Dan Lepel - USEREBUH@mts.rpi.edu (11/21/88)
Hello folks. I've only today started to follow this group, so if my question can be answered by some previous response, just let me know. I'm looking at getting a MAC II next semester, and I'm curious about the card which is available for emulating an MS/DOS environment for running such programs. (As an MBA, I feel this versatility necessary). Who makes and sells these cards? Are there problems with incompatibilities? And how much extra can I expect to spend. Also for a nonprogrammer, are there any special advantages to the IIX aside from speed? Thanks for your responses ahead of time.
sysop@stech.UUCP (Jan Harrington) (11/27/88)
in article <9579.2245.forumexp@mts.rpi.edu>, Dan Lepel - USEREBUH@mts.rpi.edu says: > > > Hello folks. I've only today started to follow this group, > so if my question can be answered by some previous response, > just let me know. > > I'm looking at getting a MAC II next semester, and I'm curious > about the card which is available for emulating an MS/DOS > environment for running such programs. (As an MBA, I feel this > versatility necessary). Who makes and sells these cards? > Are there problems with incompatibilities? And how much extra > can I expect to spend. Also for a nonprogrammer, are there > any special advantages to the IIX aside from speed? > Thanks for your responses ahead of time. The board of which you speak (it's actually two boards chained together with a ribbon cable, so that it takes up two NuBus slots) is made by AST and has an 80286 chip. It comes with 4 - 256K SIMMs, giving you a 640K machine. You can replace the 256K SIMMs with 1 meg SIMMs to upgrade the RAM. I've had one in my Mac II since August, and am very, very pleased with it. I paid just under $1100 for it. The MS-DOS runs in a Mac window. It emulates both monochrome and CGA video (assuming you have a color monitor). It also has a driver for the Micrsoft mouse, which seems to work quite well with the Mac mouse. A PC floppy drive can be attached directly to the board; that becomes drive A. Drive C is a single file on a Mac hard disk which can grow to 20 meg. In addition, drive D can be any Mac folder you wish. Drive D can also be a DaynaFile, which is how I happen to have things set up. I have yet to find a PC program that won't run. Performance seems to be a bit better than an AT. And for a writer like me, this is an ideal setup, since I can get screen shots of the PC screen (with command-9) with I can then edit and paste into my documents (I generally use FullWrite). Jan Harrington, sysop Scholastech Telecommunications UUCP: husc6!amcad!stech!sysop or allegra!stech!sysop BITNET: JHARRY@BENTLEY ******************************************************************************** Miscellaneous profundity: "No matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Banzai ********************************************************************************