Slashdot Mirror
Will MacIntel Hardware Open The Door for Mac OS X CAD?
xcleetusx wonders: "I've been a fan of Apple for years, and with their current strangle-hold on mainstream media my desire to make the switch has been growing ever more, but the same nagging issue that has prevented my switch for years still remains: I'm an engineer, and I simply can't invest in a computer that won't run modeling/simulation software like CATIA and Solidworks. Since this software is available on Unix (which Mac OS X is built on) and also on Windows (Intel hardware), is the Apple switch to Intel-based hardware going to better my chances for a Mac OS X CAD workstation, or will it remain a pipedream?"
Hopefully the switch means increased popularity which will lead to more support from venders. I'm an engineering student (ece) so i don't usually deal with cad and solid works but i deal with other stuff like spice and vhdl. Luckily eagle comes for os x.
Biggest complaint though is that most software that is "ported" uses X11. It's quite nasty.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
Since Mac OS X will use a Darwin (Unixish) on x86, it will not be very hard to port your standard CAD programs to run natively in OSX. Mostly it depends on the demand in the market. If a lot of users start asking the CAD software developers for a port to OSX, it will probably happen. Short of that, your best bet may be Darwine or X11 for OSX. Using one of these may allow you to run standard CAD software without it actually being ported (don't hold your breath for Darwine, though).
What might happen that could help you is that virtual PC programs will be able to run MS Windows at near full speed since it'll be running on the same processor that Windows is written for. So you should be able to run a virtual PC program with Windows and your CAD apps on your Mac.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
The only thing that is likely to happen with Intel-Mac is that Windows Emulators - and hence Windows software - will run at nearly native speed.
gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70
MacOS is not going to magically turn into Windows or Linux just because there's Intel Inside. Mac development will be unchanged, with some marginal exceptions.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
...it'll run on OS X under X11 with fairly minimal porting effort today.
If the companies haven't made that port available then the (trivial, from an application developer point of view) change from PowerPC to x86 isn't going to change that.
It's all about size of market and differential pricing. Not the CPU that happens to be in the box.
Programs run on operating systems, not CPUs. Your best chance is if the new Apple/Intel hardware dual-boots, or if Apple gains enough market share that CAD companies decide to start coding for them.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
'm an engineer, and I simply can't invest in a computer that won't run modeling/simulation software like CATIA and Solidworks.
You do realize that Solidworks is available for OS X, right?
rooooar
The switch to x86 doesn't change the API of MacOS X and hence won't magically give you Intel PC software. And if that software had been cross-API-compatible (via Qt, wxwidgets etc.), it could have been released for PPC-MacOS already.
True.
The only thing that is likely to happen with Intel-Mac is that Windows Emulators - and hence Windows software - will run at nearly native speed.
Not strictly true. Everybody is concentrating so hard on the whole Windows emulator possibility that they're completely missing another benefit to x86 Macs that I'm personally looking forward to: Linux binary compatibility.
FreeBSD has had rock-solid Linux binary compatibility for years. Almost any executable compiled on and for Linux will run perfectly well on FreeBSD. Porting the Linux compatibility layer to Darwin is probably something that a skilled dev can do on a rainy weekend. And that's if it hasn't been done already. For x86 Mac users, this immediately opens the door to almost all programs built for Linux, both open and closed.
I say to the fellow who wants his CAD software on Mac: You'll probably waste your time pestering the vendor to release a native OSX version of the application. And WINE is unreliable at best, which x86 OSX won't change. What you want is to be able to run the Unix version of the app natively on your Mac and that's what Linux binary compatibility will do.
better not tell the people at Architosh.com that there is not a MacOS CAD workstation
"Since this software is available on UNIX (which Mac OS X is built on) and also on Windows (Intel hardware), is the Apple switch to Intel-based hardware going to better my chances for a MacOS CAD workstation, or will it remain a pipedream?"
If the software is available on UNIX, and is not available on the Mac right now, then whatever is holding it back is unrelated to the processor the Mac is using. Either the vendor does not consider the Mac market large enough (which is odd, since by this time the majority of workstations capable of running UNIX software are Macs), or they consider even a port to another UNIX platform unreasonably difficult, or they don't realise that Mac OS X runs ordinary UNIX applications very well.
These are not problems that will be solved by switching to a new processor, case design, color scheme, mouse, keyboard, monitor, or pizza topping.
Look, I'll give you DTP and maybe even the slide puzzle, but CAD was born well before the Mac. In fact, I'll lay a buck that the Mac was designed using CAD.
(While you're at it, can I recommend John Walker's site, Fourmilab? His history of AutoDesk:
We need to do more evaluation of the IBM and Apple situation with respect to both technical and marketing questions. We ought to be getting hardware for non-Z80 systems within 4-6 weeks.
", which I think makes it pretty clear that they were showing a CAD program back when Apples accepted CP/M cards,
Who knew that DBase sprang from a PD program?)
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander