CompuServe Thread

David, I'll take a shot at answering at least a few of your questions… "Are there Borland-like Apple development environments now?" I've worked with Borland and feel it's safe to compare Symantec C++ or better yet Metrowerks CodeWarrior to that type of environment. CodeWarrior offers the additional benefit of supporting native Power PC development. "Is Power Mac and Power PC the same?" Not exactly. The PowerMac _is_ a Macintosh in every respect right down to the built-in AppleTalk and ADB connectors. Even though other computers use the PowerPC chip, I don't believe they will run the Macintosh system software. However, several of the new PowerMac models will be bundled with a version of SoftPC that will run Windows at decent speed (like a fast 386 is what I've heard). "Does Power PC or Power Mac have the extended Apple keyboard?" The PowerMacs don't include a keyboard, but since they have ADB connectors, you can choose from any of the available Macintosh keyboards. (My favorite is the SunTouch Mac from SIIG.) "When will Taligent technology be incorporated into System 7?" I'm by no means an expert on Taligent, but it's my understanding that Taligent is an operating system itself, tailored for use with multimedia. Due to this fact, and due to the fact that Taligent is currently not part of Apple's system software development, I don't see it becoming part of Apple's core system software. "When will System 7 support threads?" It does support threads using the Thread Manager. Though System 7 does not support pre-emptive multitasking, the Thread Manager does in a limited fashion (no toolbox calls). "Has there been much success with Dylan?" I really don't know much about the cast of 90210 either, but I believe he just finished some kind of rodeo movie and has been on a few of the late night talk shows recently… -Paul Cunningham

David, 1) The two-non Apple dev. environments for C/C++ are Symantec's Think C and Metrowerk's Code Warrior (the latter is brand new and is shipping a "developer release", with free update to final version). They are very similar (many MW developers used to work on Think C), but MW already has PowerPC code generation. There are other langauges as well: look in this forum for notes about SmallTalk Agents from QKS and Prograph CPX from Prograph International. 2) "PowerPC" is the name of the chip that the new Macs will use. It is the one based on IBM's POWER architecture and fab'd by IBM and Motorola. To get PowerPC code generation you can get Metrowerks now, wait till May or so for Symantec, or spring for Apple's MPW and PowerPC SDK, available now, for a price. 3) I know nothing about Unix on the Mac (or most anywhere else, for that matter). [But I'd be surprised if you could run AU/X _from_ a CD, I think it's just shipped that way and then you load it onto a hard disk.] 4) The new Macs use the same ADB keyboards: the small compact one, the regular extended one, and the rather larger "ergonomic" one. Check your local dealer this week! 5) The OpenDoc SDK is not available yet. I have somehow managed to leave my notes about OpenDoc at the office, perhaps someone else has dates or AppleLink addresses for getting on their mailing list. 6,7) Taligent will never be incorporated into the present System 7, as Taligent requires memory protection, better VM, threads/multiprocessing support, etc. This does not mean that System 7 won't be updated to this level of support in the future, but the dates for this are not at all encouraging (like late '95). OTOH, parts of Taligent's technology are already shiping to their cusomers (Apple, IBM, and now HP) and IBM looks to be the first to start shipping things (low-level drivers) to customers, later this year. So Taligent seems to be doing ok, but Apple's support for it on the Mac seems to be lagging (so what else is new?) 8) Dylan is still in the works, not yet released. It has a new infix notation, and Mike Lockwood, author of SourceBug, has worked on a framework built with it (this is NOT a product announcement). Next word on what Apple may do with Dylan would probably come out during their World Wide Developer's Conference (May). The assumption is that they have a development environment for it (or are working with a 3rd party to make one) but nothing's been seen yet. BTW, AppleLink is Apple's electronic mail and bulletin board system (based on GE's Information Services system) and has been around longer than the Mac. In fact, it is being replaced this year (in stages) with a new setup called e-World, built by Apple and based on America Online software. Hope this fills in some gaps, –John