mdamarin at FOX.CCE.USP.BR (Mozart de Azevedo Marins) writes:
>Hi there,
> We currently use in our lab. PC computers, but we are
>considering to buy a PowerPC which could run Mac and PC programs. Does
>anybody who has it can tell me how really eficient the machine is for
>running both softwares ?
They are quick at running Mac software (the 68k emulation is pretty
good), although not as fast as the top end vanilla Macintoshes.
However, their DOS/Windows emulation sucks, IMHO. SoftWindows really
is not fast enough on the current chips. A lot of current Windows
software is pretty hardware hungry. I barely find Word 6 useable on
my 486-33 with 20Mb RAM, and SoftWindows on even the best PowerMac
couldn't even get close to a 486-33 running Windows software. Also,
if you use any 32-bit software, forget it. SoftWindows does not (yet)
support Win32S.
Having said all that, the native software will be blindingly fast, so
I'd probably get a PowerMac and wait. Get a big hard disk, and if you
really need Mac *and* Windows software, you will have two solutions in
the future:
1) Install both MacOS and Windows NT on your PowerMac (a bit
expensive, perhaps)
2) Wait for IBM/Apple's next big step, Taligent, which should run
programs for any of Windows, MacOS, AIX and OS/2, and make to with
SoftWindows for now.
By the time Taligent comes out, the new PowerPC chips will be in
people's machines. The most recent one is apparently three times
as fast as a 90MHz Pentium, at integer maths, so decent emulation
of Windows should be a reality.
At the moment, I don't think you can get away from the fact that if
you want to run Windows apps properly, you have to run them on an OS
derived, at least partially, from Windows. In other words, Windows,
NT or OS/2.
Regards,
Tim.
