Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!ucbvax!SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU!RICHER
From: RICHER@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (Mark Richer)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.news
Subject: Re: NeWS on the MacII - Finder version?
Message-ID: <12396267544.36.RICHER@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 7 May 88 08:33:46 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 47

I'm not sure if you are being facetious or not, but there are two different
issues at least: (1) a finder-like interface to A/UX, and (2) access to the
Mac toolbox under A/UX.

With regard to (1), Apple has not made any public statements about a graphical
interface to the unix file system akin to the Open Look announcement.
With regard to (2), one needs to separate some of the marketing hype (which
is carefully worded perhaps to be purposely misleading) from Apple from the
precise claims that are made in documentation and elsewhere. Much of the
toolbox is supported currently with the pcc compiler, but it states in the
A/UX documentation which toolbox managers are fully, partially, or not at
all supported. I suppose if you want to write your own assembly language glue
routines you could say you have full access to the complete toolbox, though
parts of the toolbox make no sense in unix anyhow. Two glaring parts of the
toolbox which are not currently supported are the appletalk & printing manager.
So even if a Mac (binary) application runs on A/UX there is no convenient way
to print to a laserwriter over an Appletalk connection.  Many Mac applications
probably won't run now because they did not follow the guidelines precisely.
And code written in MPW C is not 100% compatible with A/UX PCC.  There
are compiler, operating system, and toolbox support differences that make it
unlikely that you can recompile source WITHOUT change (take out your compiler
flags).  The MPW compiler does not run under A/UX and only a few MPW tools like
rez and derez currently run. We've been there and right now it's a hassle, at
best, to move back and forth between MPW and A/UX. The Mac OS and A/UX file
partitions cannot talk to each other and A/UX can only read/write 400K MFS
floppies. We use kermit to transfer files between A/UX and a MacPlus connected
as terminal via the serial port.

And in case you don't know it might be enlightening to realize that you can
currently run only one toolbox application at a time under A/UX.  This means
a multifinder world under A/UX is not possible at present --- ain't that
funny considering that unix is multitasking and multifinder really isn't. 
Therefore if you have an application that puts up several shell windows at
once, you cannot run another toolbox application at the same time. So A/UX
really has no multitasking windowing system (except X windows RSN) as well as
no graphical (finder-like) interface.  It's just a very nice character-oriented
unix which can run one Mac binary application at a time OR one toolbox-using
A/UX application at a time.  And you can shut the machine off and reboot and
run Mac applications on the Mac OS. The big plus about A/uX is the nice
autoconfiguration and recovery features -- that's where Apple has put their
"user-friendliness" mark so far.  ANd I guess the price is attractice. 

I realize this has nothing to do with News, but I hope it clarifies some of
the confusion which surrounds A/UX.

Mark
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