SH4 on a Mac in a VM - Works!!!

[Rockin Robbins]

You know, that amazing thing is that Apple makes it illegal to use OSX on a Windows machine by being robber barons, and then uses the fact that Macs can run Windows in a virtual machine, while Windows machines can't run OSX (legally) in a virtual machine or any other way as a SALES GIMMICK! They don't understand that they're saying, "We're unethical gangsters so you should buy our crap. Here! We'll brag about what corporate thugs we are and you will buy!"

Same thing with Blue-ray. Sony played Al Capone, bribing, blackmail, gangster competition, not with the best product but with the most coercion, anything goes to eliminate all competition. Now we pay the price with two-thirds of the cost of every Blue-ray purchased to reimburse the gangsters for the graft it took for them to own the market. Not one penny to Sony, ever! Blue-rat could be the greatest thing on Earth and I'll never know or care. Some things are more valuable than entertainment.

You know, everything bad that has ever been said about Bill Gates and the Microsloth crew is true ten times over for Apple. But somehow Apple is "cool" and escapes any of the scorn and European legal hassle that Microsoft has had to go through, even though they really do everything and more that Microsoft seems to be hated for.

Talk about double standards! Where are the European suits against Apple, totally dictating what you can and cannot run on their machines? Apple is just as slimy a company as Sony. Not one penny of my budget ever for either company of thieves.

[Munchausen]

The first version of Windows started selling around 1986-87 ... using a slightly familiar interface. With little pictures instead of the DOS command line. Now, where had I seen that kind of interface before? Hmmmmm. Think it was on a brick-like computer, about half the length of my current PC tower. Can't remember the name.

[Rockin Robbins]

There were other primitive GUIs around at that time as well. Mac didn't spawn in a vacuum. Otherwise they would own the patent/copyright on the very idea of a GUI and would lock out the very existence of any other GUI in the universe, consigning all other operating systems to the command line.

For instance, I used to use Ventura Publisher a lot in the stone age. It came with a runtime version of GEM, Xerox's original GUI, predating Mac. It worked really well for its time. Seems to me that the ole Mac sorta resembled GEM, from which it was copied by a couple of defecting Xerox radicals.

A thief shouldn't call a thief a thief.But Apple loves to do that because they think we're stupid. Hey, a new advertising campaign for them: We Think You're Stupid. People will buy!!!! How cool is that?

[Munchausen]

From Wikipedia

GEM

GSX evolved into one part of what would later be known as GEM, which was an effort to build a fully GUI system using the earlier GSX work as its basis. Originally known as Crystal as a play on an IBM project called Glass, the name was later changed to Gem, the use of the acronym evolved later (see backronym).

Under GEM, GSX became the GEM VDI, responsible for basic graphics and drawing. VDI also added the ability to work with multiple fonts and added a selection of raster drawing commands to the formerly vector-only GKS-based drawing commands. VDI also added multiple viewports, a key addition for use with windows.

A new module, GEM AES (Application Environment Services), provided the window management and UI elements, and GEM Desktop used both libraries in combination to provide a Mac-like GUI. The 8086 version of the entire system was first demoed at the 1984 COMDEX,[1] and shipped as GEM/1 on 28 February 1985.[2]

Later versions

At this point Apple Computer sued DRI in what would turn into a long dispute over the "look and feel" of the GEM/1 system, which was an almost direct copy of the Macintosh (with some elements bearing a closer resemblance to those in the earlier Lisa). This eventually led to DRI being forced to change several basic features of the system. Apple would later go on to sue other companies for similar issues.

DRI responded with the "lawsuit friendly" GEM/2, which allowed the display of only two fixed windows on the "desktop" (other programs could do what they wished however), changed the trash can icon, and removed the animations for things like opening and closing windows. It was otherwise similar to GEM/1, but also included a number of bug fixes and cosmetic improvements.

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphic...nt_Manager#GSX

[sergei]

-removed-

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Munchausen

From Wikipedia


Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphic...nt_Manager#GSX

You left out the part where GEM was written by another couple of refugees from the Xerox PARC team that really invented the GUI. GEM was not a copy in any way of the Mac operating system. It was a co-developed (by other renegades from Xerox) as a parallel development and squished by the gangster tactics of Apple.

It still wasn't as good as the Apple OS, but I remember it fondly as a cute little bug.

Be that as it may, the GUI was invented over at a quaint little company called Xerox, by a team called PARC. These guys were met with complete disdain by their corporation who couldn't see beyond "we build copiers." As a result, Xerox published Ventura Publisher and then just let it die on the vine, in spite of the fact that it was a better document producer than Aldus Persuasion for the Mac! My copy of Ventura Publisher from Xerox came with a runtime copy of GEM, by the way. That's why I'm so familiar with it.

When the handwriting was on the wall that Xerox didn't shive a git about a computing revolution the PARC team fragmented, some forming the Apple Mac team that killed off the Apple ][ and Apple /// lines, and some developing GEM. Apple didn't base on GEM and GEM didn't base on Apple. They both evolved from a common ancestor, PARC. There was no basis for the lawsuit, which was just legal thuggery typical of Apple corporation. When you can't win on the merits, you just bleed 'em to death with legal costs that you can afford to absorb and they can't. Life in the fast lane ain't pretty sometimes.

By the way, this information is contained in abbreviated form in the article you quoted. What caused you to excise the relevant points?

KDE and Gnome are two great and healthy GUIs today. I have Gnome presently adopting the look and feel of OSX (with the Mac4Lin theme pack) so I can mock it every time I use a free operating system. I have to admit I am junking most of the cool stuff that Gnome users value over Windows and Mac to do so. But I can load another theme in seconds. A majority of Gnome users would mock me for mocking OSX, saying, "Why are you wasting time emulating an inferior operating system?" They don't appreciate sincere mockery...

Unlike the straightjacket Windows and Apple worlds, under Linux, you have a choice of a variety of GUIs to operate under. KDE and Gnome (pronounced with a hard "g" if you want to be among the cool) being the top two in terms of numbers of users. KDE is now available for Windows in a version that is almost ready for prime time. That could be very interesting, as Linux programming, cross-compiled for Windows, has already made incredible inroads with Firefox, Thunderbird, Songbird, GIMP, VLC Media Player, Blender, ffdshow audio and video codecs, GnuCash, ImgBurn, DriveImageXML, Inkscape, VirtualBox and Pidgin all cross-compiled from the free Linux world. Some, like the Firefox family, are just taking over, showing that open source will be a vital force for our computing future. We try to model our SH4 modding community after the Linux open source ethic.

No I'm afraid I was unable to get SH4 to behave under WINE. It would have to run inside a Windows virtual machine. Instead of that I've elected to go with a dual boot system.

[Munchausen]

I had no problem with you criticizing Apple. I just didn't think it made sense to defend Bill Gates. He is successfully doing what the American auto industry tried to do in the early '70s ... market products with buit-in obsolescence.

[Rockin Robbins]

OOOOOO! You want to talk about the CP/M to MS-DOS thievery? How about the Lotus mugging of VisiCalc? They stole so much the only way to defend themselves was to buy the company they stole from! Early computer software development was definitely the Wild West, with money talking and justice walking.

Even so, granting too broad a patent or copyright stifles progress unnecessarily when a company like Apple uses it to bludgeon others without any merit on their side. They took advantage of our legal system not understanding the whole computer world in the case of Apple vs DRI on the GEM suit. Actually they knew that DRI couldn't pony up the cash to defend themselves and would just knuckle under.

It's amazing that DRI didn't use the same tactics against Bill Gates' MSDOS. Maybe IBM, which decided to use MSDOS, was ready to pony up for the defense and DRI knew they were overmatched. Either way, there is DRI on the losing end of the GEM episode and again losing on the CP/M to MSDOS mugging. They were never a force to be reckoned with again, trying only once more when they pushed DR-DOS out, trying to one-up MSDOS. Didn't work. They couldn't distract enough people.

I'm not totally happy with Microsoft, but at least they are a software company, selling software to anyone with a computer. They aren't necessarily the best. For instance, Aldus Persuasion was a better piece of presentation software in 1991 than Powerpoint is now, with the ability (for instance) to customize text far beyond the anemic abilities of the "standard" of today.

But Microsoft has always been about "good enough" not being the best. And they have been about letting the user decide how the product will be used, not making arbitrary decisions like "games are not going to be played on Microsloth systems." Instead of exclusively supporting their own codecs and telling you to pound sand if you want to use Apple codecs, Microsoft lets you support anything you want. Try Safari in the iPhone and just attempt to play a wmf file. Teee heeee!

Granted, the best of all worlds is represented by the open source Linux world, but some things really are done best by evil corporations. For instance, they alone have demonstrated the cajones and staying power to publish a great submarine simulation. We haven't and I predict we won't see an open source submarine simulation in the same league because voluntary organizations can't maintain the focus and cohesion for the necessary amount of time to produce such a work.

However, comparing Firefox to Internet Explorer any version is like comparing a Ferrari to a 1960's Volkswagon Beetle. I would feel absolutely crippled left with IE as my only browser. So perhaps there are legs in the open source world after all. I think they would be helped by getting over their moral disgust of the commercial world and getting game companies to produce Linux versions. I'd LOVE to play Silent Hunter 4 on my Linux installation! It would be much smoother and more responsive than Windows.