Re: [Semi-off topic] Next PowerPC To Support Multiple OS's?

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Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 22:12:03 +0100

Helpful Harry wrote:
>>Unless you're talking about a PPC version of Windows,
> Well that IS one example I gave. :o)

Even if Microsoft officially released a Windows/PPC (which I doubt),
you'd still have the problem that an operating system isn't much worth
without software. And I doubt that most people want VPC because of
Windows, they want it because of specific applications that happen to
run on Windows, which is a big difference.
Anyway, it doesn't take virtualization to port or run another operating
system. Since there was no real block against porting Windows before
that easier virtualization, I doubt that they'd be more willing to port
it when it's available.

> Yep, Microsoft have already shipped PowerMac G5s to their XBox
> developers, but I have no idea what they running ... other than
> reportedly NOT Mac OS X.

Well, they'll surely use DirectX, which is kind of linked to Windows, so
it will most likely be some stripped down Windows like the first Xbox
has, only this time it runs on PowerPCs rather than IA-32.

> The PPC version of Windows "simply" needs to convert software calls on
> the fly. With the OS itself running natively that MIGHT make VirtualPC
> perform better, but I'm not sure how interconnected Windows
> applications are with the OS (unlike the Mac which has it's system
> toolbox routines).

Well, if it's all about converting API calls and reducing the need for
emulation, then you should also scrap the idea of running Windows on a
virtual machine, because apart from the CPU, which can be virtualized
(but in this case only the OS would profit from that, not the
applications), a virtual machine still needs to emulate every other part
of hardware.
If you take the whole API conversion idea and combine it with CPU
emulation, then you simply arrive at what Darwine tries to achieve:
<http://darwine.opendarwin.org/>

If you want the best possible speed when running applications, then it's
the best idea to use native representations of the Windows API, and use
a PE loader and a dynamic binary translator to run the applications.
The advantage of that approach is that the API runs absolutely native,
not through some virtual machine, and that Windows applications don't
need to run inside some special environment, but side by side with
native MacOS applications.

Virtual PC has it's advantage, because it can run more than just
Windows, since it's a PC emulator. But in case of the approach you were
thinking of, it makes more sense to go all the way, and use native API
instead.

-- 
M.I.K.e

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