SoftMac PPC Cancelled!

About Mini vMac and all other 68k emulators, including SoftMac, Executor, and MESS.

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ClockWise
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SoftMac PPC Cancelled!

Post by ClockWise »

"But let me start first and foremost with the deluge of emails asking if our cancellation of the PowerPC emulator release this summer was an April Fool's Day joke. No it was not. Our plans to release several new emulation products this summer, including the PowerPC emulator for Windows, have been postponed indefinitely due to legal issues. There is far more involved in shipping an emulator than simply writing some code and posting it to the net. Legal issues have increasingly become a thorn in the side, ranging from ongoing lawsuits which we are tied up in at this time, to the abuse of the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) which ultimately threatens every computer user's rights.

I'm not at liberty to go into the details of our legal hurdles at this time. Some day when it's all resolved I'll tell you about it. In the meantime while our lawyers do their thing, and since the Macworld MacHack and WWDC conferences were all rather bizarrely being rescheduled and relocated this summer as who knows what is going on behind the scenes at Apple (Apple, a music company??? Mac OS X on Intel???) I've cancelled any planned exhibits we had at MacHack and Macworld this summer and will instead take the gang out to Europe to follow Metallica around. Yes, the Napster busting boys are back together and touring again for the first time in almost three years, so we're going to check them out in at least Berlin, Toronto, and here in Seattle, if not even more venues."


Talk!
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phirkel
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Post by phirkel »

Darek Mihocka and myself had an interesting correspondance back in January of this year...it involved me asking about his product, then he flaming me, the I flaming him, and so on. Went back 'n forth for quite awhile. Then I got bored of it, because I realized I was so much more mature than that little twerp. So I gave up on it.

Apparently, the naming system for SoftMac makes sense, according to him. It did make sense, after I was very, very drunk. But I didn't care at that point.

That is my story children.

P.
icedragon
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yay.

Post by icedragon »

If any of you guys -ever- believe a "PPC Emulation Real Soon Now" announcement again, it'll do nothing but perpetuate this bullshit.

This is the seventh or so time I've seen Darek do this... How many times now has he announced and cancelled PPC Emulation? There was "SoftMac Professional" a few years ago that went away. Then "SoftMac XP" which turned into just another 040. Then the "XP2 engine", or whatever. And most recently, this announcement. All of them just end up cancelled one fine day. His reasons are always vague.

There's only one reason why this happens. He loves the control.

Darek has never coded byte one of a PPC emulator. He hasn't even begun. But he knows the announcements will cause people who are new to this dog and pony show to champion him, and he loves the attention. And when everyone gets pissed off after he cancels it, he loves that attention too.

Look into his history and his behavior. He's a spoiled little rich kid who loves to be the center of attention. He's likely reading all of these comments right now, and even getting sprung over what I'm writing. It's press. It's spotlight. He's a "name", and positive or negative, that's good enough for him.

I've made a LOT of predictions here and so far I haven't been wrong once. There never will be a PPC Mac on x86 emulator. Ever. (At least not while PPC is still a viable platform. I guarantee you will NEVER be able to emulate OSX on an x86.) Neither Darek nor Jim have ever begun work on a PPC emulator. Jim's card was fake. Darek uses the same codebase that he used for the original SoftMac, and has simply added creeping features. His PPC demo was a mock-up, and Jim is not in any negotiations with a 'ppc card supplier'. Darek is not engaged in DMCA lawsuits, either. Much like how during the Anthrax scare, nobody had cause to be alarmed: Darek just isn't "important" enough to be the target of a lawsuit like this. (Though I'm sure he fancies himself as such.)

There are a few other guarantees I can make. Darek will re-announce upcoming PPC support in the future. It may be a year or so from now. Truthfully, it'll occur whenever he gets bored enough to desire a rise out of people again. I wish I could say that when this happens again, everyone here at eMaculation would be wise enough to know that he's just playing with us -yet again-, but as I've said in years past. With every passing year there's a new group of kids who find this site and say to themselves, "Oh! Someone's working on a PPC mac emulator for PC! Maybe it'll be released in a few months!" ... They don't know the track record. They may have even heard of D&J's track record but haven't seen it. So they actually have hope, and are gullible enough to believe it when Jim Drew's site says "REAL SOON NOW!".

It's the whole "a sucker born every minute" thing. Jim Drew is about due for his biannual "WE'RE ALMOST DONE!" update. Watch for this mid-summer. But keep in mind that with Jim, no news is good news, as successive updates after one news update are always no less than half a year away.

But let's put all that aside for a minute. Let's say that Jim or Darek, do, someday, indeed release a PPC Mac emulator. (This will never happen.) ... Would you really want to purchase any sort of software product from either of these "companies" knowing their track record?

If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that if someone will fuck you once, they'll fuck you again. And if there's one thing I know for certain, it's that these two fine strapping lads with perfect hair (You ever notice that? heh) are into a WHOLE LOT of fucking.

As I've said before, this site should just own up to what it is: A skinning site, and live with that. (I understand, Clockwise, however, why you'd be reluctant to give up the name 'emaculation', as it is, indeed, sassy.) Mac emulation "news" could still be reported. But the game is over. No companies like Connectix are going to touch the subject due to fear of Apple's legal arm. Darek and Jim are hacks who look for attention, and they're playing this small audience of theirs in the eMaculation community like a musical instrument.

There's a lot of programmers out there, guys. Really good ones. And a PPC mac emulator has been in demand for -how long-? It still hasn't happened. If it was ever going to happen, someone besides D&J would step up and start work on it. This hasn't happened. Even ARDI, who likely is -not- in this for the "fuck and laugh" game, hasn't come up with a solution (nor have they really announced one to come.)

Let's all just move on. There's tons of sub-1.0 releases of dock programs to spend hours talking about.


-icedragon
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phirkel
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Post by phirkel »

I didn't read your entire response, but I agree with the fact that Darek hasn't coded a single line of PowerPC emulation code. In fact, I'll be willing to bet he doesn't understand how the PowerPC Macintosh platform works. And I agree, the newbies get lulled by his lies and empty promises.
One of these days I will post my correspondance between myself and darek. It gets amusing at times.
mike

stop waiting for an emulator for PPC, BUY A MAC

Post by mike »

ppc emulation is not going to exist until when ppc is long dead as 68k is now. dont waste your time waiting and waiting for one, getting all exited when an announcement comes out. if u want a mac that bad, BUY ONE! there is never going to be a better solution unless apple changes its architecture to x86.
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Post by ShadowFox »

Heh, reading through all these old "PPC will never happen posts" is sort of amusing, sitting here next to a Pentium 3 laptop running MacOS 8.6 via SheepShaver with very reasonable speed. I'd have posted this message from it, but I haven't been able to get the ethernet driver to compile on the 2.6 kernel. It's remarkable to see the progress made in a little over a year, and indeed the creativity and talent of Gwenole for putting it all together!

Cheers to PPC emulation guys!

I've had a few correspondances with Darek myself... let's just hope he keeps his nose out of the SheepShaver sources.
Guest

Post by Guest »

But thats just the point. "PPC emulation will never happen" is untrue now, but "Darek and Jim are incompetent jerks" will remain true for the next thousand years.
The Balance Of Judgement
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Post by The Balance Of Judgement »

I remember being one of the ones saying PPC emulation wouldn't happen. But when I said that, at the time there wasn't anyone working on any projects, and from what everyone knew, those who had worked on the previous emulators had actually dropped out of the emulation scene, so the only people we know who would have some interest or ability was Darek or Drew.

Based on that, PPC was indeed going nowhere fast. But now that's it here it's still Linux only which excludes most folks out there, but maybe that's a good idea since most of the pathetic whiners and idiots run Windows, so by using Linux we keep them out of the garden so they don't ruin it. ;-)
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Post by Mac Emu »

I kept mentioning that Gwenole was working on SheepShaver for the x86. But even I didn't expect it to be working for quite a while longer. :D

I think Jim and Darek didn't want Apple breathing down their necks, so after years of bullshitting us, they quietly gave up without officially telling anyone.

<goes off to install Mandrake 10 ...>
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Post by rcwire »

I would choose SUSE over Mandrake, mainly because I am lazy.
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Post by templest »

I guarantee you will NEVER be able to emulate OSX on an x86.)
Ohh, how you where proven wrong. So, so, very wrong. :lol:
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Post by Stephen Coates »

Has anyone noticed that there were at least three sites saying PPC emulation coming soon, and there was at least two downloads that didn't work, so hey were fakes, but the two REAL PPC emulators (pearpc and sheepshaver) just got released and surprised us, and not have a notice on the website saying 'Sheepshaver/PearPC will be realesed really soon now'?
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Post by robojam »

Maybe we will just see a site saying "Darek/Drew - bullshitting real soon!"
Once you've made something idiot proof, they go and invent a better idiot!
madmac
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even the real stuff is shit!!

Post by madmac »

even the stuff that is real is shite!
look at softmac! (should be: authors have tiny SOFT dickheads MAC emulator!)

welcome to the world of softmac!, please insert ass into hole so derek can fuck you over!
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Post by Kakaze »

And you decided to revive a year old thread because?

Survey says: you're an idiot!

----


As an aside: I bet that Mike guy feels like a complete fuckwit now. haha
madmac
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why not?

Post by madmac »

hey, i revved it, because i want to bich about soft mac some more!!
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Re: yay.

Post by niuus »

icedragon wrote:I've made a LOT of predictions here and so far I haven't been wrong once. There never will be a PPC Mac on x86 emulator. Ever.
Like a Dreamcast emu. Or even X-Box. Never!!

LOL. :roll:
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Post by SAK ` »

So you guys are saying that this Darek person is not only a false statement maker, but maybe a source code thief as well?
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Post by Stephen Coates »

As far as I'm aware he didn't take anyone elses source code, but he did lie about the PPC emulator. As did Jim Drew.

At least Jim Drew has finally updated his website.
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Post by sshrugg »

niuus wrote:Like a Dreamcast emu. Or even X-Box. Never!!
There is a dreamcast emulator. Also, there is an Xbox emulator. Never say never. Xbox emu came quick though, since it's so much like a computer, and it uses an intel processor just like a PC, it carries out a lot of the commands directly instead of in a software virtual machine. Sweet.

Furthermore, on the same note as "never say never" Why would you say
icedragon wrote:I've made a LOT of predictions here and so far I haven't been wrong once. There never will be a PPC Mac on x86 emulator. Ever.
That's just silly! I don't even know what to say. There's no reason there couldn't be. Also, hasn't it been done? Pear PC and sheepshaver...maybe I'm wrong.

Anywho, Stephen has an awesome point. The programs that actually did get the job done, came out of nowhere. No fanfare, no promotion saying "IT'S A'COMING!". Instead, it's always just - hello, we're here.

It starts me thinking about how strange it is that a developer would announce something way back in it's "fetal" stages of development. That's kinda slitting your own throat. Nobody needs pressure like being held to a claim that you were going to do something when it's that tall of an order. Derek probably stop doing this to himself. I'm sorry, icedragon, but I have to disagree with you. By making claims he's not gaining any control, just a lot of expectations from the crowd. Then, we all flame him here!! I've only had one correspondance with him, and it's because I couldn't get softmac to work. He sent me an arrogant email saying that macs don't start up without operating systems installed (duh). He never answered my questions, just teated me like I was kind of stupid. So, yeah. Not that great a guy to be talking to, but a damn good programmer, in my opinion. Softmac is incredibly fast stable and compatable, even though it's not my emulator of choice.

Now, on our end of things, why do we get so excited when programmers say "I'm going to do it" and so pissed when they say "I'm not going to do it" The fact is, it's not here yet. Let's chill out, and take what we can get. Like Stephen said, the good stuff came out of NOWHERE, and we all agree that the claims are never true. Keeping with the Xbox analogies, has anybody noticed that we're all so pumped about the stupid 360 when we have *NO* idea what the games will look like? Kinda silly. I think we're all doing the same thing whenever it comes to promised emulation developments. That probably means, we, as a community of end-users, are a little uncool. I know that if I were programming this stuff, I'd be terrified of us. We're just never freakin' happy!

Anyway. PPC Emu can happen, and we've all seen it. Jim and Derek claimed they could deliver things they couldn't, or never got around to. Not a big deal to me. I like emulating the old macs. Personally, I don't see much use for emulating a new machine. If I want a new mac, I'll get one. I just like emulating the old stuff so that I don't have to dust off the stuff in the closet, and find a new desk to put it all on. :P Also, it's nice to be able to have a zillion huge disk drives to hold all my stuff, and gob on impossible amounts of RAM. Makes the old stuff a lot more convenient to use.

Anywho...this was a long post. Sorry for anybody who didn't want to read all this, but the thread opener said "Talk!" and I did so. It's a popular subject, so I wanted to give my two cents. And, hey! I used quotes for the first time! :wink:
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Post by Stephen Coates »

The reason we never believed that PPC emulation was not possible because the PPC processor was so complicated compared to the 68k and the x86 (intel). There were no other PPC emulators being worked on except these two, and there creators kept saying that they were delaying the release date.

So, we had no other option than to belive that PPC emulation was not possible, until we actually got a PPC emulator.

I'm surprised that you like softmac. I suppose I do in a way. I like the features it has, but it's incomplete. Combine Softmac and basiliskII and you've got the perfect emulator:

SCSI disk support (no more HUGE floppies)
Sound (not availible in Softmac)
Being able to change the screen resolution from the MacOS (not availible in BII?)

etc.

The correspondence that I had with darek was quite nice. But it was actually about his mac os disks, rather than softmac. I eventually decided that it would be too much sending some moeny for postage from the UK to america, and then sending some mac os disks over here. He responded to my emails in a very polite way.

But I suppose that if I was to contact him about SoftMac or softmac pro, he might not be as nice. I've heard of plenty of times when he's been really nasty.
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Post by sshrugg »

Makes sense when you explain it that way, but I'm always a believer :wink: If I were around for that part of the conversation, I'd probably argue that one day, when computers are really really really fast, they would just emulate the processor actions in memory or on your drive. Of course, that'd be TOTALLY pulling things out of my ass :lol:

I agree completely with your comparison of Softmac and Basilisk. I thought sound was developed, however. From what I could gather through the "correspondance" I spoke of, he had figured it out, but only supplied it to people who had purchased the product. Something about activating it through registering...I'll see if I can dig those mails up. From what I understand, he decided to take that feature out (along with something else I can't remember) when he decided to make the program free for grabs, so that the people that paid good money didn't feel ripped off. I don't know if I believe this, and even if I do, I don't know if I agree with that policy. When I asked if I could buy it for those features, he said he's not giving that stuff away anymore. Strange.

Don't take this as fact, though. These memories are foggy. I'll see if I can find the email, and post that somewhere if anybody is interested.

But, yes. I asked him a question about how to get disk images to mount (ones that worked great with other images) and rather than just tell me about the scsi support issue, he kept on talking about how the computer can't start up on an empty hard drive. He bragged a lot, and kept repeating "think about that" as if I was incapable of understanding. I wasn't upset, but he was kinda curt.
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