Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!cernvax!ethz!lengge
From: lengge@ethz.UUCP (Thomas Lenggenhager)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: SoftPC
Message-ID: <564@ethz.UUCP>
Date: 27 Jul 88 13:05:31 GMT
Reply-To: lengge@bernina.UUCP (Thomas Lenggenhager)
Organization: ETH Zuerich, Switzerland
Lines: 48


> IBM PC (intel 8086 machine). Does anyone know who sells this product and
> does anyone know how good an emulation it is? In other words how good is
> it at running applications and games etc ?

SoftPC is *THE* product for all those who have to use some old PC applications
for some reason. I found it pretty stable, but I didn't test it very carefully.
The problems I encountered in a short test:
        - Trying to change the print settings in WordPerfect
        - Trying to make a pie chart in Symphony

At the MacWorld Expo in Amsterdam they ran MS Flight Simulator, a great test
application for other IBM-PC compatibles (Microsoft has done a good job with
that, too :-) ), and it ran without problems.

I have extensively used utility software like Norton Commander and Norton
Utilities without any problem! It works really great.

One drawback is the speed. It is very slow. It is as slow as the old AST 286
card. And there you have extra hardware! So, AST was forced to speed up their
product. I haven't seen the new product however, so I can't tell if there is a
difference.
However, if you have enough RAM, you can load everything into memory and
everything flies :-). Then, the speed is like the speed of an IBM-AT.

The other drawbacks:
  - It is not compatible with the System Upgrade 6.0!! (Does anyone knows why?)
  - The installation procedure is somewhat tedious
  - You can't easily copy the configured application with its files to another
    hard disk.

My advice:  Instead of buying an extra 80286-card, do buy SoftPC with some
extra SIMMs. This way you have a good PC in your Mac and can use the extra RAM
for other things.
     
        Gary T. Czychi             University of St.Gallen, Switzerland
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