[WizOSX]

If so, please give a report.

[ecrelin]

I am expecting a copy soon will post results, meanwhile here are some screen shots from their install manual to dispel rumors that it doesn't exist.
(sorry they are fuzzy, had to shrink them to 480px so I wouldn't get in trouble)
hey how do I get the freakin images in here? the vB buttons don't work!

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by ecrelin:
I am expecting a copy soon will post results, meanwhile here are some screen shots from their install manual to dispel rumors that it doesn't exist.
(sorry they are fuzzy, had to shrink them to 480px so I wouldn't get in trouble)
hey how do I get the freakin images in here? the vB buttons don't work!

[ img ] URL [ /img_]


without the spaces

[ThisGuy]

i might be posting something you have already seen, but here is what i was able to view a few minutes ago:
http://www.cherryos.com/?id5#
then i clicked the demo and watched a movie of the setup.

[MindFad]

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
[ img ] URL [ /img_]


without the spaces

Also without the underscore.

What the hell is Cherry OS?

[AKcrab]

http://www.macworld.com/news/2004/10...ryos/index.php

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by MindFad:
What the hell is Cherry OS?

And does it actually belong in the category of things that make up Mac OS X?

[sniffer]

Found this CherryOS.pdf on the CherryOS.com site earlier to today before it went down.

[osxpinot]

From Slashdot: According to the MacWorld Article, Cherry OS, does what Virtual PC does for Macs, only the opposite. PC Users are now able to run Mac OSX at G4 Speeds (Company claims 80% of the speed of your PC). It also includes full hardware support: hard drive, CPU, RAM, FireWire, USB, PCI, PCMCIA bus, Ethernet networking and modem. The software is being distributed through electronic download at $49.99 USD.

How can they do this?

I'm very skeptical.

[piracy]

CherryOS is a scam, folks.

Nothing to see here.

I predict this is how it's going to play out:

They're going to delay for another couple days because of being "hacked". Then they're going to come up with some story why it's not available, along the lines of:

"Due to the incredible demand and lots of feedback, we've decided to make the first release of CherryOS even better! Keep checking back often for news!"

or

"Unfortunately, we have received a legal order to halt distribution of CherryOS. Thank you for your support." (When no one's EVER actually gotten a copy, of course.)

or some other ridiculous tale.

(Or, optionally, it's just PearPC repackaged with an installer and some lipstick.)

But guess what happened in the meantime? Two million hits for vx30.com, and free advertising for vx30.com's "products".

[strictlyplaid]

Originally posted by piracy:
CherryOS is a scam, folks.

Nothing to see here.

I predict this is how it's going to play out:

Omniscience must be great. Any thoughts on the upcoming Powerball drawing?

Seriously, I'm not saying you're definitely wrong, but I think you're awfully quick to judge based on... no evidence.

[MacGorilla]

Originally posted by piracy:
CherryOS is a scam, folks.

Nothing to see here.

I predict this is how it's going to play out:

They're going to delay for another couple days because of being "hacked". Then they're going to come up with some story why it's not available, along the lines of:

"Due to the incredible demand and lots of feedback, we've decided to make the first release of CherryOS even better! Keep checking back often for news!"

or

"Unfortunately, we have received a legal order to halt distribution of CherryOS. Thank you for your support." (When no one's EVER actually gotten a copy, of course.)

or some other ridiculous tale.

(Or, optionally, it's just PearPC repackaged with an installer and some lipstick.)

But guess what happened in the meantime? Two million hits for vx30.com, and free advertising for vx30.com's "products".

Sounds about right

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by strictlyplaid:
Omniscience must be great. Any thoughts on the upcoming Powerball drawing?

Seriously, I'm not saying you're definitely wrong, but I think you're awfully quick to judge based on... no evidence.

I'd say the entire history of the world is pretty good evidence that this, like all the million other projects making similar claims, is a scam.

Anyway, piracy is omniscient.

[chris v]

Originally posted by piracy:
CherryOS is a scam, folks.

Nothing to see here.

I predict this is how it's going to play out:

They're going to delay for another couple days because of being "hacked". Then they're going to come up with some story why it's not available, along the lines of:

"Due to the incredible demand and lots of feedback, we've decided to make the first release of CherryOS even better! Keep checking back often for news!"

or

"Unfortunately, we have received a legal order to halt distribution of CherryOS. Thank you for your support." (When no one's EVER actually gotten a copy, of course.)

or some other ridiculous tale.

(Or, optionally, it's just PearPC repackaged with an installer and some lipstick.)

But guess what happened in the meantime? Two million hits for vx30.com, and free advertising for vx30.com's "products".

I like option A because it's the funniest, but I think option B is the most plausible.

Vaporware.

[chris v]

Originally posted by Chuckit:


Anyway, piracy is omniscient.

He used to get on my nerves because of his bedside manner, but his track record for calling ******** has been 100% so far.

[strictlyplaid]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
I'd say the entire history of the world is pretty good evidence that this, like all the million other projects making similar claims, is a scam.

Anyway, piracy is omniscient.

Yes, you're right, anytime a business does something new and innovative, it's a scam. The "entire history of the world" can't be wrong.

Look, maybe this will turn out to be nothing, and even if it's true Apple will no doubt quash it with legal action. And this is the Internet, which automatically increases people's impudence factor by 1000-fold. But... can't we wait a week before we crow like roosters with superiority?

[WizOSX]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
And does it actually belong in the category of things that make up Mac OS X?

I'm not sure where else you would put this topic.

[piracy]

Originally posted by strictlyplaid:
Yes, you're right, anytime a business does something new and innovative, it's a scam. The "entire history of the world" can't be wrong.

Look, maybe this will turn out to be nothing, and even if it's true Apple will no doubt quash it with legal action. And this is the Internet, which automatically increases people's impudence factor by 1000-fold. But... can't we wait a week before we crow like roosters with superiority?

Here's some more to think about:

- even though the site was supposedly up before it got posted to slashdot and they started spreading around their press release, no one has been able to find ANYONE that actually has the product

- about a half-hour after the story was posted to slashdot, they took their servers down completely, leaving only a message about the traffic being overwhelming, and being "hacked", altering the wording of the message several times throughout the day, leaving only two questionable videos to their "product"

- the alleged creator of CherryOS and the "inventor" of the vx30 video encoding system is the same person:

CherryOS video:

?http://movies.mauionline.com/vx30_7_...cherry_os.html

vx30 video mail screenshot:

?http://www.vx30.com/images/vmail.jpg

- the only link left on the cherryos.com site were two videos...keep that in mind when you see the next items

- the ONLY person that has been found to have supposedly tried the product is a user 'dag33k' at hardforum.com: http://www.hardforum.com/search.php?searchid=369765

* on September 27, 'dag33k' asked: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=813258

Aloha-
I have been given the task to find an independent testing company to test the throughput of my company's video servers and I need your help. Can anyone recomend such a company? Experience with the particular company is a plus. What we are looking for is a messure of simultaneous users (max) and total throughput on the server.
Mahalo
dag33k

and

I did think of that, acctualy I recomended the [H] and slashdot, but it needs to be an indepented review from a credible company.

dag33k

* dag33k posts a few days later about how he's supposedly testing this Mac on PC software solution, and then posts several pieces of information like urls that were previously unknown: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=816641

Test 1 complete, via "the [H]"

* dag33k's location is listed as "da middle of da pacific"; the location of vx30 and CherryOS is Hawaii

* vx30 is trying to sell, and clearly looking to test the capacity of, its video streaming services

* The CherryOS story gets posted to slashdot (!)

* cherryos.com leaves only videos using vx30.com servers and the vx30 software - the "test" that they were seeking

Test 2 complete, via slashdot...the *same two* sites he said he wanted "testing" from

- CherryOS responds to emails periodically throughout the day asking people to be patient and saying that the site will be back up "soon", but not responding to queries about whether the product is real, or whether it is indeed product ready to ship now as their press release indicated...all the while, the site is actually up, with the two non-informative CherryOS vx30 videos

- To say nothing of the fact that one person, who apparently is responsible for a web design company, the "inventor" of vx30, in his spare time and out of the blue came up with an emulator that is **80%** the speed of the host hardware, when emulation companies have worked YEARS to get a quarter of that performance with similar products

- vx30.com has succeeded in getting hundreds of thousands of hits, and craploads of free advertising for vx30.com and its products (note that later in the day, the url switched to mauionline.com, another provider whose WHOIS contacts are listed as one Jim Kartes, the same media "contact" listed in their original CherryOS press release!

Some other thoughts:

http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.p...2&cid=10506070

[strictlyplaid]

Originally posted by piracy:
Here's some more to think about:

<snippy>[/url]

Very interesting... if this turns out to be a stunt, I wonder if that company will survive the bad press they get!

On the other hand, if the product is real, they'll probably have to hire someone just to count the money. Heck, I'd buy it.

[piracy]

Originally posted by strictlyplaid:
Very interesting... if this turns out to be a stunt, I wonder if that company will survive the bad press they get!

No press is bad press.

Hell, spymac.com rocketed itself to a huge audience-base with the iWalk scam. (They claim they had nothing to do with it, but they pimped the iWalk for everything it was worth, and boom - reinvent themselves as the site you see today, with a huge readerbase and membership.)

[ambush]

ahaha this is funny

"emulate the G4"

uh uh.

[MacGorilla]

Excellent detective work, piracy! looks like this guy got what he wanted--a stree test of his software, for free.
/me shakes head.

[mhuie]

I saw the movie of the developer/owner talking about it.

He shows a pic of it running on a Windows laptop. He drags the CherryOS window around (showing the mac desktop), but never clicks around ON the desktop. Could be a screenshot for all that matters.

In the last few seconds, he shows full screen OS X at a login window. If you look closely, its running on a TiBook.

People on the PearPC forums say its running some hacked version of PearPC.. (compared the boot screens).

[Cadaver]

If it smells like crap, it probably is...

[Xeo]

Piracy, you have a good history of posting the truth. Something tells me you don't even post unless you have facts to back up your words. Speculation doesn't even seem to be in your dictionary.

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by MindFad:
Also without the underscore.

oops

[MindFad]

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
oops

DON'T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN.

[Simon]

Originally posted by mhuie:
He shows a pic of it running on a Windows laptop. He drags the CherryOS window around (showing the mac desktop), but never clicks around ON the desktop. Could be a screenshot for all that matters.

Yep, I noticed that too. If he's using such sleazy tricks, I'd guess the whole CherryOS thing is a big pile of manure. Also, why should people try to hack him? And why should that be a problem for a decent server? And why is there no real proof of anybody using the product?

80% emulation speed, uhm yeah right, my ass, that's why Apple hasn't switched to x86 already ages ago, duh...

The old rule again: if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by MindFad:
DON'T LET IT HAPPEN AGAIN.

[WizOSX]

OK, the site is back up and everything seems to be legit. If someone gets a download, give us a report!!!

[ecrelin]

you are a judgemental and cynical lot. I find it hard to believe that they would take the time to write extensive user manuals with screen shots of the whole process to scam a "test" of their video delivery. This would include registering the domain, building the site etc. when I would think that they could scam a redirect and test it without all that effort. I exchanged emails with Jim the guy on the press release BEFORE the site went down and during its overload, he seemed genuinely surprised and gave me regular updates on why the site was going down. He uttered not one word on if I could see the video or how I liked the video delivery.
However, since I don't have a PC to try it on so I'll wait for the final verdict.
cheers,
PS I didn't include the images as they were linked to his busted server, thanks for the info though.

[strictlyplaid]

Originally posted by ecrelin:
you are a judgemental and cynical lot.

Well what I was thinking was: either they were asking for a server test to prepare for their big software announcement (knowing the interest it would generate), OR the software announcement was a scammish way of testing their servers. The evidence that piracy presented is consistent with either theory, so we'll have to wait it out to see which is true.

Not to deny that we're a judgmental and cynical lot, or anything.

[msuper69]

That's not a Tibook near the end of the video. It's a PC.

What he has done (if he has in fact done it, which I doubt) is not illegal. Apple can't stop someone from emulating the Mac hardware in software (again, I doubt he has done this).

What Apple could do is drag his butt into court as the EULA for OS X states specifically that OS X can only be installed on an Apple branded computer. He spews off about how much cheaper it is to run an OS X emulation on the PC hardware that you already own. That's exactly why Apple put that restriction in the user license.

If he has actually installed OS X on a PC and that video and screenshots on his web site are accurate, he has just shot himself in the foot.

Buh-bye Cherry OS. We hardly knew ya. (assuming you ever existed of course).

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by mhuie:
In the last few seconds, he shows full screen OS X at a login window. If you look closely, its running on a TiBook.

No it isn't.

Anyways, it's lame that there is no demo.

[chris v]

click add to cart = 404 error. Still no proof of existence.

[piracy]

Originally posted by chris v:
click add to cart = 404 error. Still no proof of existence.

Indeed. If anyone actually gets "CherryOS" (and it's not simply a repackaged PearPC), I'll come back and eat my hat.

My own personal money is on them saying that they've received legal notice that they're not to distribute it, apologizing to everyone that they've got to "close up shop".

[piracy]

Originally posted by piracy, yesterday:
I predict this is how it's going to play out:

They're going to delay for another couple days because of being "hacked". Then they're going to come up with some story why it's not available, along the lines of:

"Due to the incredible demand and lots of feedback, we've decided to make the first release of CherryOS even better! Keep checking back often for news!"

or

"Unfortunately, we have received a legal order to halt distribution of CherryOS. Thank you for your support." (When no one's EVER actually gotten a copy, of course.)

or some other ridiculous tale.

Boom, up on their new "site" today:

http://www.cherryos.com/documentation.html

CherryOS is still under development and is only available as a beta release for selected users. We are still working out our bugs and some performance issues on the AMD System.

We are aware of the stories out there and it is up to you to believe in CherryOS or not, we don’t have any moment of doubt and disbelieve.

CherryOS is real!

If you would like to play with a different product from the makers, check out www.vx30.com. [Emphasis mine]

As we received a big feedback for a trial version we reconsidered to provide one on the same date as CherryOS is released.

If you would like to place a preorder of the CherrOS 1.0 please go ahead, the credit card is not processed. Once CherryOS is launched we will send you a link to the trial version and also the then possible payment instructions.

What'd I tell ya?

[chris v]

Heh.

[BannanaFiend]

I will toss some logs into the "it's fake" furnace.

Regardless of whether their product is real, their claim of 80% performance is false. It is not even remotely possible. The x86 has only 8 registers, wheras the PowerPC has 32. A register is a small piece of memory that can be accessed very quickly (normally, if not always one clock cycle). Programs written for the PowerPC depend upon the assumption that 32 fast-access registers are available. Try to run those same programs on an x86, and a *ton* of clock cycles will be lost waiting on the contents of those registers (which would be in memory when running on an x86). The x86's L1 cache will help, but it is still not going to offer enough speed to make the emulation be 25% speed, let alone 80%.

Apart from that, I've seen nothing to make me think the product actually exists at all, but I'll keep an open mind in this respect.

[Millennium]

The claims are fraudulent, though the product may exist in some lesser form. As others have noted, 80% emulation speed on an x86-architecture chip is technologically impossible, due to the differences in architectures. 30%, maybe (and that will be extraordinarily difficult). 80%, no way.

AltiVec can, in fact, be emulated, but it can't be emulated well. In the early days of the G4, Apple offered its own AltiVec emulator for developers, so that they could test their code even if they didn't have a G4 machine to run it on. However, this emulator was extremely slow. Of course, the Wintel line has SSE and 3DNow! instruction sets which can help some, but they don't really translate to AltiVec very well, so you won't get much of a speed boost from emulating it. Indeed, you may actually lose speed by emulating it, because of all the overhead, so it may be better to just emulate a G3 chip.

My guess is that either this product will never be released, or it won't live up to anything remotely resembling the promises made by the developers. At any rate, it definitely won't be as useful as VPC is on a Mac.

[Eug Wanker]

Well, somebody on another forum says he called the guy, and the guy says a 3.2 GHz P4 will run with CherryOS like a 1.2 GHz G4. Take that as you wish...

[Xeo]

Originally posted by Millennium:
At any rate, it definitely won't be as useful as VPC is on a Mac.

Ugh, I can only imagine how bad it would have to be for VPC to be considered "useful" when comparing against it.

[Eriamjh]

I am preparing my "I told you so"s on this fake.

If the product does exist, then its claims are far over-stretched.

Anyone want to start a betting pool on how long it will be before they go under, disappear, or fess up?

[TimmyDee51]

Originally posted by msuper69:
That's not a Tibook near the end of the video. It's a PC.

What he has done (if he has in fact done it, which I doubt) is not illegal. Apple can't stop someone from emulating the Mac hardware in software (again, I doubt he has done this).

Emulating the hardware is not illegal, but there is one hurdle that's enormous -- the boot ROM. Without it, Mac OS X won't boot. I suppose you can reverse engineer it, but that would take ages. Also, distributing copies of the BootROM is illegal unless you have a copy.

In the end, it all comes down to the same conclusion. This guy is a hoax. I second piracy on the link to the vx30 page. I noticed it and was immediately suspicious. How is a link to another "product" a piece of the documentation?

[piracy]

Originally posted by TimmyDee51:
Emulating the hardware is not illegal, but there is one hurdle that's enormous -- the boot ROM. Without it, Mac OS X won't boot. I suppose you can reverse engineer it, but that would take ages. Also, distributing copies of the BootROM is illegal unless you have a copy.

In the end, it all comes down to the same conclusion. This guy is a hoax. I second piracy on the link to the vx30 page. I noticed it and was immediately suspicious. How is a link to another "product" a piece of the documentation?

FYI, there is no longer any boot ROM.

But yes, you're right, it's still a hoax.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by Xeo:
Ugh, I can only imagine how bad it would have to be for VPC to be considered "useful" when comparing against it.

VPC can at least run most non-game software at a reasonable speed, at least. It can even run some games reasonably, particularly those which don't require real-time processing (though that rules most current games out right there).

I very much doubt that CherryOS will ever run any Mac programs -except perhaps the most trivial ones- at a reasonable speed. That's why I say it won't be as useful.

[chris v]

Originally posted by piracy:
FYI, there is no longer any boot ROM.

I thought open firmware was contained in some sort of ROM on the mother board. I'm actually kind of ignorant, so I'm asking out of curiosity.

[Krypton]

I would very much like this to be true, as I'm buying a PC for using engineering software on my degree course.

I should like to remind people about this wired article about a month ago or so, about a universal emulator product. Makes for interesting reading

[piracy]

Originally posted by chris v:
I thought open firmware was contained in some sort of ROM on the mother board. I'm actually kind of ignorant, so I'm asking out of curiosity.

Open Firmware isn't a ROM, akin to the old Mac ROMs; it's a bootloader, and, as the name implies, it's open. New World architecture machines no longer have hardware ROMs.

[piracy]

Originally posted by Krypton:
I would very much like this to be true, as I'm buying a PC for using engineering software on my degree course.

I should like to remind people about this wired article about a month ago or so, about a universal emulator product. Makes for interesting reading

This is not real, and this fake "product" has nothing whatsover to do with that Wired story.