Well, I am really pleased to see the discussion that has arisen! This is long, but I wanted to answer why I wanted to use my Rocket in this fashion--the answer, simply, is get the advantages of a co-processor. Perhaps the technology is ancient, but the concept is so appealing -- slap in a card, get a machine within a machine...
My reasons: 1. Yes, bragging rights. It appeals to me to have computers this old still useful. ;-) 2. Need for speed: A G-3 accelerated Nubus Mac is left in the dust by most newer machines; I could always use greater performance. 3. Learning experience: I am a long-time Mac user, but have limited experience with the *nixes. I am currently running Debian Linux on several older 68K Macs, and am experimenting with OpenBSD and NetBSD. I am using an accelerated Mac II (!!) as a firewall and router, and another one as a Samba/Netatalk server for my network. They make fine servers, as long as you don't try to run X. I thought that the Rockets might offer co-processing capabilities; I am not the first to inquire about using the Rocket for added power under Linux or the BSD's, but the response has always been that the number of people who'd benefit was too limited to be of value compared with the effort of re-writing the kernel. 4. Limited variety of OS on my main machine: it will never run Mac OS X, mkLinux or (it appears) PPCLinux which has been adapted for Nubus, because of the accelerator (Sonnet). (Consequently, I picked up a copy of MachTen, and it runs nicely on my 7100, but beyond finding it a nice integration with my other machines (see below), I am still learning what I can do with it.) I had hoped that the Rocket would offer the possibility of running one of the alternative OS's. An Orange Nubus DOS card would function alongside my accelerator to run Windows, but for the same reasons as above, no one has ever made the necessary changes to the kernel to let it run Linux on such a card. -- Rocketeer is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Save on Mac software -- Shop Software Outlet.com <http://lowendmac.com/ad/software.outlet.html> Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Rocketeer list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/rocketeer.html> Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/rocketeer%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Macintosh? Get free email and more at Applelinks! <http://www.applelinks.com>
