Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

WinXP on a Mac, Hoax?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the could-be dept.

Brill writes "Ars Technica is reporting that a member of the 'WinXP on Mac' forums called narf2006 may have succeeded at the impossible. He's submitted his solution to get XP on an Intel Mac, for the $12,000 prize, but for now the only proof available is a blurry Flickr collection of photos that could be faked with virtual PC. His reputation on the forums however is strong, and he's already calling for testers." We've had people write in to say this has been announced a hoax on the contest page. The contest page is, of course, down due to bandwidth reasons. Engadget's conversation about this announcement has several theories on how this may have been faked. What's the verdict? Real or Fake?

7 of 390 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Explain how? by SonicBV · · Score: 5, Informative
    It works like any scientific discovery (which it essentially is). It has to be confirmed by a group of his peers, then he gets the money.

    Or such is my understanding, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

    --
    -Brad V.
  2. Re:In Soviet Russia... by GekkePrutser · · Score: 4, Informative

    Wel... Games, for one, like you already said :) This is something that REALLY requires dual-booting. I mean, you're not going to run a game in VMWare or Virtual PC even if it did support OpenGL or DirectX. Just too slow.

    I know a Mac is not for hardcore gamers but someone like me who wants to play the occasional game and not be tied into the pathetically small line-up for Mac games, dual-booting into Windows is a perfect solution.

    But there's lots of other uses (most of which would work fine within a virtual machine), like company-supported apps that are not available for Windows.

  3. Re:Verification? by Durandal64 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Even if this is real, he hasn't won the contest yet. The rules require not only that XP boot, but it must also dual-boot with Mac OS X. The user must be presented with the option of which OS to run at boot-time, and narf2006 hasn't done that yet.

  4. Re:Explain the fricken 12,000 bucks for this... by NetJunkie · · Score: 4, Informative

    No single person or organization put up $12K. A lot of people chipped in a few bucks at a time to get to that level.

  5. Re:This shot in particular by birder · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Look closer Lenny" There is another monitor covering part of the iMac.

  6. Re:If I sorted the bits by powerg3 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, part of the contest rules was that you had to be the first to post the instructions to the onmac.net forums. For the sake of transparency, it's a good idea.

    --
    Wild Eeep!
  7. Re:Explain the fricken 12,000 bucks for this... by tdemark · · Score: 5, Informative

    They have stated over and over again that it would be impossible for someone to boot XP on a Intel Mac. Now we have claims by someone that it can be done.

    I think you have that backwards.

    Apple has said they don't care if you want to by their hardware and boot XP on it, feel free. They're not doing anything to stop it, but they are also not doing anything to enable it.

    What they are against is Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware.

    - Tony