SoftPC is a software

emulator In computing, an emulator is Computer hardware, hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run sof ...

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...

hardware. It was developed by Rod MacGregor, Henry Nash & Phil Bousfield, following the founding of Insignia Solutions in 1986 by MacGregor, with "about a dozen people who had left the CAD/CAM workstation specialist Computervision", believing in a market opportunity for an independent CAD/CAM consultancy. Originally a side project, SoftPC quickly became the main focus for the company, running PC software on workstations. Originally developed on

SPARCstation The SPARCstation, SPARCserver and SPARCcenter product lines are a series of SPARC-based computer workstations and server (computing), servers in desktop, desk side (pedestal) and rack-based form factor configurations, that were developed and sol ...

s, the first customer to license the software was

Intergraph Intergraph Corporation was an American software development and services company, which now forms part of Hexagon AB. It provides enterprise engineering and geospatially powered software to businesses, governments, and organizations around the w ...

whose workstation had a proprietary processor architecture. Available originally on

UNIX Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or computational science, scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating syste ...

s to run

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...

, the software was ported to the

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

in 1987, and later gained the ability to run

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

software. Besides

Mac OS Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. in a succession of two major series. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the classic Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system ...

, supported platforms included SGI IRIX,

Sun Solaris Oracle Solaris is a proprietary Unix operating system offered by Oracle for SPARC and x86-64 based workstations and servers. Originally developed by Sun Microsystems as Solaris, it superseded the company's earlier SunOS in 1993 and became kno ...

HP-UX HP-UX (from "Hewlett Packard Unix") is a proprietary software, proprietary implementation of the Unix operating system developed by Hewlett Packard Enterprise; current versions support HPE Integrity Servers, based on Intel's Itanium architect ...

IBM AIX AIX (pronounced ) is a series of Proprietary software, proprietary Unix operating systems developed and sold by IBM since 1986. The name stands for "Advanced Interactive eXecutive". Current versions are designed to work with Power ISA based ...

NeXTSTEP NeXTSTEP is a discontinued object-oriented, multitasking operating system based on the Mach kernel and the UNIX-derived BSD. It was developed by NeXT, founded by Steve Jobs, in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was initially used for its ...

, Motorola 88000,

OpenVMS OpenVMS, often referred to as just VMS, is a multi-user, multiprocessing and virtual memory-based operating system. It is designed to support time-sharing, batch processing, transaction processing and workstation applications. Customers using Op ...

VAX VAX (an acronym for virtual address extension) is a series of computers featuring a 32-bit instruction set architecture (ISA) and virtual memory that was developed and sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the late 20th century. The V ...

and

DEC Alpha Alpha (original name Alpha AXP) is a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Alpha was designed to replace 32-bit VAX complex instruction set computers ( ...

systems, DEC ULTRIX, and others. Bundles of SoftPC with Windows ( 3.x, 95, 98) were called SoftWindows, although it was possible to install Windows into the basic SoftPC environment along with some special utilities provided by Insignia to achieve the same effect. The introduction of Windows and applications running in that environment, as opposed to DOS, changed the underlying conditions for emulators, and Insignia's SoftWindows product was described, in comparison to SoftPC, as "a complete redesign, mandated by the size and complexity of Windows programs". The execution characteristics, described as "narrow and deep" in DOS applications, were instead "broad and shallow" in Windows applications, making it more difficult to identify sections of code for translation to the native architecture of the computer running the emulator. Insignia entered into a development agreement with Microsoft giving the company access to Windows

source code In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer. Since a computer, at base, only ...

. This agreement covered the product then known as Windows 4 as well as Windows NT, on which Microsoft was seeking to support compatibility for Intel architecture binaries on

RISC In electronics and computer science, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer architecture designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a comp ...

architecture systems. When Microsoft released

Windows NT Windows NT is a Proprietary software, proprietary Graphical user interface, graphical operating system produced by Microsoft as part of its Windows product line, the first version of which, Windows NT 3.1, was released on July 27, 1993. Original ...

it included a subsystem ("WOW" -

Windows on Windows In computing, Windows on Windows (commonly referred to as WOW) is a discontinued compatibility layer of 32-bit versions of the Windows NT family of operating systems. Since 1993, with the release of Windows NT 3.1, WoW extends NTVDM to provide ...

, later

NTVDM Virtual DOS machines (VDM) refer to a technology that allows running 16-bit/32-bit DOS and 16-bit Windows programs when there is already another operating system running and controlling the hardware. Overview Virtual DOS machines can operate e ...

) for running virtualized

16-bit 16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors. A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two ...

Windows (x86) programs. However, they had also made changes to Windows to allow it to run on alternative processors (

Alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter ''aleph'' , whose name comes from the West Semitic word for ' ...

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

), and for these an emulation layer was needed for programs compiled for

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

processors. Customized versions of Insignia's core emulation system were produced to this end, but the alternative NT architectures never became widely used. Beginning in 1996, Insignia commanded the niche for this product area, but it soon faced heavy competition from

Connectix Connectix Corporation was a software and hardware company that released innovative products that were either made obsolete as Apple Computer incorporated the ideas into system software, or were sold to other companies once they became popular. It ...

with their

Virtual PC Virtual PC is a discontinued x86 emulator software for Microsoft Windows hosts and PowerPC-based Mac (computer), Mac hosts. It was created by Connectix in 1997 and acquired by Microsoft in 2003, after which the program was renamed Microsoft V ...

product. Insignia sold the product line to FWB Software in October 1999 in order to focus on supplying implementations of

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

for the mobile device market. FWB continued to sell SoftWindows until March 2001. FWB Software also marketed a separate version of the software that did not include a bundled copy of Windows, called RealPC, until 2003. Unlike most emulators, the SoftWindows product used recompiled Windows components to improve performance in most business applications, providing almost native performance (but this meant that, unlike SoftPC, SoftWindows was not upgradable).InfoWorld Article on SoftWindows
/ref>

Reception

BYTE The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...

'' in July 1988 said that SoftPC's "screen response, compared to other PC-compatibility products I've seen, was downright snappy", and that XyWrite III Plus ("one of the most ill-behaved PC programs in existence") ran well. The magazine concluded that for those needing to occasionally run DOS programs, "SoftPC is a viable option". '' MacUser'' in November 1988 rated it 3.5 mice out of 5. Noting its PC networking compatibility, the magazine said "If you'd like to access the company's database, see what your client sees on her screen, or capture a PC screen to plop into your Mac document, SoftPC is an excellent solution".

References

External links

* {{Cite web, url=https://archive.org/details/softwindows-32-powerpc-v1.01, title=Motorola SoftWindows 32 for PowerPC v1.01, via=

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

IRIX software NeXTSTEP software Solaris software OpenVMS software X86 emulators

Reception

See also

References

External links