Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!lll-winken!arisia!sgi!shinobu!odin!odin.corp.sgi.com!portuesi From: portuesi@tweezers.esd.sgi.com (Michael Portuesi) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Shareware MAC Message-ID: Date: 4 Dec 89 15:34:59 GMT References: <89120107511652@masnet.uucp> Sender: news@odin.SGI.COM Reply-To: portuesi@sgi.com (Michael Portuesi) Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mtn. View, CA Lines: 29 In-reply-to: greg.trice@canremote.uucp's message of 29 Nov 89 14:30:00 GMT >>>>> On 29 Nov 89 14:30:00 GMT, greg.trice@canremote.uucp (GREG TRICE) said: greg> Why does everybody assume that a Mac emulator has to use Mac ROMs or any greg> Mac code at all? There are an infinite number of ways to do a given job greg> and it is perfectly possible for somebody to carefully read all the Mac greg> documentation and then sit down and write code that will do exactly the greg> same job as the Mac roms, but have not a byte in common with them in greg> code. This is the situation with most IBM compatible systems. Though greg> they are functionally identical to the IBM product, their ROMs contain greg> different, but functionally identical code. greg> It should be perfectly possible to produce a Mac emulator that used no greg> ROMs at all, but was wholly disk based (given sufficient memory to hold greg> the quondam ROM code in RAM). Go ahead and try...I'll see you in a few years. The Apple ROMS are the result of several hundred person-years of work, and you expect one enterprising hacker to recode them, and do all of the testing and revising to ensure even a reasonable amount of compatibilty? Obviously you've never developed software for a living. --M -- __ \/ Michael Portuesi Silicon Graphics Computer Systems, Inc. portuesi@SGI.COM Entry Systems Division -- Engineering He says, "Take me to your leader" -- and I say, "Do you mean....George?"