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Panther and Windows?

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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BusinessWeek reports on Apple's success in switching some users. Curiously, it notes the following:

Next, Apple's newest version of OS X, called Panther -- which is scheduled to debut later this year -- will let corporations run Windows applications on their Macs. That's a major plus, considering that nearly all companies use Windows.
Click to expand...

Which, at the moment, can only be written off as a mistake -- despite the fact that Greg Maynes claims "such compatibility is a major selling point".
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2003/08/05/panther-and-windows/
Page 1'd because I'm sure everyone will be talking about it in the morning... and submitting it again if it isn't clearly visible.

It just looks like they just made an (odd) mistake.

arn
 
very funny...

i doubt though any corporations will base their buying on this... unless they are just that dumb...
 
Although that would be pretty cool. I think someone would have heard about it at WWDC. so it must be a mistake
 
Whoah what a huge mistake

What a huge mistake. The editor is either an idiot for thinking Panther will run Windows apps or if there was some inside knowledge nobody knows about, an idiot for not making that in of itself a featured article.

More than likely it was just foolishly being confused with statements that Panther would come with Mail that allowed access to Exchange, or some other old news.
 
x86 emulation by Apple?

There is a possibility that Panther will come with its own x86 emulator. The power of the G5s will certainly push the performance of an emulated Windows to that of real x86 hardware.

My only doubt about this is that it is a stated fact that the new Office packages will come with Virtual PC so Apple would not have to offer emulation if Microsoft will do it for them on OS X.

Having said that, I think that if Classic can be a standard feature of OS X then an x86 component could also be a feature. It would certainly be something to shout about for Apple's marketing department.
 
Re: x86 emulation by Apple?

Originally posted by Sol
There is a possibility...
Click to expand...

okay now this is how dumb rumors get started... be real. We all know this was a mistake and any reading into it is either just plain stupidity or you are just trying to garner yourself attention.
 
Possibly

Granted this is totally wild speculation so WARNING! RDF follows.
If I recall there was a post of a story either here or on lamedot about some guy that had written code that would take binaries and run them on any platform by either decompiling them on the fly or intercepting the syscalls on the fly? I can't even remember the story post but it was pretty interesting none the less. He was able to get about 80% native platform speed through his code. I would imagine it would be possible for apple to license that code and bolt it onto panther. It would be basically the same ammount of work the Linux binary compatibility code was in FreeBSD.
Anyone else remember the article about this guy's code?

Chris
 
This BusinessWeek article is probably just B.S., but it almost became a reality way back with Rhapsody DR2. Remember, Rhapsody shipped with the foundation for the so-called RedBox, which was a box alongside BlueBox (now Classic) and YellowBox (now Cocoa).

RedBox was designed to run x86 executables under an emulator as individual processes, thus allowing them to use Rhapsody/Mac OS X style window interleaving instead of running in a window like VirtualPC.

This is theoretically possible, but not very likely. Imagine the impact it would have on native Mac apps -- companies would just stop supporting OS X directly and instead they'd just make Mac users run x86 apps.
 
will let corporations run Windows applications on their Macs
Click to expand...
This all they have to say about it. One could guess that Java compatibility is meant, but it is more likely that they don't know what they are talking about. I think they mixed network compatibility with the ability to run programs. In the next page, they only talk about the use of a Mac in corporate intranets.
 
My guess is that they looked at the feature list, saw that it will include "X Windows", and figured that that was a OS X verson of Windows. The later statements about compatibility were probably simply about the increased support for Windows networks that Panther is supposed to have.
 
"…That's a major plus, considering that nearly all companies use Windows"

This guy has a talent for the blindingly obvious as well - clearly he gets paid by the word not the braincell count
:D
 
Obviously a mistake. Yes, Panther offers a lot in terms of Windows compatibility. No, it doesn't run x86 apps!

Not their only mistake, either. RAID stands for Redundant Array of INEXPENSIVE (not Independent) Disks. The opposite of SLED: Single Large Expensive Disk.

(And if there were a Red Box, it wouldn't run at the speed of native Mac software--or offer the Mac UI--so it wouldn't kill the Mac native software business.)
 
Originally posted by nichrome
This BusinessWeek article is probably just B.S., but it almost became a reality way back with Rhapsody DR2. Remember, Rhapsody shipped with the foundation for the so-called RedBox, which was a box alongside BlueBox (now Classic) and YellowBox (now Cocoa).

RedBox was designed to run x86 executables under an emulator as individual processes, thus allowing them to use Rhapsody/Mac OS X style window interleaving instead of running in a window like VirtualPC.

This is theoretically possible, but not very likely. Imagine the impact it would have on native Mac apps -- companies would just stop supporting OS X directly and instead they'd just make Mac users run x86 apps.
Click to expand...

Perhaps my recollection is faulty, but that's not what I remember Red Box to be. As I recall, Rhapsody was originally slated to be a cross platform OS, and Red Box was the X86 equivalent of Blue Box on the PPC. That is to say, Red Box allowed users to run Windows programs on the X86 version of Rhapsody, just as Blue Box (now Classic) allows users to run older MacOS programs on the PPC version of Rhapsody...

So, Red Box was really no more of an emulation than Classic is now (which it really isn't). So, I really wouldn't hold your breath on this one...
 
geez.. THANK YOU snowy_river for actually reading someones post before just blindly posting what everyone else has already said.. (LIKE 90% of the people on MR do)
now.. to follow along with the conversation.....


So, Red Box was really no more of an emulation than Classic is now (which it really isn't). So, I really wouldn't hold your breath on this one...
Click to expand...

I agree.. the whole mac-x86 merging isn't going to happen because of apple.. if microsoft wants to do something like this (by buying virtual pc, ahem) then that may be, but I don't think it benefits apple to cripple users by ultimately making them run x86 apps in emulation or whatever... it's always been apple's desire to have native software on OS x instaed of classic for this same reason, so that speed is there and that it runs smoothly, uncrippled... if you can semi-easily run x86 on os x, then why develop for os x?
 
Boy, Steve's sure gonna be pissed that BusinessWeek ruined his next 'one more thing' - he can't fire people in other organisations, though ;)

Definitely a mistake, I can't imagine this happening, and I don't really want to say more, because the more is written regarding this, the more it will enter the collective rumour-consciousness
 
Nice way to transalte a lot of x86 apps into OSX, It will call a lot of Developers to transalte their apps to Mac, look at x11, classic... The world is turning X....;) ..The end of WindoX
 
(redundant array of independent disks; originally redundant array of inexpensive disks)

Ah, they do like to change those tech acronyms! :)
 
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