An anonymous Apple source submitted this yesterday. While the source is
new to MOSR, his information is very much in line with what other sources
have reported in recent weeks. While some of the longer-term details (QT5
on Windows CE, and the fusion Red Box, for example) should be taken with a
grain of salt, much of this can be expected in 1999:
The info is on the upcoming MacOS X.
Here's the deal...
Symmetric Multiprocessing - It will be there. Every task will be able to
be run across multiple processors.
Cluster Processing - Count on it. Wire up your Yosemite or Sawtooth
machines with MacOS X, and you can automatically set one machine on the
network to be the "Master" machine and the others to be the "Slaves". Every
"Slave" machine will handle the instructions sent to it by the "Master".
This way, you can connect 500 G4's and have all of them, say, rendering
"Toy Story III: The Adult World". Whatever. Unlimited power. Unlimited
scalability.
Red Box - Apple hates emulation. It doesn't want emulation in its product.
Emulation is slow. However, Apple is working on a hybrid method to bring
seamless Windows comaptibility to the Macintosh. The first is a Win32 API
set, part of the so-called Red Box. The other is a custom "DOS
Compatibility Card". However, this card doesn't really do DOS. The Red Box
interfaces with this card to run any x86 specific commands, take the load
off the G4 processor when it can, and to provide 100% compatibility with
Windows systems without an x86 emulator. DOS is easily emulated. This means
that you can run DOS and Windows programs out of the box *in the same
OpenSTEP environment* as the rest of your programs.
QuickTime, HyperCard, and MacOS X Lite - Yes, QuickTime contains over 75%
of all Carbon APIs. Apple is not only working on making QuickTime 5 a
complete Carbon-Lite environment, but also YellowBox savy as well. While
YellowBox will not be included with QuickTime, Apple is working on
YellowBox interfaces for QuickTime and bringing YellowBox to every machine
that QuickTime runs on. Forms of QuickTime 5 and YellowBox will be running
on everything from SGI, Sun, and NT to WindowsCE and PalmPilot. Apple is
still doing its best to be able to offer them for free. The MacMate will
actually be a PalmPilot running QuickTime 5.
MacOS X and Linux - Apple is proposing a UNIX binary format and submitting
it to the ISO later this month. This will eliminate one major hassle of
UNIX -- having to download source and compile it. This is a major stride
towards making UNIX - including Linux - more universal. Apple is also
working to license Carbon APIs and YellowBox to all major UNIX versions...
This doesn't mean that Apple is giving away MacOS X, just the support
necessary to run MacOS X applications. No source code will be given.
--Happy Holidays! And the best of New Years...
<> tbyars@earthlink.net <>