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Re: Xy on Mac OS X -- a report

Hi,
On Aug 16, 2004, at 11:37 PM, Harry Binswanger wrote:

I've been using Xy under Virtual PC on my mac for some time now.
I used to look down my nose at Apple products, but the fact that OS X
is built on Unix was the critical factor in my deciding to try out a
Mac. I bought an iMac notebook in January, and have been snail-like
inching toward doing real work on it. A few weeks ago, I gave it a
real workout, making it my main computer while on the road for 2
weeks.

I went to the mac, not initially for the quality, but more as a
principle. I was and still am not happy with the tactics that MS is
practicing. When i found out about OS X and it's core Unix, i was
interested.

I run Xy on the Mac under Win98 SE emulation courtesy of Virtual PC
(VPC). Here's the report, which someone on this list asked for and
others may be interested in.


I'm using PC-DOS 2000 under Virtual PC.
1. Emulation of Win98. VPC is utterly fantastic. When you are "in" a
Windows window, you don't know you're not at a PC. That goes for its
ability to talk to all the peripherals--including a network. For
example, I'm writing this on my desktop PC, but I just shoved a music
CD into my Mac, and inside Win98 emulation, did Start/Run/CDPLAYER.EXE
and it is now playing. (Of course, the Mac first tried to
automatically play the CD under its own software, iTunes, which I quit
before running CDPLAYER.EXE.)


fwiw, iTunes is pretty nice.
2. Win Speed. The Windows emulation is pretty fast. Actually, I think
the slight dragginess is due to the fact that this iMac has only a 933
MHz processor. Probably a faster Mac would run Win98 without being
slower than the Win98 on my 1.33 GHz desktop. The emulated Win98
actually boots faster than my desktop Win98 boots.

Emulation is always going to be a function of your processor and the
software being emulated. PC-DOS runs just fine on my powerbook pismo
and it has a 400 Mhz G3.

3. Xy performance. In general, Xy performance is good--I'd give it a
"B" (on the A to F scale).

I've run a large (14K), complicated XPL program with what I regard as
decent speed results. However, you may consider it indecent: it's 6
times slower on the Mac. Part of this is due to a slower processor.
But I also tried the same XPL program on my wife's 900 MHz Win98
machine with the result that it ran 5 times faster than on the Mac.

Do you need to run it under Windows? Windows is not the fastest
environment to run a DOS application.

The *only* limitation I've encountered with my XPL programs is my
inability to get Xy to shell to DOS. That is, I get an error message
when I try to the DOS command. Specifically, I get "cannot run
command." I also see the message "Type EXIT to return to XyWrite"
flash by on the Command Line (a message that should appear at the DOS
prompt). I've tried a variety of forms of the DOS command, including
such things as


DOS/nv/x/z /c dir

and many other variants.
I am able to shell out to DOS with my configfuration. I don't think i
set anything special.

I don't know if going to Mac/Unix is the long-term solution to
preserving XyWrite. I am, however, very impressed with the Mac's to
accept new *hardware* such as peripherals being attached. I don't have
to go through such nonsense as Win's "insert the CD ROM with Win98."
The Mac seems not to need driver software! It is truly
plug-n-play--without it even bothering to flash dialogue boxes in
front of you. Stuff just works with it, right out of the box.

It's kind of funny, but, after i switched to the mac, that was what i
was noticing. Things just work! Mac environment is like that, things
just work. It has spoiled me now when i have to use the PC at work.
You'll notice a greater attention to detail.


If i can help, let me know!

thanks

Russ