Subject: Re: CCL:POWERMAC clones for compchem

From: [email-masked] (Rzepa,Henry)
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 11:43:42 +0000

>To follow-up on the recent comments of John Nash (1-5-96):
>
>>It would be foolish, I think, to ignore the Power Macintosh
>>as such a system based on long-held OS biases as to what a "real PC" is.

I have used LS Fortran intermittently for some time, and it is
certainly a good compiler. However,  I would suggest that
the PowerMac needs to get its pre-emptive multitasking/
protected memory OS (Copland and Gershwin) before it
can be taken totally seriously. Also, the internal bus structure
has been substantially improved with the PCI (which not all
Macs have), although I/O is still not up to the Unix boys
standards.

On a different theme, I have been experimenting with
QuickDraw 3D, which addresses the very serious limitations
on 3D graphics that Macs (and PCs) used to have.  The
QD3D accelerator card ($500?) certainly starts to give e.g.
SGI entry level machines a run for their money, and presumably
we can expect the card to be built into the mother board of
higher end Macs soon.  All we need now is software!