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From: jack@Taffy.rice.edu (Jack W. Howarth)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Mac is software - why not on NeXT?
Message-ID: <1990Nov20.042706.29356@rice.edu>
Date: 20 Nov 90 04:27:06 GMT
References: <1015@toaster.SFSU.EDU> <2420@krafla.rhi.hi.is> <30018@boulder.Colorado.EDU>
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In article <30018@boulder.Colorado.EDU> fozzard@alumni.colorado.edu (Richard Fozzard) writes:
>Apparently someone is. The following is an excerpt from Abacus's press release
>back in Feb '90. I have the whole press release if anyone is interested, but
>know nothing else about this product.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>    Abacus Research and Development, Inc. (ARDI) is pleased to announce the
>impending release of ROMlib(tm) V1.0, a set of C library routines with the
>same syntax and semantics as the routines available on Apple Computer Inc.'s
>Macintosh(tm) Plus computer.  ROMlib-V1.0 provides all the routines documented
>in "Inside Macintosh" Volumes I-IV with a few exceptions noted below.  Although
>ROMlib-V1.0 will only be available for use in X11 environments, there is little
>dependence on X11, and experimental versions exist that write directly to
>Sun "bwtwo"s and IBM PC "VGA"s.  ROMlib-V1.0, ARDI's first product is useful
>for company's whose IS departments wish to run programs that were developed
>in-house on Macintoshes on the myriad of UNIX(tm)/X11 available.  ROMlib-V1.0
>is also useful for Independent Software Vendors that have written applications
>on the Macintosh and would like to be out in front, shipping applications
>into the UNIX market without the delay of a complete or partial rewrite.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>It's too bad this is only for X, but they do seem to imply that it's not
>really dependent on X. Maybe someone could jump on this and convert these
>routines for a NeXT. Could help woo a lot of Mac users with a big invest-
>ment in software, methinks.
>-- 
>========================================================================
>Richard Fozzard					"Serendipity empowers"
>Univ of Colorado/CIRES/NOAA	R/E/FS  325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80303
>fozzard@boulder.colorado.edu                   (303)497-6011 or 444-3168


The problem with companies that promise Mac emulation without using Mac ROMs
is they too often "talk the talk, but don't walk the walk" as it were. The
recently announced Taiwanese SPARC laptop is a case in point. When they
showed it at Comdex they declined to demonstrate the Mac emulation due
to Apple's legal presence. There was also a company on the PC side which
claimed a couple of years ago to have a Mac emulation that would allow
programmers to recompile code straight on the PC and run under their lib
routines and it too seems to have vanished into a black hole.
                             Jack