[comp.sys.next] Microsoft Windows

jfh@netcom.COM (Jack Hamilton) (05/29/91)

Is the Soft-PC program strong enought to run, for example, MicroSoft
Windows in enhanced mode using a comm port and doing graphics, or the
Borland Pascal for Windows compiler?  Anyone know what it costs?
-- 
Jack Hamilton         jfh@netcom.com         apple!netcom!jfh

anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess Anderson) (05/29/91)

In article <1991May29.044715.7224@netcom.COM> jfh@netcom.COM
(Jack Hamilton) writes:

>Is the Soft-PC program strong enought to run, for example,
>MicroSoft Windows in enhanced mode using a comm port and
>doing graphics, or the Borland Pascal for Windows compiler?
>Anyone know what it costs?

It cost the UW-Madison $299.40 + $10 shipping, direct from
Insignia; I suspect that's a discounted price.
NeXTconnection hadn't yet come to an understanding with
Insignia when I bought SoftPC (a month ago), but maybe
something has happened in the interim.  As a call to
NeXTconnection is free (800/800-NeXT), it's probably useful
to check (helpful folks, btw).

I haven't installed Windows (not sure whether I will), but
the claim is SoftPC will run Windows 3.0.  Since the emulation
is a 80286 machine, it should run real mode, and maybe
standard mode.  But it seems to me you'd need 80386 emulation
to run enhanced mode.

<> Sometimes truth comes riding into history on the back of
<> error. -- Reinhold Niebuhr
--
Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson
NeXTmail w/attachments: anderson@yak.macc.wisc.edu  Bitnet: anderson@wiscmacc
Room 3130 <> 1210 West Dayton Street / Madison WI 53706 <> Phone 608/262-5888

jeffa@janderholm.lotus.com (Jeff Anderholm) (05/31/91)

In article <1991May29.140238.23530@macc.wisc.edu> anderson@macc.wisc.edu (Jess  
Anderson) writes:
> 
> In article <1991May29.044715.7224@netcom.COM> jfh@netcom.COM
> (Jack Hamilton) writes:
> 
> >Is the Soft-PC program strong enought to run, for example,
> >MicroSoft Windows in enhanced mode using a comm port and
> >doing graphics, or the Borland Pascal for Windows compiler?
> >Anyone know what it costs?
> 
> It cost the UW-Madison $299.40 + $10 shipping, direct from
> Insignia; I suspect that's a discounted price.
> NeXTconnection hadn't yet come to an understanding with
> Insignia when I bought SoftPC (a month ago), but maybe
> something has happened in the interim.  As a call to
> NeXTconnection is free (800/800-NeXT), it's probably useful
> to check (helpful folks, btw).
> 
> I haven't installed Windows (not sure whether I will), but
> the claim is SoftPC will run Windows 3.0.  Since the emulation
> is a 80286 machine, it should run real mode, and maybe
> standard mode.  But it seems to me you'd need 80386 emulation
> to run enhanced mode.
> 
> <> Sometimes truth comes riding into history on the back of
> <> error. -- Reinhold Niebuhr
> --
> Jess Anderson <> Madison Academic Computing Center <> University of Wisconsin
> Internet: anderson@macc.wisc.edu <-best, UUCP:{}!uwvax!macc.wisc.edu!anderson
> NeXTmail w/attachments: anderson@yak.macc.wisc.edu  Bitnet: anderson@wiscmacc
> Room 3130 <> 1210 West Dayton Street / Madison WI 53706 <> Phone 608/262-5888

The list price on SoftPC is $499, I believe.  I have brought Windows 3.0 up on  
SoftPC on a NeXTstation Color, but not on a monochrome system.   With another  
app running on the color system and running Windows in the SoftPC window,  
performance was VERY slow.  This was on a machine with 16meg.  I suspect a  
large part of this performance hit came from the color display processing.

ty@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Tyng-Jing Yang) (05/31/91)

jeffa@janderholm.lotus.com (Jeff Anderholm) writes

>The list price on SoftPC is $499, I believe.  I have brought Windows 3.0 up on
>SoftPC on a NeXTstation Color, but not on a monochrome system.   With another 
>app running on the color system and running Windows in the SoftPC window,  
>performance was VERY slow.  This was on a machine with 16meg.  I suspect a  
>large part of this performance hit came from the color display processing.

I don't think the problem of slow screen update comes from
color display processing. Mine is a monochrome cube w/16M and I
allocated 14M RAM to SoftPC. It still runs like a turtle when
running games or MS window3. I'm not flaming SoftPC, I do hope next version
of SoftPC can solve this problem. It does its job well when runnig
prorams like BC++, Norton Commander, or communcation program.

Jing