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Chris Christner reports: <<As of next year, Apple will begin using
Intel X86 CPUs instead of IBM PowerPC. One side-effect of this change
will be that Tech Writers who are still using FrameMaker won't be able
to run it on the new machines.>>
This is true so far as it goes (as you note, Classic mode won't be
supported), but it doesn't go far enough. My prediction: Now that Tiger
(OS X 10.4) already runs on Intel chips, you'll see a simple dual-boot
utility released no more than 6 months after the release of the Intel
Macs that lets you boot into either the Mac or Windows environment. For
that matter, expect a Linux boot option too!
I won't be the least bit surprised if this software is ready before the
new Macs are commercially available. In that situation, you'll simply
run the native Windows version of Frame without emulation. To wit:
<<One possible workaround to this impending problem will be to run the
Windows version of FrameMaker in emulation. Now that OS X will be
running on Intel X86 processors, there should be very little speed
penalty when running emulators.>>
Even brilliantly implemented emulation (such as Microsoft's Virtual PC)
always imposes a huge speed penalty because each instruction for a
specific chip and each call to the operating system API must be
translated into the corresponding instruction for another chip or OS.
Gross oversimplification: This typically doubles the execution time of
the emulated software (makes it run half as fast) because you
potentially add one or more translation steps for every instruction.
In reality, booting directly into Windows is by far the better
solution. It's possible that Apple will use proprietary support chips
for its motherboard, which would require someone to write emulation
code to translate standard Windows calls to Intel's support chips into
the Apple equivalents, but Apple would be stupid to adopt such an
approach; it's cheaper by far, and far more robust, to simply use all
the existing support chips that have already been engineered and
optimized for use with Intel processors. If Apple does the smart thing,
there'll be little or no need for any emulation software.
When Apple releases its first dual-boot system (with the Windows side
probably provided by Microsoft in the form of a streamlined and
rewritten Virtual PC), I'll buy it and sell my PC. I expect a price
premium of ca. US$300, which will include both the Windows licensing
fee and Apple's standard "Add $200 to the price of a comparable PC
because we can get away with it" markup. <g>
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