Background Most computer industry segments are propelled forward by market forces, investment, and technology advances. Since 1972, technology advances have doubled raw computing power every 18-24 months. In the early years, only small amounts of computing power were doubled. But now, processing power has reached a critical threshold, where doubling has an enormous effect, heralding a major shift in the computing industry. The Desktop Workstation We have entered a new era where raw desktop performance has reached the workstation performance threshold. With the introduction of Apple's new G3 machines, we see the first industry desktop workstation. The desktop workstation is a machine with PC economics and workstation power. When we compare these new, low-cost, commodity-oriented, high-performance PCs to traditional workstation platforms, we see that PC-based workstations yield the best price/performance values. Apple is ahead of the curve in producing high-performance desktop platforms. Apple has crossed the next-generation RISC chasm. The G3 platforms are state-of-the-art, high-performance, low-cost desktop systems. On the new G3 machines, both the microprocessor and system hardware have been tuned for top MacOS performance. Combining the G3 platform with a full-featured UNIX OS provides the best price/performance UNIX workstation on the market. A "UNIX Virtual Machine" for MacOS. Tenon's MachTen is a full-featured Mach 2.5/BSD 4.4 UNIX OS. It is POSIX compliant and includes an industry-standard UNIX API. Applications that run on MachTen should be able to run on Rhapsody with a simple recompile. MachTen is implemented as a hyper-portable "UNIX virtual machine" for MacOS. MachTen runs on all Macintosh platforms (PowerPC and M68K). No modifications were necessary for G3 compatibility. MachTen is so portable that there is a good probability that it will run on the new NCs. A G3 Unix Workstation. Combining MachTen with Apple's new G3 machines creates a UNIX workstation with the best price/performance ratio in the industry. MachTen runs extremely well on all G3 machines. The larger, more efficient caching and higher speed disks give MachTen workstation style responsiveness. SciTech International (888-462-6231) is selling a G3 UNIX Workstation, which is a pre-configured G3 machine with Tenon's MachTen, OpenGL from Conix, and Virtual PC from Connectix. Hardware Configuration: * 266 MHz PowerPC G3 processor * 128 MB RAM on 64 bit memory bus * 512K backside cache, 133 MHz dedicated 64 bit backside bus * 6GB fast IDE hard disk drive * 24x CD ROM drive * 100MB Zip drive * 3-button mouse * 20" Monitor * 6 MB VRAM - display up to 1600 x 1200 * ATI 3D RAGE II+ 64 bit graphics, accelerated 2D/3D graphics * 10BASE-T and 100BASE-T Ethernet Included Software: * Power MachTen by Tenon: POSIX-compliant, Mach/BSD UNIX OS. MachTen runs UNIX applications in a preemptive, multitasking environment. Included with MachTen is a complete UNIX & X software development environment, a high-performance X server and a full suite of internet services. * OpenGL for X by Conix: fast, industry-standard 3-D graphics under X11R6. Display remote OpenGL applications or develop OpenGL X clients. * Virtual PC by Connectix: full Windows 95 capability at fast Pentium MMX speeds. With this pre-configured bundle, a single machine becomes a universal corporate citizen supporting UNIX, Windows '95, Windows NT, and X Windows and Macintosh applications all on the same desktop. G3 Macintoshes represent the best price/performance value in the PC industry. The MachTen, OpenGL, and Virtual PC software bundle combines that value to create a universal desktop. All G3 configurations are supported by MachTen: the mini-towers, the desktop, and the PowerBook. G3 Unix PowerBook Hardware Configuration * 250 MHZ PowerPC G3 Processor * 160 MB RAM on 64 bit Memory Bus * 512K L2 Backside Cache accessable at 100 MHZ * 32-bit PCI architecture on 66 MHZ bus * 5GB ATA IDE Disk * 24X CD Rom * 10Base-T Ethernet * 3-Button Mouse * 33.6 KB Internal Modem * Trackpad Point Device * 47Watt/Hr Lithium-Ion Battery MachTen MachTen is a mature software product, under development since 1989. In 1991, when it was first introduced, it received the MacUser "Best Connectivity" Eddy Award. In 1994, it was included in UNIX World's "Best Products of 1994". The MachTen UNIX virtual machine amplifies and extends MacOS. It includes hundreds of commands and utilities and a complete suite of UNIX client and server networking services integrated with MacOS. It supports industry-standard C, C++, Objective-C, Java, Fortran, and Ada software development tools. MachTen UNIX Virtual Machine. MachTen's UNIX virtual machine (UVM) extends MacOS to support a UNIX execution environment. MachTen's UVM is implemented as a small, tight family of MacOS system extensions, essentially fifteen shared libraries consuming about 1.2MB of memory. Simply dragging these libraries to the System Folder creates a UNIX virtual machine for MacOS. These libraries can be licensed by developers to support UNIX applications on MacOS. The MachTen system software contains these libraries and a suite of UNIX applications. MachTen Commands and Utilities (Representative List). * System Commands: csh, df, du, dump, finger, install, login, man, mt, passwd, printenv, shutdown, stty, su, supmaint, sync, time, tty, update, uptime, users, who, whoami, sh, bash, pdksh, tcsh * File Manipulation Commands: ar, basename, cat, cd, chmod, chown, cmp, comm, cp, diff, grep, head, ls, mkdir, more,mv, od, rcp, rm, rmdir, sed, size, sort, sum, tail, tar, tee, tr, what, whereis * Text Manipulation Commands: groff, troff, nroff, ed, eqn, emacs, ex, expand, fmt, fold, graph, plot, pr, ptx, refer, rev, spell, style, tbl, ul, vi, perl-5.004 * Process Manipulation Commands: at, init, kill, nice, ps, sleep, wait * General Utilities: alarm, bc, cal, calendar, dc, date, echo, expr ,false, last, leave, lpd, lpr, pwd, tell, true, vacation, wall, write, yes * MachTen Networking Applications - Complete family of UNIX network clients and servers - biff, ftp, hostid, hostname, ifconfig, inetd, mail, named, nfsd, ping, portmap, rlogin, rmail, route, routed, rsh, rshd, rwho, sendmail, slattach, talk, telnet, tftp, tip, elm, mh, pine, procmail, upop, popclient, irc, knews, lynx, tin, xntp, uucp * MachTen Software Development Applications - Complete C, C++, Objective-C, Java and Ada Tools - as, cb, cc, error, f77, fpr, fsplit, gcc, gdb, g++, indent, ld, lex, lint, lorder, lxref, m4, make, md, mig, mkdep, mkstr, nm, tcopy, tp, vgrind, yacc, gnat 3.09, sisal, autoconf, automake, bison, flex, ncurses, style, p2ada * MachTen X Window Client and Server Applications - Complete X11R6 X server, X client and Motif development environment - X, Xmark, afterstep, apres, asclock, bitmap, fsinfo, ico, imake, maze, mwm, nedit, playaudio, xauth, xcalc, xcolormap, xdm, xearth, xlock, xlogo, xsm, xv, xxinit, tcl, tk A more complete list of applications is available, (applications included with BSD are omitted for brevity). Porting Software to MachTen. MachTen has a BSD 4.4 POSIX Application Programming Interface (API). A great deal of effort has gone into supporting standard BSD and POSIX environments on a single system. Porting software to MachTen consists of configuring the source for BSD 4.4 and one or more make operations. Both GNU and Berkeley make are supported. Once the initial code production is complete, a module-by-module checkout process is recommended. With over five years of PowerPC development, this process has been made as smooth as possible. The availability of a complete family of X11R6 applications, a complete suite GNU gcc tools, hundreds of network applications, and large, sometimes difficult applications, such as Emacs 19.34b, attest to the strength of MachTen's basic software porting environment. MachTen OpenGL Client and Server Options. Tenon teamed with Conix to create an OpenGL option for MachTen. The OpenGL option, not only lets you display remote OpenGL applications, but also lets you develop an OpenGL application directly on a Macintosh with MachTen. MachTen Hardware Requirements Two versions of MachTen are available: Power MachTen and Professional MachTen. Power MachTen runs on all Power Macintoshes * 32 MB RAM * 350 MB disk minimum Professional MachTen runs on all M68030 and M68040 Macintoshes * 16 MB RAM * 100 MB disk minimum Price and Ordering Information If you already own a Power Macintosh and would like to order MachTen, you can order online at http://www.tenon.com/order/order.html or by contacting sales@tenon.com or by phone at 800-662-2410. The list price is $695; the academic price is $350. Quantity discounts are available. Otherwise, order a G3 Unix Workstation from SciTech International (888-462-6231)