Classic Emulation
Archive source: MacWindows 1998-2000 emulation and PC compatibility-card pages
Legacy users often needed a bridge across both hardware generations and operating systems. That included PowerPC Mac users running Windows, Intel Mac users running older Mac software, and Windows users running classic Mac environments for preservation.
The earliest archive records include hardware compatibility-card coverage, not only software virtualization. One 1999 page compared Orange Micro's low-end PCfx! card with the OrangePC 660 upgraded with an AMD K6-2/400 processor. The archived benchmark table used ZD WinBench 99 and compared CPUmark32 and FPUWinMark results.
- Virtual PC and similar products helped PowerPC Macs run Windows applications.
- SheepShaver and Basilisk II became important for classic Mac OS preservation.
- QEMU-based tools gave technical users more control over experimental setups.
Archived OrangePC benchmark data
| Card | Processor, bus, cache | CPUmark32 | FPUWinMark |
|---|---|---|---|
| OrangePC 660 | AMD K6-2/400, 100 MHz bus, L2 cache | 881 | 1300 |
| OrangePC 660 | AMD K6-2/400, 66 MHz bus, L2 cache | 709 | 1287 |
| OrangePC 660 | AMD K6-2/400, 66 MHz bus | 473 | 1258 |
| OrangePC 660 | AMD K6-2/200, 66 MHz bus | 363 | 640 |
| PCfx! | IDT WinChip/200, 66 MHz bus | 299 | 320 |
The archived report concluded that the upgraded OrangePC 660 could produce roughly three times the general performance of PCfx! and more than four times the game-oriented floating-point performance. It is a useful reminder that Mac/Windows integration was once as much about hardware bridges as software layers.