The Macintosh Application Services software previewed at the IBM PowerOpen launch last week (CI No 2,123) is an indication of the growing popularity of binary-to-binary conversion techniques over straightforward emulation, which is still associated with poor performance. Such technologies are becoming available not only for the Macintosh, but also for Microsoft Corp Windows, and are likely to be in evidence at UniForum this week. Macintosh Application Services includes the Macintosh System 7 Finder (although System 6 was demonstrated), a Motorola 68040 emulator, the native toolkit, and Macintosh System Services for memory management and input-output to files and devices.

Have to be emulated

The portions of the application that do have to be emulated can be loaded in via floppy disk. Many Macintosh applications, such as PageMaker and Quark XPress, spend up to 90% of processing time within the Toolbox, according to Apple, which is why a native implementation was developed. A multi-mode code switcher will enable 68000 and new PowerPC applications code to run side by side. Holmdel, New Jersey-based Echo Logic Inc provided Apple with its FlashPort tools to help the effort along, producing a binary to binary translation of the 68000 code and producing native PowerPC code. Echo president Brad Burnham says the major technical feat is FlashPort’s aggressive static analysis software that can follow the flow of control from the Macintosh ROM, transforming the application to conform to the native execution model of the PowerPC. But it is not yet clear if the Echo technology will be used in production release software from Apple, as there are at least two separate ongoing efforts within Apple to move the Mac environment over to the PowerPC, one using a large amount of translation, the other a large amount of emulation. Those working on the eventual PowerPC version of the Apple Macintosh, as opposed to providing a Macintosh environment within an X Window under Unix, are thought to favour the emulation model at present. That box is due out early next year. The cat in the hat effort that will see the Macintosh environment on other RISC processors, appears to be a different effort again, and may be a long way down the road, licensing issues aside. Rival Mac emulator houses such as Quorum Software Systems Inc and Xcelerated Systems Inc are not unduly worried. Apple is trying to create fear, uncertainty and doubt, said Nick Sturiale of Quorum. They’ve been showing this stuff for two years. – John Abbott