CompuServe Messages

Hello Gary, Warp has been out for Intel for some months now. Other story is the PPC version. As you probably know, this one is based on the mach kernel from Carnegie bla,bla,bla… <g> It was demonstrated at Comdex and all that stuff, but they were pretty fragil demos (don't touch!) You probably have read about this in the PPC forum. The surprise come when you analyze what could be the future of OS/2 as a multiplatform oriented enviroment, compared to NT. Well, the future seems rather dark for it. First, IBM has dropped the Mach kernel for AIX and hasa announced no intention about continuing with the idea of a multiple personality Workplace. So how many personalities will workplace run: one, OS/2 for PPC, which is by no means as portable as NT. OS/2 Warp will continue to be hardwired to the Intel platform because that means increased performance, something that an abstraction layer can't offer. So now, IBM looks at the future and says: hey, we don't need a damn portable OS/2, we need something else… we need to buy Apple! <bg> Seriously, the only platform that make sense now for a software manufacturer that want to expand their target market has a big sticker that says NT all over it. Microsoft has to do something really DUMB to trash its future, and I can't think about anything silly enough to do it, except for a total mess in the programming, something that is not going to happen. No matter how much time people could wait for Chicago, Cairo or whatever. The crystal ball has spoken: Windows NT, it says. It will the apocalipsis <g> Well, whatever. After that silly big paragraph, let's speculate about the future of our favorite program. No matter what the guys at Adesk could say. 3DS will go New Technology sometime on 1995. Maybe for the next Siggraph. It is the only move that make sense for them, no matter how much I desire to see a port for the PowerMac <bg> And no matter how you OS/2-guys like Warp. This thing will not go Warp. It will go Intel, PPC, Alpha, whatever…. but on NT. And now that OS/2 will never let 3DS to be easily ported to different processors… well, the incognita finita est (hey look at that macarronic latin of me! 🙂 So the question is NOT: "if adesk and 3ds embrace NT does that mean the PPC or Alpha 300 are alternative processors?". It is, "now that Adesk has clearly decided to fully get in the Microsoft boat, does this mean that we will be able to run 3DS for NT on other processors than the Intels?" And the answers are: 1. Thanks godness, YES! and 2. Only if after developing it for NT Intel, they port 3DS to other processors (NT could run slow folks, but there is no doubt that they have done a pretty good job on the portability issue). Most likely, this what they are going to do. They are not porting ACAD to NT just because they like icons! They are doing it because they want to minimize developement cost. NT gives them the tools for doing this cheaply, so NT is the way to go. We are not speaking about Quicken, this is ACAD, this is 3DS. ACAD is not longer to be available for the macintosh. They don't have enough public there to justify the BIG cost of porting ACAD to the PowerMac, and Apple simple thinks that ACAD is not worthy to have in the PowerMac software list. Not that is not worthy, only that they are spending their energies and dollars on other things, not on colaboration with one of the biggest sponsors of Microsoft (I am wondering if this message is going to be deleted 🙂 And once they have 3DS available on Intel, would this mean that they could easily include network renderers for other processors running NT on a network, instead of porting the entire to thing to Alpha or PPC? Could be a possibility. Or a first step towards the final 3DS omnipresence in any platform available. However, they also have to serve the people who only have a computer (specially those who have a DEC XL, who will love to buy a nice Alpha AXP 233MHz card <bg>) and they are getting into NT because of portability, among other things. So a simultaneous Intel/Alpha release will not sound strange to me. Or maybe an Intel version followed by the Alpha in two months or some other maquiavelic scheme that will let them calibrate market response to the product. So to you, Gary and to you, Gary, o squizoid being, after all this krazy speculation your best bet is to ask Autodesk if they are going to release multiple versions of 3DS, only one version and multiple renderers, or multiple versions with multiple versions of renderers for you to make whatever network configuration you will like to do. But, oh pity, I am afraid that they won't speak. And if you want to know my opinion, good for them. We all have to do better things that worry about what is going to be next in line. heck! I don't even know what I have spent almost 30 minutes writing this message about crystal ball and tarot related stories. 😉 And remember that this message has not more value than the first page of the National Examiner! My predictions are as accurate as that one about Elvis coming back on february 25. Talking about death bodies, there is an old spanish joke (beware of the translation): "A man is walking throught the cementery (you know, the place where people get buried and everyone makes a big deal of it), and suddenly, a hand gets his leg from bellow. Wait a minute! It is a dead hand trying to get out of the tomb! The man then hears someone asking for help from the inside of the marble tomb: -Hey, hey, I am not dead! let me out of here! I am not dead! -You are not dead? -the man says with no sign of surprise- You are not dead, huh? Do you know how you are? -kicking several times the hand- You are not well buried!" Oh come on, that's funny, hmm? It is better when you tell it person to person, and of course, in spanish (Vivo? Vivo? Ni vivo ni leches! Tu lo que estas es mal enterrado!) So what was this message about? Oh yea, the 3DS for NT and stuff. Well, forget about everything. Maybe Autodesk is going to surprise everyone, including me, and they are going to release the announced port to the SuperNES. Or for the macintosh, who knows!? <vbg> ana "I am still here" gervas /krazy images