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WinXP on a Mac, Hoax?
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?
Doesn't he have to explain how he did it to collect the prize? Am I missing something?
If I sorted out the bits of magic to get WinXP up and running on a Mac, I don't think I would post how to the outside world until *after* I collected my bounty. No shock at the lack of details here.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
For US$12,000, I'd take a day off and fly out to the contest judge's place to show them in person.
Why is this so difficult?
What's the point here, anyhow? Besides games, and maybe some MS development stuff, why run Windows on a PC??
You do realise you answered your own question don't you?
Anyway, whilst I don't like or run windows at home, I keep a spare 1GB partition with my old legal copy of win2k on it.
Why? Because I think two operating systems are better then one - and its not exactly like its hard work (or much overhead) to set up a dual boot these days.
My pics.
For many people, those two things are reason enough to dual boot. It allows you to keep using your existing software, which makes the switch to Mac that much easier for people who have large libraries of Windows-only software.
It's not as though it's a hard hoax to do.
1. Go to a Windows box. Take a screen shot.
2. Open the screenshot on your iMac. Display it full screen.
3. Take a picture.
I mean, he hasn't posted a video of him using the computer and his mousing syncing up with the screen, right? Just a blurry photo. So, that proves basically nothing. I'm not saying he absolutely didn't do it, just that a photo doesn't count for much.
This article talks about a project called BAMBIOS, BAMBIOS emulates a bios on the intel-based Mac's. This enables non-EFI OS's to run.
Bits of News Giving you the latest bits.
You missed out one very big reason on your list. Anyone who designs web pages or programs web applications will need to check their work under IE - currently this means switching over to a PC to check the page.
Running Windows in a VM would be perfect for checking out websites during development.
Who would put up 12,000 bucks for something that's not really needed? I mean, sure, hacking the hardware to get it to run is kinda cool and all...but 12 grand?!?! Is it THAT important to buy Mac hardware to put Windows on?
It's not about buying mac hardware specifically to run windows, it's about the ability to dual boot mac osx and windows on the same laptop. Honestly, I'm at the point in my life where I need fewer computers, not more of them. Having a whole closet full of junky old PC's isn't worth the time and energy anymore, so I just have 2 laptops now, a powerbook and an old gateway. I'd gladly sell them both if I could buy one laptop that could run both OS's.
For what I do (audio programming and music production), emulation is not an acceptable solution due to obvious performance and hardware issues. Plus, there is so much good software available for both platforms, why limit yourself to just one?
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
No, because which is faster is a very complicated answer. It is like asking which is faster: a tank or a Porche. On a racetrack the Porche is going to be faster. On a field with mud a foot deep the tank is going to be (a lot) faster. This is a rather stark example, but the principal holds just as well for the Windows-MacOS comparisons.
The best way of comparing has always been to benchmark the particular job you have in mind, an then to remember that generalizations are not really valid.
Anyone who tells you different is trying to sell you a bridge.
Just wanted to say that you had a rock solid submission there, if only submissions of that quality and depth could actually be accepted on slashdot then we'd all be alot more informed of current IT events.
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
Because WinXP boots just as nicely on a Walmart laptop. If people who own Mac hardware find themselves booting to Windows as often or more often than OSX, their next purchase may rationalize that the premium is just not worth it to run OSX.
The debate goes two ways - way one, I get to run both OSes, how wonderful is that? Way two, I run XP more and more, why buy Mac hardware?
It's only time that will tell us which is which...
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
...but I wish they'd concentrate more on getting Mac OS working on a PC. That to me is much more interesting that getting Windows working on a mac
'If I have seen furthur, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants' - Sir Isaac Newton
Welcome to the real world where Apple no longer uses proprietary hardware (or very little). ATI makes the video card for the iMac. Intel makes the processor. Micron makes the RAM (and possibly ROM) chips. Some obscure, Korean, third-party, hardware manufacturer makes everything else (just like in your PC). So, unless ATI hasn't released the drivers for their Radeon X1600 then it should be fairly easy to get WinXP to work with "Apple's" hardware. The only big difference is the TPM chip. Shoot, with all the people booting Mac OS X natively on random PC hardware, it shouldn't be a big logical leap to grasping the concept that booting WinXP (or any Windows for that matter) on a Macintel is only a matter of time.
OSX boots on PC. Win boots on PC. OSX boots on Mac. Should not Win boot on Mac?
http://www.bynarystudio.com
WTF? Someone potentially shows a really sick hack and all people can do is bitch about how it's "obviously" photoshopped and man, who'd be stupid enough to try this?! Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, where has the hacker ethos gone? How about withholding judgment until we get solid confirmation one way or another. Since the forums got pwned, we'll have to wait and see if step-by-step instructions are forthcoming so it can be reproduced. If they don't show up in a week, or they constantly "delayed" then we can collectively denounce him as a fraud.
And as for why do this to begin with? How about because we can! Sheesh. Getting things that aren't supposed to work to work is part and parcel of being a true hacker. It's breaking the pigopolists' rules and doing things with hardware/software you bought that they never intended. Lighten up, guys. It's cool. If this is real, it's definitely a sick hack and we should salute him.
Apple makes good hardware. Horrendously overpriced, but top quality. If you wanted to run windows, particularly, on a laptop, and wanted the best money-no-object hardware, I can see this being somewhat useful.
I am trolling
Unfortunately, this would kill a lot of their developer base.
If almost all PC's have Windows, and almost all Macs run Windows apps, then you can just write a program for Windows, and there is no need to make a Mac specific port.
If there is no native Mac OS software, why get a Mac?
Sure, lots of developers would develop for the Mac out of love for the platform or whatever, but a lot of other devs would declare that just supporting Windows is sufficient for a very large percentage of their user base.
If you are so sure they said it would be impossible, then tell us where did they said it.
The parent message is referring to well-reported statements by Apple's Jobs and Schiller, who both said Apple would do nothing to prevent people from running Windows on Intel-based Macs. See this link: http://news.com.com/2100-1014_3-5733756-2.html
As the article states, Schiller's words were, "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will. We won't do anything to preclude that."
> All you'll really prove if Photoshop is faster on the PC vs Mac is that
> the PC version used a better compiler. What are you trying to show exactly?
Exactly. The only differences should depend on the OS and it's supporting infrastructure. Compiler, libraries, memory management, disk throughput, etc. And those differences are likely to be highly variable. OS X might have UNIXy goodness (not sure how Darwin stands compared to a modern Linux or Solaris though) in it's favor while Microsoft probably has the advantage on compilier tech vs GCC. Some good benchmarks should be interesting to read through.
Democrat delenda est