What can VPC do?

It can...

...run Windows or Linux very slowly. My G3 233MHz has a bit of trouble with X-Wing. If you're planning on running Linux, don't get it through VPC. Just get a Mac version. If you're running Windows, figure on being able to do anything that doesn't involve a lot of graphics or heavy computation (no 3d games, no 3d graphics programs, no heavy photoshop work [although why anyone would run photoshop through VPC is beyond me]). Basically, it sucks, but it's useable.

About the only use that I have found for it is to run a VPN dialer (Virtual Private Network) but then only if you cannot get a Mac version. That is what we are currently doing at work. The people with high speed connections at home, that don't want to deal with dialing into out RAS servers get VPC. Whatever version is ordered, I immediately upgrade it to win2k (more secure then win98).

This is only a stop gap messure until we get a Mac VPN dialer from corporate. Once that happens, I look forward to removing VPC from all the Mac laptops.

It will do anything a PC will do, but slower. Oh, na dif you get it, buy more RAM - it's very RAM hungry.

You can't use it for real gaming because it's too slow. It's good for running apps that just aren't available on Mac, eg my dad uses it to run a share trading program of some sort, which isn't available on the Mac.

Yes you can read cd's. Once loaded, it operates exactly like a pc does. As other people have said though its not particularly quick.

forget the games, unless you've got shirtloads of ram. i only use it for those small programs that are only avaliable on PC and for blubster (mp3 filesharing proggie) because all the mac ones are pretty crappy...

I use it for Word and Excel. The Mac versions do not support Hebrew, so I need to run the PC versions.

On my 300 MHz G3 Word is a bit slow, but useable (similar to a 60-Mhz or 75-MHz PC). One one of the more modern machines it will probably work well enough for Word.

Forget games - They will also perform like on a 75-MHz PC with no graphic accelerator. Hard Hat Mack would probably run well enough.