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Macintosh Application Environment

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Revision as of 00:19, 26 September 2020 by Netfreak (talk | contribs)

UNIX workstations users traditionally enjoy access to a variety of software tools that are well suited to perform technical, scientific or computationally-intensive tasks. In addition to these primary functions, UNIX workstation users often need to perform tasks, such as desktop publishing, spreadsheets, task scheduling, and electronic mail, as well as interact with administrative desktop systems. Currently, there is a very limited selection of these typically inexpensive, industry standard business productivity applications for UNIX users.

Macintosh Application Environment is a software application that provides a virtual Macintosh environment in an X window to users of Hewlett-Packard's workstations running HP-UX 9.0.x or HP-UX 10.10 or later Sun Microsystems SPARCstations running Solaris 2.4 or later. Through 68LC040 emulation and native extensions, MAE lets users run off-the-shelf Mac OS-compatible, 680x0-based business productivity applications. MAE provides significant interoperability with other Mac OS-based systems in the enterprise, while giving users the ability to easily manipulate UNIX files and execute UNIX applications from within a Macintosh environment. Users can also copy and paste text and graphics between UNIX and Mac OS-compatible applications.

Overview

The Macintosh Application Environment (MAE) from Apple Computer, Inc. brings the functionality and ease-of-use of the Macintosh environment to Sun SPARCstations running the SunSoft Solaris 2.3 operating system and Hewlett-Packard 9000 Series 700 workstations running HP-UX 9.01.

MAE is Apple's first cross-platform software product for open systems, and the first to bring the Macintosh environment to non-Apple computers.

MAE provides a Macintosh run-time layer on top of the UNIX operating system allowing UNIX users to take advantage of the wide variety of off-the-shelf 680x0-based Macintosh productivity applications available, including popular spreadsheet, desktop publishing, word-processing, graphics, and business applications. These programs run unmodified under MAE, taking advantage of UNIX workstation performance.

MAE includes the System 7.1 Finder, bringing to the UNIX file system the same file-handling and navigation functionality that Macintosh users have, the Macintosh graphical user interface and Desktop Manager, and the ability to cut and paste data between applications. MAE provides many of the new features of the Macintosh Operating System, such as the ability to use aliases, and "publish-and-subscribe" functionality. All of these features are provided within a standard X Window System(TM) client window.

MAE is the only product in the marketplace developed and supported by Apple Computer that helps UNIX workstations to be Macintosh-application capable.

It offers UNIX workstation users the most up-to-date Macintosh experience because technology owned and developed by Apple, such as the Finder, is built into the product.

MAE takes advantage of NFS (Network File System) from Sun Microsystems, which allows transparent file sharing and file services across the network. As a result, remote as well as local Macintosh and UNIX files and applications can be displayed and manipulated by the Finder.

MAE 3.0

This innovative software product brings the functionality and ease-of-use of the Mac OS operating system to SPARCstations from Sun Microsystems, Inc., and workstations from Hewlett-Packard Co., that run popular versions of the UNIX operating system. Like its predecessor, MAE 3.0 enables users of these UNIX workstations to run off-the-shelf Macintosh applications but adds substantial performance improvements, floating licenses, System 7.5.3 support, better integration with UNIX, and a wider range of security options.

Faster

  • Enhanced emulator performance, up to 20 percent faster on average over MAE 2.0 because of numerous emulator improvements
  • Optimized remote X graphics performance results in a network bandwidth reduction of better than 10x when displaying Macintosh Application Environment in a remote X window

Easier

  • System 7.5.3 based, including ease-of-use features such as AppleScript, Apple Guide, Drag-and-Drop and PC Exchange
  • Multiple Independent Volumes (MIVs), which let users represent any UNIX directory or filesystem as a hard disk volume on the Macintosh desktop, including local, AFS, NFS, and auto mounted filesystems. This makes application installation, file navigation and Find File easier by removing the need to work in the UNIX root directory in favor of user-specified directories

More Flexible

  • Floating License Management uses the popular FLEXlm (tm) floating license manager to let system administrators more flexibly manage and monitor MAE licenses
  • File Sharing Security improvements give system administrators a wider range of file sharing options, from completely disabling MAE file sharing to permitting users to freely share their volumes
  • NFS/Filesystem Improvements let MAE users deal more effectively with UNIX auto mounted directories and Symbolic Links (symlinks) by representing them as MIVs.

Additional improvements

  • Improved control over AppleSingle/AppleDouble Format handling for better UNIX file integration
  • Double pixel option enables users to view the Macintosh desktop more easily
  • MS-DOS Floppy/CD compatibility lets users interchange floppies with DOS and Windows users
  • PhotoCD and ISO9660 CD compatibility.

See Also

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