| Licensing System 7 to third parties isn't the only part
of Apple's spread-the-Mac strategy. On March 14, Apple
also announced the Macintosh Application Environment, or
MAE, a new Mac-on-Unix emulator that runs a System 7
session in an X Window System window on Sun SparcStations
and Hewlett-Packard Series 700 workstations. MAE (see the
photo) will allow 680x0-based Mac applications to retain
their original look and feel while running under HP/UX 9.0
or Solaris 2.3 with either Motif or Open Look. However, don't confuse MAE with MAS (Macintosh Application Services), Apple's previously announced Mac-on-Unix solution. Both are based on similar emulation technology (see "Emulation: RISC's Secret Weapon" on page 119). But MAS runs both 680x0 and PowerPC Mac software on PowerOpen-compliant versions of Unix, such as IBM's forthcoming revision of AIX. MAE is limited to 680x0 emulation on HP/UX and Solaris, although future versions may support AIX and even PowerPC emulation on other RISC platforms. Illustration: Apple's MAE lets you run 680x0-based System 7 applications in an X window. Copyright 1994-1997 BYTE |