Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: WINE ~= Carbon?

Author:Dino Morelli
Posted:4/28/1999; 6:17:34 PM
Topic:Linux' wide open spaces
Msg #:5399 (In response to 5353)
Prev/Next:5398 / 5400

Microsoft isn't going to do this kind of transition with Windows.

Microsoft already did it, in 1995. Win16 to Win32 migration.

Be thankful you didn't go to Windows back in '93-'94. It killed a lot of companies. It was a lot more painful than OS to OS X will be. Apple's offering an easier path than Microsoft offered Win16 programmers when Win95 came out. For Win16 developers, it was a total rewrite, or being stuck with a crappy Win32s app that had no future (and Win32s was no freebee either).

This just isn't true. Developers did not have to rewrite their 16-bit apps to be able to run them under Win32. Sure it was attractive to do so, but 16-bit apps run on Microsoft OSs to this day.

Understand that I'm very displeased with Microsoft for many reasons.

But also understand this: Microsoft provided better backward-compatibility during the shift from 16-bit to 32-bit than I've ever seen in personal computers at the time of a major OS change. And they're still providing impressive backward-compatibility as of the Win98 release.

I was working on a huge Windows project at the time that Win95 was imminent (Grolier CD-rom encyclopedia). We ported our code to a separate 32-bit version but we didn't have to. We did it so we could take advantage of the newer Win95 gui components.

The shift from System6 to System7 should have been 1/4 as easy. It would've made me ecstatic.


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