REDELMAN@AUVM.BITNET (Richard B. Edelman) (12/27/89)
Can anyone recommend software which will create a DOS environment on a Mac? I want to run DOS progs on a Mac and transport disks back and forth between the Mac and an IBM PC. Thanks, Richard B. Edelman The American University Washington, D.C. BITNET: REDELMAN@AUVM FAX: 202-885-1946 PHONE: 202-885-1948
halam@umnd-cpe-cola.d.umn.edu (hasseen alam) (01/08/90)
Call up Insignia Software, and inquire about SoftPC. I think they are shipping v1.3 now. This is nice. It does a PC/AT or XT emulation. But if the application needs special Graphics card or if it uses Math co-processors, then you are out of luck with this one. This is a inexpensive solution. MacWorld and MacUser gave prety good reviews. Even I tried it last summer on a SE/30. OOO!! BTW this requires a lot of RAM, FDHD and one of the 020 or 030 Macs. There are a few third party boards to do it also. Try calling Orange Micro and Dayna Soft for more info on their products. You will find their numbers on any popular magazines. I hope this helps. Haseen.
ADAM.FRIX@f200.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORG (ADAM FRIX) (01/09/90)
Hasseen Alam writes:
HA> Call up Insignia Software, and inquire about SoftPC. I think
HA> they are shipping v1.3 now. This is nice. It does a PC/AT or
HA> XT emulation.
So far SoftPC does XT emulation. Rumor has been going on for a month or
so now that they're working on SoftPC 286/it's about to be released/take
your pick.
--Adam--
--
ADAM FRIX via cmhGate - Net 226 fido<=>uucp gateway Col, OH
UUCP: ...!osu-cis!n8emr!cmhgate!200!ADAM.FRIX
INET: ADAM.FRIX@f200.n226.z1.FIDONET.ORGlaba-4ad@web-1c.berkeley.edu (Joseph Teo) (01/10/90)
In article <89360.113013REDELMAN@AUVM.BITNET> REDELMAN@AUVM.BITNET (Richard B. Edelman) writes: >Can anyone recommend software which will create a DOS environment on >a Mac? I want to run DOS progs on a Mac and transport disks back >and forth between the Mac and an IBM PC. > >Thanks, >Richard B. Edelman > >The American University >Washington, D.C. > >BITNET: REDELMAN@AUVM >FAX: 202-885-1946 >PHONE: 202-885-1948 The best and only program so far is SoftPC which provides an excellent emulation on a 68020/30-based Mac complete with the disk cracking noise on a PC. You can perform cut and paste operations between the PC application and any Mac programs (excellent under MultiFinder). The Microsoft mouse and PC parallel and comm ports are emulated too. I've tried to run programs like PC-Tools, MS-Word, Wordstar, Tetris etc with it. I was told it even works with Flight Simulator which is a stringent test of compatibility. With the SuperDrive, you can use the standard Mac floppy as a PC 1.44MB floppy. You can have 2 PC hard disk volumes which are actually standard Mac HFS files. You can even assign a Mac directory as a PC volume. The data forks of all the files can then be accessed as if they were PC files! The drawbacks are namely speed: on my SE/30, it produces only about 60% the speed of a 4.77Mhz XT clone according to PC Tools and a pathetic 30% according to Norton Speed Index. It only emulates the 8088 (actually the NEC V20) and CGA so all EGA/VGA and 286/386 applications will not work. Due to the different screen aspect ratio, the pixels cannot be mapped directly and graphics will not look good on a 9" monochrome display. On the Mac II, the display is much sharper than CGA and the effect on the mapping is less pronounced. Other alternatives include cards like the Mac86 for the SE and Mac286 for the II which are costlier, somewhat less stable but a lot faster. Use them if you have to access the MS-DOS environment frequently. You'll be put off by the speed of SoftPC especially on highly interactive applications.
Michael_H_Naber@cup.portal.com (01/10/90)
I've been using SoftPC for a while, now. It accurately emulates a PC/XT, but I have run into some programs which will NOT run properly. The first is DESQVIEW. According to Insignia Solutions, DESQVIEW is "not a well-behaved program" and don't intend to support it. The second is a terminal emulator specific to my company. The third is Generic CADD - it will run, but you cannot use the mouse emulation (at least, I haven't been able to get it to work). For the most part, I am satisfied with SoftPC and am not sorry I purchased it. The above problems are really annoyances to me, but may be a real headache to someone who really wants to use SoftPC for them. Michael_H_Naber@cup.portal.com
oivindt@ulrik.uio.no (Oivind Toien) (01/11/90)
In article <1990Jan10.014311.7148@agate.berkeley.edu> laba-4ad@web-1c.berkeley.edu (Joseph Teo) writes: .....a lot deleted The best and only program so far is SoftPC which provides an excellent emulation on a 68020/30-based Mac ..... deleted... ..The drawbacks are namely speed: on my SE/30, it produces only about 60% the speed of a 4.77Mhz XT clone according to PC Tools and a pathetic 30% according to Norton Speed Index. It only emulates the 8088 (actually the ......a lot deleted In a test I found that the clock-tick rate (Int $1C) was only about 4.5 Hz which is about 1/4 of what is it should be on a PC (approx. 18Hz). I also tried to reprogram the "timer chip" to test the extent of emulation of the hardware, but the clock-tick rate could not be changed. The test was performed on a Mac SE30 which was temporary at my disposal together with the Soft-PC program. This could have serious implications on the speed of programs using the clock-tick to time events. Oivind -- ================================================================== Oivind Toien, University of Oslo, Norway Phone 47-2-454732 <m_toeien_oe@use.uio.uninett> Fax 47-2-454726 <oivindt@ulrik.uio.no>
oivindt@ulrik.uio.no (Oivind Toien) (01/11/90)
In article <1990Jan10.014311.7148@agate.berkeley.edu> laba-4ad@web-1c.berkeley.edu (Joseph Teo) writes: ..... deleted The best and only program so far is SoftPC which provides an excellent emulation on a 68020/30-based Mac ..... deleted... ..The drawbacks are namely speed: on my SE/30, it produces only about 60% the speed of a 4.77Mhz XT clone according to PC Tools and a pathetic 30% according to Norton Speed Index. It only emulates the 8088 (actually the ...... deleted In a test I found that the clock-tick rate (Int $1C) was only about 4.5 Hz which is about 1/4 of what is it should be on a PC (approx. 18Hz). I also tried to reprogram the "timer chip" to test the extent of emulation of the hardware, but the clock-tick rate could not be changed. The test was performed on a Mac SE30 which was temporary at my disposal together with the Soft-PC program. This could have serious implications on the speed of programs using the clock-tick to time events. Oivind -- ================================================================== Oivind Toien, University of Oslo, Norway Phone 47-2-454732 <m_toeien_oe@use.uio.uninett> Fax 47-2-454726 <oivindt@ulrik.uio.no>