Hello Ethan
On 03-Mar-00, you wrote:
> --- Mark Gregory <mgregory_at_vantageresearch.com> wrote:
>> One notable emulator/clone they missed was the Amax by ReadySoft for the
>> Amiga. It was a slim grey box that contained sockets for the Mac 512K
ROMs
>
> And available later as an internal board with the same ROM sockets, a pair
> of 34-pin connectors and external mini-DIN connectors. The 34-pin
connectors
> were there to place the A-Max-II+ board between the floppy drive and the
> motherboard, allowing the Amiga's internal floppy to read/write 800K Mac
> disks. The mini-DIN connectors were for LocalTalk.
>
> I still use my A-3000 bought in 1990 to run M$ Word under A-Max and then
> print via LocalTalk to my HP LJ/4ML. It works great as a turbo B&W Mac.
>
>> I believe it was fairly successful - it went through at least 4 hardware
>> versions that I'm aware of, ending with the Amax IV.
>
> I only have the "A-Max II+". The IV had an upgraded PAL (security bit
> blown, unfortunately; I checked) and new software.
>
>> I was an early purchaser, and I always enjoyed showing off my Amiga with
>> DeluxePaint II open in one window, WordPerfect for DOS in another window
(I
>> had an XT bridgeboard), and the Mac desktop in a third window.
>> The best of all worlds, almost.
>
> I had one way back, too. I used to use Mac System 3.5 with it.
>
> There's another Amiga-based Mac implementation: Shapeshifter. It is
software
> only. I sent the author a Zilog data book so he could support the
A-MaxII+
> card (Z8530, just like the Mac and old Suns, a *great* serial chip if you
> knew about its register access time limitations). My favorite
demonstration
> with Shapeshifter was to fire off System 7 on the Mac side, connect up to
a
> nearby Mac server and mount a share, switch back to the Amiga side, open
up
> AMosaic and browse the web while copying files on the Mac. For an added
> touch, since there is no Netscape browser for AmigaDOS, shut down the
TCP/IP
> stack on the Amiga side, then launch Netscape for the Mac. Those who saw
> the demo were usually stunned. This was all on a 25Mhz 68030 w/18Mb RAM
> (16Mb "FAST", 2Mb "CHIP" (kinda like video RAM but more versatile))
>
> Most recently, I took a CD of several hundred Apple QuickTake 150 pictures
> that I shot over several months in Antarctica. My extensive research
showed
> that there was no way with UNIX or Windows to convert these files to any
other
> format. They are "Quicktime Compressed PICTs". The PBM utilities can
parse
> them, but they get to the meat of the picture and declare that there is an
> unknown tag and skip the picture data. Anyway, I needed a Mac running the
> QuickTake 150 extensions to interpret these 1200 pictures. My fastest
real
> Mac was a Mac SE/30. Running Picture Convert, it was 20-30 seconds to
load
> an image and save it as a compressed TIFF; fortunately, there's a batch
mode.
> Some of the pictures had developed bit rot, 10 in all. I couldn't just
> fire it off and go to bed; I had to supervise the batch. I loaded the
stuff
> all up on to a 4Gb SCSI disk, hung it off my A4000 (25Mhz 68040) and ran
> ShapeShifter. It was now more like 5 seconds per picture, thus, my
fastest
> Mac was really an Amiga.
>
> Last month when I picked up the MacIIci for $5, I passed on a Quadra 605
> for $25 because it had no Ethernet and was only a 25Mhz 68040. I figured
I
> already had that much and there was no reason to clutter up with one more
> box. I think, eventually, when the University surpluses something faster,
> I'll upgrade, but for now, the Amiga reigns supreme amongst my Mac
collection.
>
> For me, it wasn't just being able to run Mac programs that was great; it
was
> running them in a networked environment that was really awesome.
>
> -ethan
>
>
>
> =====
> Infinet has been sold. The domain goes away on 15 March.
> See http://www.infinet.com/ for details.
>
> Please update your address lists to reflect my new address:
>
> erd_at_iname.com
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Yes, another satisfied Amiga user/owner. How many of us can do what he did
on a PeeCee?
Gary Hildebrand
Amigaphile forever
Regards
Received on Fri Mar 03 2000 - 16:51:14 GMT