Return of the "Red Box"?

In the days when what became MacOS X was still in early development, Apple developers put forth an intriguing idea. If one of the main goals of Apple Computer had to be the conversion of Windows users to Mac users, why not make the transition as easy as possible? Just as the new MacOS would have a "blue box" to run MacOS 9 applications transparently (now known as the "Classic Layer") why not have a "red box" that would allow them to run Windows apps transparently on Mac hardware? It was a brilliant idea, but abandoned when someone in Apple realized this had been the strategy of OS/2 - a Windows competitor sold by IBM for a while. Why is this significant? Anyone seen OS/2 in a while? Nope! They failed because users universally realized there was no point in buying a system that ran Windows apps slolwly if what they really needed were the Windows apps. And developers realized there was no reason to creat new native versions of their own apps, because "After all, OS/2 users can run them under Windows emulation."



But now a new user group is looking add something like this to MacOS X with the new DarWine project. Looks interesting, and if it (like VirtualPC) is not native to the OS but an add-on there is little risk. After all, only experienced Mac users would use this thing, not the ones vulnerable to the OS/2 argument.