Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ns-mx!iowasp.physics.uiowa.edu!maverick.ksu.ksu.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!aplcen!unmvax!tingley.cs.unm.edu!ctm From: ctm@tingley.cs.unm.edu (Clifford T. Matthews) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: ROMLIB (the unix mac-emulator) question Message-ID: <1990Sep27.203806.7406@unmvax.cs.unm.edu> Date: 27 Sep 90 20:38:06 GMT References: ROMLIB, NeXT <2448@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> Sender: news@unmvax.cs.unm.edu (The News service) Reply-To: ctm@tingley.cs.unm.edu (Clifford T. Matthews) Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque Lines: 75 In article <2448@ns-mx.uiowa.edu>, rnelson@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu (Cardinal Fang) writes: |> |> I recently read about ROMLIB , a macintosh emulator for SUNS and other |> flavors of unix. I believe it was in c.s.i.announce, or something. ROMlib(tm) is our "source compatibility" product. It is essentially a UNIX "ar"chive and some compiliation tools that allow you to recompile the source to a program that was written on a Macintosh and create a binary that runs on the native processor. Executor(tm) is the "emulator" that allows binaries that were created on the Macintosh to be run on a Sun3. |> Anyway, the author mentioned that it had been tested semi-successfully with |> other types of unix than SUN,speciffically mentioning that it could even |> be used with AU/X to emulate a macintosh of a macintosh. I think he even |> mentioned that it was kind of eerie to see several macintosh screens stacked ^See Footnote |> up on a large monitor in UNIX windows. Sort of the ultimate multifinder.... I believe that the only time it has been used under AU/X was with AU/X running X as a display. I can guarantee that Executor has not been run on anything but a Sun3 although beta and pre-beta implementations of ROMlib have run on Sun4, Vaxen, DecStations, IBM RT, IBM PC (clones actually) and the DuPont MacBlitz. |> SO! My question (finally...) is: Does this mean that eventually there'll |> be a mac emulator for the NeXT? Personally, I think that a mac emulator |> and a disk drive that'd read mac disks (I know, there's one available...) |> would sell a hell of a lot of computers. YES! There will be an implementation of ROMlib for every machine we can get our hands on. Initially there will be an implementation of Executor for every machine that has a 680x0 and a UNIX filesystem that we can get our hands on; hopefully the requirement for a UNIX filesystem will go away shortly and eventually the requirement for the 680x0 will go away. The biggest impediment to us bringing up ROMlib and Executor on a Next is that we don't have one. Right now I'm too stubborn to buy another machine (I personally funded ARDI from the beginning including paying full $13,000 for a Sun3/60 a few years ago). If a company can't see to lend or give us a machine then we're going to wait a bit to do the port. If you have any pull with any hardware company that produces equipment on which you'd like to see ROMlib or Executor run on then I'm all ears. In the meantime if you can get a SUN3 and you'd like to play with ROMlib/Executor we'd love to sell you a copy. Clifford T. Matthews 1650 University Blvd. NE Albuquerque, NM 87102 (505) 766-9115 [ARDI is not affiliated with UNM] Footnote: Under both ROMlib and Executor you can dump the "virtual screen" with clover (left) shift 3. This creates a "MacPaint" file in the System Folder. At a demonstatration I ran MacPaint under Executor, dumped the screen and then ran MacPaint in another window (under UNIX you get real processes so you can run the same app twice) and opened the screen dump. AAAGH! I'm melting! Other fun things to do are to run Super3D and rotate the Macintosh graphic so the Mac is upside down. Childish, yes but still amusing to see on a Sun3.