And in another stunning act of prescience, we've been running around telling people that VirtualPC on a Powermac G3 makes for a very workable Windows solution, though we've had nothing to support that claim-- until now. MacNN has posted a special report from a reader who provides detailed information about how he installed VirtualPC on a stock G3/266, and configured it as a dual-boot Windows 95 and Windows NT system. When he was done, he had a G3 that was flawlessly running Sybase System XI SQL Server for NT at estimated Pentium 133-166 speeds.

It's a fascinating story, and it illustrates that not only can the Mac do Windows, but in many ways it does Windows better than Wintel systems do. One benefit is that since the VirtualPC's Windows disk partition is just a Mac file, backing up your VirtualPC is as easy as pressing command-D in the Finder. This makes the typically-frightening software installation process totally fixable; afraid that installing that new Windows software will nuke your registry or screw up your IRQ's? No problem, try it and if it fails, just trash your whole PC and work from the backup folder. Another plus is that VirtualPC lets you save the state of the PC at any time, so you can restore the state of your PC exactly as you left it-- with six applications running and fourteen documents open. Still another is the ability to ship your entire PC--including its saved state--to a Mac-using friend on a Jaz cartridge or the like. The possibilities are pretty mind-boggling.

Of course, this all assumes that you'd actually want or need to run Windows in the first place, which, thankfully, we personally do not. But for Mac people who do, The G3's really make VirtualPC a viable option-- and one that's even better than a "real" Wintel in some respects.