capit@peun11.uucp (Capitain) (11/15/89)
Hi, I have the idea of releasing a SHAREWARE MAC EMULATOR and would like to get some comments on that. First, a little history: (all playing in Germany) I developed this emulator starting in 1986/87. Some friends of mine had a small software company and were willing to make a commercial product out of this emulator. In the end of 1986 Magic Sac appeared in Europe. It seemed that Apple wasn't much concerned about it. So in April 1987 we released our emulator under the name of Aladin. After a few weeks Magic Sac had nearly totally disappeared from Europe, and European magazines agreed that Aladin was better than Magic Sac. All right, but then came Apple (Germany). They raised two legal proceedings against Aladin. They feared a decrease in businesses of up to 30%, and this because of an emulator with the old 64K Roms! They accused us of things, which were clearly wrong, but they put the sum of dispute so high, that we couldn't afford a trial (the sum was 3,000,000 DM, something like $1,600,000). The first legal proceeding had the effect that Aladin wasn't sold anymore in Germany since August 1987 (but still in Europe and some oversea countries), and the second, that the company of my friends isn't selling Aladin anymore since August 1989. Now I got the idea of releasing the emulator as shareware. Of course I can do this only with the parts that I have developed. This would be the Mac emulator, supporting 64K Roms, HFS, harddisks, sound and printing on Epson-like matrix printers, plus programs to transfer files from a Mac to an ST using the serial ports. (I cannot offer the printer driver for the Atari laserprinter.) The emulator runs system software 4.1, including MacsBug and TMon. I know that this is not the state-of-the-art in Mac emulation, but it would be shareware for about $40-$50. You would need A KIND OF external device with the Mac Roms (64K), for example a board for the ST's Rom-port and a Mac to get the software from. If there's enough interest in such a kind of emulator (so that I could live a couple of months from the donations) I would be glad to add other features like support of 128K Roms (already prepared), or an "external file system" to be able to use TOS disks under the Mac OS, or a "switcher" to switch on-the-fly between TOS and Mac OS, or other things you would like to be added. Now I'd like to get some comments on this idea. 1) Do you think there is a market for such an emulator? I could release this version before Christmas. 2) Has anybody made experiences with sending shareware fees to Germany? Thanks in advance, Pit +------------------------------------------------+-----------------------+ ! US: uunet!philabs!linus!nixbur!capitain.pad ! Pit Capitain, DX-PC ! ! not US: mcvax!unido!nixpbe!capitain.pad ! Nixdorf Computer AG ! +------------------------------------------------+-----------------------+
glk01126@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (11/19/89)
After trying Aladin and Spectre, I'd agree that Aladin is a 'tougher' mac-emulator. If you support the 128K roms I'd support you! Too much is 64K-incompatible to support the 64K roms. -Spieu!