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A (gag) PC In Every Mac (5/6/99)
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We at AtAT have long been fascinated with urban legends, those great "friend of a friend" stories that seem to stick around forever despite being, in many cases, completely false. False they may be, but in many cases the balance of the story is so perfect that the really sticky urban legends click into the archetypes of the collective unconscious and refuse to let go. Civilization will collapse and the human race will retreat back into the trees before people stop telling the one about the guy who got drunk in a bar and woke up in an ice-packed hotel room bathtub only to discover fresh surgical stitches where black-market organ traders harvested one (or both!) of his kidneys. (We swear, this really happened to the guidance counselor of our cousin's hairdresser's roommate!)
Similarly, there are many, many rumors floating around in the Mac world that just won't die. There's the one that says that Apple is porting the Mac OS to Intel hardware. There's the one about how they're preparing to ship Apple-branded Wintel systems. There's the one that says Steve Jobs is really a telepathic alien clone who feeds off of employee paranoia waves. (Well, okay, that one's ours, but it should be a widespread undying rumor, dammit.) Then there's all that stuff about consumer portable wireless Internet access, Apple set-top boxes, DVD-and-FireWire-enhanced iMacs-- you name it, it's out there. But one that keeps cropping up over and over again is the rumored "Red Box" of Mac OS X (which, at some point in its development life, was known in one form as Rhapsody Unified). Simply put, you know that the Yellow Box runs the "new" software, and the Blue Box runs the "old" software for compatibility's sake. The Red Box was rumored to run Windows software, giving the Mac OS a built-in emulator that would open up the whole range of Windows applications to the Mac OS.
Yes, the Red Box rumors have surfaced again, this time in the form of a pretty believable report on Think Secret. Apparently the latest incarnation of the story is that Apple's considering a complete buyout of Connectix and/or Insignia to ship VirtualPC/SoftWindows on every Mac once Mac OS X is out; the G4's will be fast enough to emulate Windows with plenty of speed for everyday tasks. It could happen. Interestingly enough, we're now having a really tough time connecting to Think Secret's server. Are those Apple-funded ninja hit squads out whacking "questionable" rumors sites again? Perhaps Think Secret just got a little bit too close to the truth. Now if you'll excuse us, we have to go dry our wet dog in the microwave...
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SceneLink (1509)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 5/6/99 episode: May 6, 1999: The iMac captures yet another design award, this time alongside one extra-special toilet. Meanwhile, the rumor of built-in PC emulation in future Macs once again rears its ugly head, and fake pics of the new PowerBooks are better than nothing at all...
Other scenes from that episode: 1508: It Came From Planet Flush (5/6/99) It's pretty hard to believe that it was exactly one year ago today that Apple first took the wraps off the iMac and the whole world said, "Whoa." (Actually, the whole world said, "What the hell is that?!", but Apple Marketing decided that phrase was too long for the t-shirts.) There it was, a translucent blue and white space egg, just bursting with enthusiasm as if it just knew... 1510: The Longing Continues... (5/6/99) Have you been keeping track of just how long we've all been waiting for a new PowerBook? Seriously-- it's been a year since we've had the excitement of a fresh new portable. The PowerBook G3 Series was introduced exactly one year ago, on the same day that the iMac said hello again; since then, we've had some speed bumps and some graphics upgrades, but the PowerBook itself is basically still the same old Wall Street model...
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