Hello all,
While Virtual PC may allow use of some PC software on a Mac, anything using a
dongle for licensing WILL NOT work. Dongles for PC's are attatched to the
parallel port, which the Mac does not have. The lack of a PC type serial port
is also an issue if there is a need to run CNC machinery. ( A card with a PC
chipset, parallel and serial ports may work in a Mac; however, a real PC is
more cost effective. ) While Macs & PCs share USB ports, USB support is
lacking in Windows NT systems, so that a cross platform USB dongle is not a
reality yet. This USB issue should be resolved in February with the release
of Windows 2000.
Another licensing method (node locked) on PCs uses the product id# or serial#
of the ethernet card. I am not sure if Virtual PC would allow this method to
work, though it does support ethernet connection through the Mac's built in
ethernet port or ethernet card. Perhaps someone out there has tried this with
some success?
Another area of concern with PC emulation on a Mac is how well the emulator
works with floating point operations necessary for 3D computations. On a PC,
these would be done in the hardware. On a Mac, some emulators do floating
point in software.
As of today, best choice for platform to run rp software would have to be a
PC due to compatibility issues above. Assuming these issues can be resolved,
I think a G4 Mac could offer some serious competition.
Sincerely,
Chris Dordoni
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jun 05 2001 - 23:02:31 EEST