I see it this way, the more hardware the better…. But then I’m a geek.
Personally, I think this is funny. If VPC has a lot of its core written in G4 assembly, you think the developers can just work one weekend and have everything ported to a G5 like that?
Yes indeed, the same coders who worked on VirtualPC at Connectix are still working on it, so quit with the MS bashing already
“I hope some other company picks up on Microsofts failures like Adobe did to Quark and gain market share.”
I thought OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris are already doing this.
Even that’s a little high. I could grab a used PII400Mhz, 64MB of ram, 4.3GB HDD off vfxweb.com for around $60 USD. Sink another $75 worth of RAM and HDD space into it, and you’ve got a decent little machine that’ll probably significantly outperform VPC emulation on all but the latest-and-greatest Macs.
From ZDNET
“It will be in the next (full) version of Virtual PC,” a Microsoft representative said Wednesday, adding that a new edition of Virtual PC is expected within a year. In addition, the representative said the release is due at about the same time as the launch of Office 11, the next version of Office for the Mac. Earlier this month, Microsoft said it was working on Office 11 but would not comment on when it might be ready.
If I were ever to buy a Mac, I don’t really see that I would ever need a virtualized copy of Windows XP. I am a FreeBSD user, and the only thing I keep a copy of Windows around for is for the odd game of Arcanum (which doesn’t yet run under any version of WINE (Grrr)).
I am sure that some people have legitimate uses (and need for) VirtualPC and its ilk, but to be perfectly honest, I can’t think of any meaninful software (other than something coded in house which should probably have been ported to OS X anyway if one in such a position was to make the switch) that doesn’t run on both Windows and Macs.
Furthermore, not only do modern Mac users have Mac OS X native apps, Java apps that run faster than on any other platform that I’ve tried, BSD apps, GNU apps, and “Classic” Mac apps. What functionality *could* they seriously be missing? It’s been my experience that emulated software is seriously slow, so it’s unlikely that VPC would be used for games.
I am just ranting here for the hell of it, but please, anyone feel free to enlighten me if they have any insight regarding the last few points I’ve made, specifically on any missing functionality in modern Macs.
wonder, why every time something goes wrong people start to blame Microsoft.
well, microsoft does own vpc… who else would we blame? god? random people on the street? you?
I would like to ask: why early G5 buyers became aware of the incompatibility only when they received their orders?
i would like to ask why ms only made the announcement after g5 buyers made their orders…
When it comes to MS or Linux all Apple users cry foul when something goes wrong, its in their nature, Tyhe only computing poulation that sits there and buys Public Beta after Public Beta and doesnt complain. They are only complaining because the muck up is MS related, if it was, Apples new G5 explodes when you turn on the tower, you would not hear one complaint….
This is obviously a post by someone who knows not whereof he speaks. The Mac community is very vocal about Apple’s shortcomings. It’s just that with all Apple’s faults (and they have plenty), the Mac is still far superior to Windows.
To the many who suggest buying a PC, that’s a great idea. Now tell me how to copy something from an application on the PC and paste it into one on the Mac, and you’ll have me convinced.
“I believe I know exactly what those guys in Redmond are up to. They no
longer want to develop apps for the Mac so they plan to use Virtual PC to
seamlessly run Windows Office on the Mac. It will work just like Mac
Classic in OS-X and will be an integrated part of the MS Office suite for
Mac. So when MS Word is launched the emulator kicks in and now you are using the full current Windows version of MS Office. If they actually
implement this then this would be a plus for Mac Office users since the Mac and PC version would fully 100% compatible, this is not the case with Office v.X. ”
man you are nuts. i have both systems, and office for apple is a much better program.
….and it still ain’t that good.
“i would like to ask why ms only made the announcement after g5 buyers made their orders…”
Perhaps Apple didn’t want this info getting out before people placed their orders?
“The Mac community is very vocal about Apple’s shortcomings.”
FAR more so than the lemmings on the Windows side who accept everything coming out of Redmond with nary a peep.
The Microsoft apologists ask why we would immediately blame this on some nefarious plot of Billy G’s… Hell, take off the blinders and look at the history of the company! Actually, don’t. Too many of you would see the truth. We can’t have that can we?
To the many who suggest buying a PC, that’s a great idea. Now tell me how to copy something from an application on the PC and paste it into one on the Mac, and you’ll have me convinced.
You may consider buying a PC capable with WindowsXP Pro without a display. Then you can use Microsoft’s free Remote Desktop Connection client form OS X to work in Windows environment. Copy/Paste works in this setup, just tried it.
And, by the way, in which area exactly Macs are _far_ superior to Windows?
I work on Mac and already got gentile cracker jack PC.
I want VPC for my next G5 to test my web site for IE pc. I dont want anymore to work with two keybord, two screen ……. and three mouse button.
MS are so foreseeable.
Nice day everybody
Al
i would like to ask why ms only made the announcement after g5 buyers made their orders…
The developers probably had to assess how much work was truly involved.
There is that phase of shock for a developer when an app breaks with new hardware/OS. Then the mad scamble to find a quick hack to pull it off. Then when you calm down and look at the problem you realize you’ve got a lot of work ahead of you.
Thats when you tell your customers. You don’t say one day its an easy fix just to turn around the next and tell everyone it will be a long haul.
Assessment of the situation.
The Microsoft apologists ask why we would immediately blame this on some nefarious plot of Billy G’s… Hell, take off the blinders and look at the history of the company! Actually, don’t. Too many of you would see the truth. We can’t have that can we?
It just pains me to have hardware freedom. I’d much rather just take whatever apple shovel feeds me.
MS may not be the best company around but at least they don’t try and control the whole equation a’la apple style.
The truth is that both Apple and MS are bloated and anal companies that want to control it all. One just happened to get bigger than the other.
Lest we forget that these two companies were working together very early on when they were founded.
First thing first : do you really think people will buy a G5 to emulate a PC? A PC fully equiped is a lot cheaper. And still faster
A 500 to 600$ PC will blow away the virtualized PC 
And erhmm… Apple has bought software too and they too have cut the product on Windows. (I’m thinking about some video editing apps… just for the sake of example).
Microsoft has his market. They just extend it a bit on Apple computer, they are not obliged in any way to continue to devellop Virtual PC for the Mac. They still do continue it. So why do you complain?
holy cow!! I never thought about that (seriously)
I have Remote DTC for mac but just played with it, if you can copy paste like that, then that is one cool way to forget VPC!!
you know what is funny, MS is becomming bolder and bolder in their attempts to control the OEMs PC configurations.
many people think that one day MS will jsut come out with their own computer (some evolution of the X Box?)
then where will you be? a Linux user I assume since you love hardware freedom.
they are not obliged in any way to continue to devellop Virtual PC for the Mac
That why they buy VPC to stop the development. You can be pro MS, but please don’t be innocence.
Al
Nice day
because im guessing a lot of mac people don’t want to “really” own windows,,,,,,,,so they by vpc……..my guess..thats why they don’t buy a pc.
While some will say (perhaps rightly so) that products such as Virtual PC for OS/2 or Virtual PC for the Mac only appeal to niche markets, I would suggest that Virtual PC itself is a niche product, and the versions VPC developed for alternative platforms are perhaps the most useful to their users.
By cutting off or limiting the development of non-Windows versions of VPC, Microsoft’s action becomes one more in a long line of actions intended to lessen the appeal of non-Windows platforms.
I don’t think that FWB can be counted on to issue a usable version of RealPC.
http://www.macminute.com/2003/08/27/realpc
It was just a rumor that they would.
By cutting off or limiting the development of non-Windows versions of VPC, Microsoft’s action becomes one more in a long line of actions intended to lessen the appeal of non-Windows platforms.
Just a question – do you really think that VPC for Windows would be a useful product?
To the many who suggest buying a PC, that’s a great idea. Now tell me how to copy something from an application on the PC and paste it into one on the Mac, and you’ll have me convinced.
VNC. Or the aforementioned RDesktop.
I dont want anymore to work with two keybord, two screen ……. and three mouse button.
Then get a KVM switch.
By cutting off or limiting the development of non-Windows versions of VPC, Microsoft’s action becomes one more in a long line of actions intended to lessen the appeal of non-Windows platforms.
You have to be able to justify the development costs of a piece of software before anything.
OS/2 ? IBM themselves won’t barely touch that OS, why should MS or anyone waste one red cent writing software for it ?
OS/2 is dying a long and slow death, has been since version 1.0.
I don’t think any software project in this day and age could justify an OS/2 port, unless you are just programming for kicks its a money losing proposition for sure.
I am sure that some people have legitimate uses (and need for) VirtualPC and its ilk, but to be perfectly honest, I can’t think of any meaninful software (other than something coded in house which should probably have been ported to OS X anyway if one in such a position was to make the switch) that doesn’t run on both Windows and Macs.
Well, there’s tons of niche software that probably won’t be ported to the Mac for one. Off hand, I’m thinking of the 3D modeling and Animation software, which has gotten a lot better on the Mac. Still can’t get Softimage or 3D Studio and so forth. Lots of CAD stuff Rhino, etc.
Business software, like accounting – not talking QuickBooks caliber – but like company-wide payroll kind of stuf,f inventory management and beyond.
The list really is large, and while I agree that there can often be another solution, in some cases that either isn’t true or isn’t cost effective (training, new licenses, etc.)
because im guessing a lot of mac people don’t want to “really” own windows,,,,,,,,so they by vpc……..my guess..thats why they don’t buy a pc.
Well, kind of an odd school of thought since VPC comes with a real copy of Windows… oh, and VPC is owned by Microsoft. Would just be really silly to reject buying a PC for those reasons.
By cutting off or limiting the development of non-Windows versions of VPC, Microsoft’s action becomes one more in a long line of actions intended to lessen the appeal of non-Windows platforms.
By cutting off or limiting the development of non-Mac versions of Shake, Apple’s action becomes one more in a long line of actions intended to lessen the appeal of non-Mac platforms.
If Microsoft does ever release a version of VPC that runs on a G5, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s loaded with wait statements to slow it down.
On another note, what a coincidence that FWB has new managment which is canning it’s pc emulator. I think the fact that Microsoft bought Virtual PC, FWB is canning their pc emulator software, and SCO is going after Linux are all releated or have a common thread. Call me a conspiricy fruitcake but these 3 things have all happened at roughly the same time and these 3 actions benefit and/or protect one company.
– Mark
Birdfeeder is correct, TC! BTW — you can’t get a decent PC laptop for $300, unless you buy something used, which means older architecture and slower speeds. What business person wants to lug around 2 laptops – one for Windows and one Mac. To really have penetration in business, Apple has to have to be able to offer a quality laptop (which it has) and be able to run the occasional Windows programs (with an emulator). Of particular interest to business users, who would rather carry an Apple laptop, will be if the Windows emulator can run in house or proprietary software well. VPC does fine with most off the shelf stuff, but is not a reliable shell for those Windows programs that are done by in-house or proprietary programmers — particularly on the lower speed processors. Hence the interest in higher speed, more robust machines for the business user that prefers a Mac.
MacFixIt broke this story on Monday, yet all the other sites act like it is their original article.
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20030825093338670
“Call me a conspiracy fruitcake.”
Okay: you’re a conspiracy fruitcake.
One of the VPC/Mac developers has been talking about the technical problems on the G5 in some detail on the Mac OS X Talk mailing list. This is a really obscure feature of the G3/G4 processors. IBM’s general documentation (written before the PPC970) for the PowerPC line says that the G5 still supports it, the VPC developers say, no, the 970 actually doesn’t.
Should Microsoft have figured this one out earlier? Of course. Should Apple have mentioned it if they knew about it? Of course. Should IBM have maybe looked into this in the first place, since VPC uses code licensed from IBM? Without a doubt.
But crap happens. VPC isn’t something Microsoft wrote, and unless Connectix had early access to the G5, they wouldn’t have done this testing. And nobody at Microsoft likely even thought about this until after the Connectix acquisition happened. Those who don’t want to believe that big “smart” companies don’t drop the ball like this all the time either don’t work in the private sector or work for an exceptionally self-aware firm. This kind of stupidity happens all the time. A telecom company I worked at a few years ago regularly found billing errors where they hadn’t been charging people for T3 connections for more than a year, or the reverse–they’d kept charging other telecom companies for trunk connections that no longer existed. This wasn’t an effort to “get away with anything,” and as proof I point out that the other telecom companies kept paying because their internal processes were just as screwed up as ours were.
There’s an old saying: “never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.” This applies to many, many things in life, but nothing more so than business and government (which are very much alike in all the wrong ways, despite what many people would like to believe when they blame the world’s ills entirely on “big government” or “big business”).
This is not an issue, MS will upgrade VPC and hopefully the MBU does it. MS was caught by surprise by the specs of the G5 as were a lot of people so Apple may have intentionally left them in the dark regarding the G5, no real news here.
RealPC failed their timeline to ship an OSX compatible version of RealPC several weeks ago so they never even started out of the gate.
If PC emulation via VPC becomes stagnant and it is high demand app I am fully confident that the programmers at Apple can come up with a very good VPC replacement.
Has anybody seen the SunPCi III coprocessor card for Sun computers? I first heard about this today in another forum.
Seems to me that this would be a nice alternative solution to VPC or FWB. In fact, I think I would rather have a real pc on a pci card instead of a software solution.
Anybody know if there are any available for Apple computers?
(I emailed sun asking if there are plans to have a card like this for Mac’s. Waiting for answer).
– Mark
<sarcasm>Well now I’m shocked. Microsoft won’t make the modifications to allow the VirtualPC program run on G5’s, which now presents their platform with major competition again? What’s next? HBO not selling “Sex and the City” to Showtime?</sarcasm>
G5 presents x86 with major competition? The only people wiling to buy a G5 already own Macs of they own, and “Switchers” are a very very small minority. Just to prevent a odd thousand few from change platforms seems like a astupid idea for Microsoft to prevent the release of VirtualPC for G5 which can earn millions.
Plus, Microsoft have little to nothing to loose with people buying a Mac and VirtualPC which comes with Windows (and they charge higher for this edition of Windows than normal OEM versions). If Intel is the current owner of VirtualPC, that is a different thing altogether.
And ever considered that Microsoft may not want to release VirtualPC for G5 because of technical reasons? That never cross your mind? Of course not.
” And ever considered that Microsoft may not want to release VirtualPC for G5 because of technical reasons? That never cross your mind? Of course not.”
The only technical reason I can think of is that VPC may run faster on G5.
Lets not kid ourselves by thinking that Microsoft does not have the financial and technical resources. In this instance they just need time to code it for G5.
spaceboy29: Sounds so much like MS,,,,,,,they will end up blaming Apple again for thier own problem of “sitting on the project”. Adobe on the other hand came right out with a patch for Photoshop, and so did other companies for the new G5’s.
Tell me how is Photoshop – a fucking image manipulation program, can compare with Virtual PC, mostly a x86 emulator written in assembly? Sorry, I can’t see the similarities. Different applications may need just a simple patch for it to work, others don’t need anything to work but a patch can optimize it. For Virtual PC?
Alan: I don’t doubt that to convert something like this would take a lot of effort on the part of the developers, but really, M$ is the richest company in the world, with a daily income of something aproaching $1 Billion US a day
Actually, they income is quite far from a billion a day, and they only (only?) have 40 billion dough. Now, the big problem is why would Microsoft invest too much money into one project just to speed up development when their returns isn’t all that high? Microsoft isn’t here to do charity for Apple or Virtual PC users.
Besides, there is a misconception. They just can’t increase the budget to, say, 100 million bucks, using that money to hire a whole lot of programmers and expect something by the end of the week. People aren’t like that. They can’t just get into code they never seen before and write as much as they can within a week (or month..).
Virtual PC depends on the processor and the architecture for emulation, to speed up the process. Sure, they can dop just like BOCHS but that wouldn’t be fast, no? I’m willing to bet certain portions of the emulator needs to be rewritten for it just to work, and maybe a whole lot more to be properly optimized.
there’s an addition for wine allowing cpu emulation at much the same level virtualpc or vmware use – meaning not as perfect as bochs, but perfect enough to run most software.
Wine out of the box can’t run anything interesting, you have to tweak it real bad. Can’t imagine many Mac users going down the config files to the command line for that… 🙂
frymaster: well, microsoft does own vpc… who else would we blame? god? random people on the street? you?
Nobody?
Why must somebody be blamed for something? Well, in all logic, the proper person to blame is Connectix, which wrote it all in G4 assembly… :-).
frymaster: i would like to ask why ms only made the announcement after g5 buyers made their orders…
So Apple wouldn’t cry foul?
Rick M: the Mac is still far superior to Windows.
You just opened the gateways of flamewar!
Shane: ….and it still ain’t that good.
….compared to what?
Well, I agree with you, I would prefer Office v.X to Office XP, but for the features, rather for the UI.
The only technical reason I can think of is that VPC may run faster on G5.
G5 is faster – so what? Microsoft doesn’t make any processors, they need not owe any allegiance to the x86 platform. So if half of the world buys G5s, they’d be happy (temporarily of course) if most of them bought VirtualPC.
Lets not kid ourselves by thinking that Microsoft does not have the financial and technical resources. In this instance they just need time to code it for G5.
You are kidding yourself in thinking Microsoft would put money into something where there is no hope of return. VirtualPC goes after a small market, which doesn’t give much room for Microsoft to make profit. As for technical resources – Microsoft probably knows less about the PPC platform than the Connectix developers, and certainly isn’t that great in G5 resources either.
This ranks up there with “OMFG MAC IS USELESS WITHOUT OFFICE HOLY CRAP!”.
My ass.
VPC is useful, sure. But if the entire freaking userbase DEPENDED on it- like the wintel crowd seems to think we DEPEND on windows- I’d be using it at work.
Yet, strangely, somehow…. everything I need to do that can be done on windows can be done on the Mac. Minus a couple of pesky apps like 3dStudio MAX.
VPC is useful, sure. But if the entire freaking userbase DEPENDED on it- like the wintel crowd seems to think we DEPEND on windows- I’d be using it at work.
Yet, strangely, somehow…. everything I need to do that can be done on windows can be done on the Mac. Minus a couple of pesky apps like 3dStudio MAX.
I agree with you here. You really don’t need Windows apps to get through your work. In the real world…you either have a ported app or an equivalent.
Though I do have a question. I have seen lots of applications that are similar to Visio. Since there isn’t a Mac version of Visio, a buddy of mine wants to use VPC so he can use Visio (class requirement – he’s still in school). He would like to know if anyone can recommend something that is compatible/has a similar feature set to Visio except be a Mac OS X native app. If it is good enough, he wont use Visio for his class. He already knows that he would like to use something else for when he gets out of school. Any thoughts?
Huh. I’ve never personally considered 3d to be the platform’s strong suit. IMO, that market is owned lock stock and barrel by MIPS and x86. There ARE apps for X, though. Off the top of my head, Maya (which isn’t Visio), and I know there’s cad software available. I supppose it’s all a matter of poking around.
3d isn’t my arena, really- I used MAX as an example because it’s the only PC app I miss even a little. I know the stuff’s out there, but the work I do is all 2d/video related, so I haven’t had the opportunity to play with any.
Bringing this marginally on topic- anyone who’s doing Real Serious Work Things will be using a workstation, not virtualized software. And by Real Serious Work Things, I mean high end 3d modelling, realtime video, etc. Anything that requires or seriously benefits from hardware accelleration.
> Just a question – do you really think that VPC for Windows
> would be a useful product?
Obviously Microsoft (and before them Connectix) thought it was. Connectix thought enough of the concept to develop it, and Microsoft thought enough of it to purchase it.
> You have to be able to justify the development costs of a
> piece of software before anything.
Yes, indeed, and both the justification and the development was already done.
Connectix, working with Innotek, had already managed to justify the effort to develop and release a working product.
Not only has Microsoft stopped development, but they pulled the product from the shelves at several vendors. Not only is it dead, but the existing copies can’t even be purchased.
It seems to be that those copies would have been pure profit in MS’s pocket. Why pull an already completed and distributed product?
> OS/2 ? IBM themselves won’t barely touch that OS, why
> should MS or anyone waste one red cent writing software for
> it ?
Perhaps that’s a good question to ask companies like Innotek, SciTech, or Serenity Systems. They seem to think it’s a worthwhile effort.
Has anyone confirmed the missing instructions.
From my em86 experience I know there was only one instruction
used in wine that stoped it from working. (Some strange x86
instruction to shift modes).
The instruction needed (G5) sounds like it can shift the
endianess inside a series of operators. There way be some
sub set where on an IRQ it returns to default endianess.
Anybody from IBM out there, Do we flame MS or nod in agrement.
Donaldson
Hey Solios
Sorry…but I think I may have confused you. Visio is not a 3D modeling application. It is a project management tool which has lots of flowcharting capabilities. It is kinda a standard for people in the MIS industry. Here is the link: http://www.microsoft.com/office/visio/default.asp
I was just asking if anybody knew of anything that was compatible with Visio as a Mac OS X application. Virtual PC can run it now…but I would like to know if there is an OS X product with the same abilities and has a compatible file format. Thus far I have found products that had similar features…but not quite as nice as Visio nor were they compatible. If anybody knows of a Visio-like app, please post a link.
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/
Thanks Excalibur! That should prove very helpful!
” You are kidding yourself in thinking Microsoft would put money into something where there is no hope of return. VirtualPC goes after a small market, which doesn’t give much room for Microsoft to make profit. As for technical resources – Microsoft probably knows less about the PPC platform than the Connectix developers, and certainly isn’t that great in G5 resources either.”
Yeah VPC was such a lousy product that Microsoft bought Connectix just to have it and Connectix made 6 versions and revisons of VPC because it made no money and was unprofitable.
” G5 is faster – so what? Microsoft doesn’t make any processors, they need not owe any allegiance to the x86 platform. So if half of the world buys G5s, they’d be happy (temporarily of course) if most of them bought VirtualPC. ”
Rajan if you have ever used VPC on a G4 you would know that the possible speed improvements of the G5 is a big deal.
There really is no problem here. Microsoft will update VPC for the Mac. If Apple sees a need for virtual PC technology should Micosoft discontinue VPC then I am confident that they can make a replacement. PC specific programs are also making their way to the Mac.
MS’s goal is to emulate Windows Office on the Mac – pure and simple. MS knows Virtual PC will never be a big money maker for them so why would they chase after a low dollar market software package? Because MS thinks much bigger in terms of their business. If they could get VirtualPC integrated into Windows Office for the OS-X then MS would no longer need to develop a separate Mac version of Office, thereby requiring a lot less Mac programmers and saving them money. They would only need to maintain compatibililte between VirtualPC and the Mac since the compatibility between Windows Office and VirtualPC should be seemless (they control both SW codes). This would enable the Mac version of Office to be 100% compatible with the Windows version and being that I use both PC’s and Mac’s at work I can tell you first hand that the subtle differences between the Office products drives managers crazy.
This would enable MS to maintain an OS-X version of Office for little additional time and money investment.
The idea that Microsoft’s going to just develop an x86 version of Office and stop development on the Mac version strikes me as very unlikely–what’s more likely is the revival of the (say it with me now, developers) cross-platform framework that was used for Office 6.0, the one Mac users remember somewhat less than fondly. Microsoft didn’t do a good job that time around, but Adobe uses an internally-developed framework and has for years, with a great deal of success. In fact, I’d be surprised if Microsoft isn’t actually still using such a framework–it’s just that the MBU has made the framework suck much less. Seriously, is there anyone who doesn’t think that upwards of 90% of the codebase beween Windows Office and Mac Office is shared? (Access doesn’t exist on the Mac platform solely because Microsoft can’t be bothered to port their Jet database engine to the Mac platform.)
Sheesh, what is it with these idiots who say “You don’t get it”… shouldn’t the mere fact that you’re trying to convince me otherwise implies this!?
That said, I will admit that I *obviously* don’t get it, and I’m completely fine with not *getting* it. Emulation software comes with a host of problems. To me, it means that you’re constantly using a 5th tier software with bloat. Stability is questionable, speed is usually compromised. You’re essentially willingly introducing instability into your system.
Plus, for you idiots who keep telling me that I don’t get it, Why not try to convince me why it’s needed? What god-forsaken applications are people running on VirtualPC anyway? I don’t think that it’s 3d Studio or Adobe Pagemaker, or Half-life. So… what? Windows Mediaplayer? Seriously, what?!
Yes, indeed, and both the justification and the development was already done.
By the PREVIOUS owners. That dosen’t mean the new owners feel its justified with their vision.
It seems to be that those copies would have been pure profit in MS’s pocket. Why pull an already completed and distributed product?
Support and pissed off customers. People aren’t too happy about buying a brand new version of a program just to find out its the last one to be released. Then you’ve got support. You sell it you gotta support it to some degree.
Perhaps that’s a good question to ask companies like Innotek, SciTech, or Serenity Systems. They seem to think it’s a worthwhile effort.
For whatever reason MS dosen’t see OS/2 as a viable investment.
Considering that IBM won’t even give much lip service to OS/2 I don’t blame them.
The companies still writing OS/2 software have made a niche out of it. I’m sure they do well. That dosen’t mean anyone else should spend a dime or a breath of air supporting it.