Cocoon Wrapper for DOSBox – 1.0b004

Cocoon Wrapper for DOSBox version 1.0b004 has been released. It can be downloaded here.

Cocoon Wrapper for DOSBox is exactly what it sounds like – a wrapper for DOSBox, which is an emulated DOS environment (most people use it to play old DOS-based games).

Intel Woodcrest CPUs & Virtualization

There is an interesting article at Anandtech about Intel’s upcoming dual-core Xeon server chip, “Woodcrest”, which could find its way into the PowerMac G5′s successor as well as Xserve setups.

This was an interesting little comment made by the Anandtech writers:

While we were there we were presented with the normal marketing hoorah, what product launch is without that? But we also had some quite interesting presentations like Virtualization, and where Intel sees that market going (it’s going sky-high for those that haven’t been keeping up with it).

Intel Set to Launch “Conroe” aka “Core 2 Duo”

DailyTech has a nice summary of tonight’s launch by Intel of their new dual-core CPUs, the Core 2 Duo series, named “Conroe”

Excerpt:

Intel is set to announce its long awaited Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors tonight, July 14th, at 12:01AM EST. Initially announced at the Spring Intel Developer Forum 2006, Intel’s Conroe was demonstrated beating out AMD’s fastest processors from high end Athlon 64 X2’s to the gaming and enthusiast oriented Athlon 64 FX. Intel also previously launched the Core 2 architecture based Woodcrest Xeon 5110, 5120, 5130, 5140, 5150 and 5160 models. With the new Core 2 architecture Intel is moving away from the megahertz war and moving towards higher instructions-per-clock performance and improved power efficiency instead.

New Core 2 processors are based upon a new micro architecture that shares its roots with Intel’s Core mobile architecture. Intel will launch Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme dual-core processors initially, though a single-core Conroe-L Core 2 Solo processor is expected in 2007. Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors have a plethora of new features including Intel Wide Dynamic Execution, Intel Smart Memory Access, Intel Advanced Smart Cache and Intel Advanced Digital Media Boost. Intel’s Wide Dynamic Execution technology allows the 14-stage pipeline to have a 33% wider execution over previous Netburst based processors. Each core also has deeper buffers, 4 wide-decode to execute, 4 wide-micro-op execute, micro and macro fusion and enhanced ALUs too.

Conroe/Core 2 Duo should be a nice boost to the Mac lineup when they make their way in (and surely they will, especially in the iMac and potentially Mac mini). The speed/cache improvements will definitely help with Virtualization.

Virtual PC Free (for PCs) and Windows Vista Licensing

Microsoft had a couple of interesting announcements yesterday on the “Virtually Vista” blog concerning Virtual PC and Microsoft Windows Vista and Virtualization.

The first was that Virtual PC (Microsoft.com) (for PCs) would be free. Virtual PC for Macs would not be free. They also mentioned that virtual PC 2007 (VPC 2007) was in development and that it would support Windows Vista in both host and guest modes, as well sa support for 64-bit Vista as a host OS, and that it will be faster than Virtual PC 2004.

The second (and fairly relevant to us) involves how Windows Vista Enterprise will be handled in a virtualized environment:

Customers who deploy Windows Vista Enterprise have the ability to install up to four (4) copies of the operating system in a virtual machine for a single user on a single device. Even better, nothing in the license requires that Microsoft Virtualization technologies be used – if you want to use a competing product as your Virtualization solution, you still get the four extra installs for use with VMs.

Macworld UK Article: CrossOver lets Windows apps run on OS X, sans Windows

Macworld UK has an excellent write-up about CodeWeavers CrossOver Mac, and how it relates to Parallels Desktop and Apple’s Boot Camp.

CodeWeavers has announced plans to release CrossOver Mac this summer. The $60 software will allow Intel Mac users to run Windows applications – including some games – without having to buy or install Windows itself.

Boot Camp and Parallels Desktop both provide this capability for Intel Mac owners already. Boot Camp, software from Apple currently available in beta form, makes users reboot their Macs and run Windows. Parallels Desktop iis a ‘virtualisation’ utility that enables the Windows operating system and Windows applications to run in Mac OS X, within another window (or, alternately, in full screen mode).

CrossOver Mac will take this one step further – it eschews what CodeWeavers chief operating officer Jon Parshall calls the “box within a box approach”.

“What you see running is an application sitting in your Dock or your Applications folder,” Parshall said.

Both Boot Camp and Parallels Desktop work because the new Macs utilise the same microprocessor that’s found in Windows-compatible computer, and CrossOver Mac employs the same basic principle. This wasn’t possible before January, when Macs depended solely on PowerPC-based microprocessors made by IBM and Freescale. The presence of an Intel processor inside the Mac forges a close enough resemblance to get Windows and Windows applications to work.

Full article.