[Sheff]

Hi Charles,

It has been stated that one of the reasons for not developing for the Mac has been because Xara has been optimized in assembly for x86 platforms.

Now that Macs will share that same platform, assuming that hardware is consistent with only BIOS being the difference, is Xara on OS X within the realm of possiblity?

In the apple keynote speech, it was demonstrated that Mathematica 5 code was recompiled to work on an Intel based Mac by changing 20 lines of code. I assume it will probably be more complex than that for Xara.

In all honesty, the only application that has kept me on a PC has been Xara. I have been frustrated with operating system issues and various other non Xara related issues.

Personally, I don't care which operating system I use. I want reliability. I have hardware specced out for my upcomming needs that I will pull the trigger on soon. I have no intention of switching to a Mac at this time, but in a few years, I anticipate having to make a choice.

Will you consider looking into developing for forthcoming Macs? I am seeing this as a strategic move on Apple's part to show developers that they can easily port their apps to OS X. By doing this, they open Apple up to a lot of new hardware and software.

The problem with Xara has been that the Illustrator is the reigning king on Macs and there was no way for you to compete with that. Now that all future versions of Illustrator will be x86 based, Xara can now make a real push into converting designers.

So what do you say?

[Soquili]

Hi Sheff,

I won't presume to speak for Charles, but I will offer some information about processor/OS.

The processor that the Mac OS operates on is not the only limitation on porting software from the PC to the Mac.

The version of Mathematica 5 that was recompiled to work on the X86 based Mac that only required changing 20 lines of code would have to be the Mac OS version. To recompile that program from the Windows X86 code to work on the Mac x86 code would require an almost total rewrite of the code. The processor is an important part of the overall configuration, but the other components are also very important. Not to mention that OS. Mac OS is essentially a customized version of UNIX/LINUX. For the same reasons that Xara hasn't been ported to Linux (also an X86 based platform) is the requirement to rewrite the source code for that OS. Too many man years of work would be involved.

An analogy would be the 6502 processor based computers from the late 1970's to early 1980's. The same processor was used, but the software companies had to employee distinct software development groups for each target computer. The Apple IIe and the Commodore 64 both used the 6502, however that is where the similarity ended. The Apple used a simple piezo electric buzzer for sound. The Commodore 64 had a 3 voice synthesizer. The Apple's graphics were limited to 4 colours displayed at one time. The Commodore 64 could display 8 colours simultaniously. The Apple's video memory was severely fragmented and require ackward code to make a seamless full screen display. The Commodore 64 had linear video memory that was easy to directly update, not to mention it had sprite's for animations.

Also the Apple IIe cost at least 3 times that of the Commodore 64. About the same as the cost difference between a Mac and a PC.


Cheers

[Sheff]

Soquili,

That's an interesting point. I remember those 6502's. I had an Apple II and I still have my Commodore 64(it's in the garage.)

So I guess Xara will remain a PC app. I suspect you're right Bill.

But it just kills me. I show my work to my students and they ask me how I did it. I say 'Xara' and they say, "What's that?" I hesitate to even bring it up, because I know that they are headed for industries that are dominated by Illustrator and Macs. There's no point in showing them a better way if it could potentially limit their opportunities.

I wish there was a real practical choice for students other than Illustrator.

[John Rayner]

Hi sheff,

When the idea of porting to the mac came up last year I remember Charles said it would take &frac34 million to port xara to the MAC. Too much competition in that market for the investment. If you can guarantee the funding they will port... The idea kinda died after that.

[Sheff]

Well, I think now if someone had VMware running Windows on an x86 Mac, I'm willing to bet it would run better than it would on a PowerPC Mac.

In that case, they wouldn't have to port it but rather make sure it ran well with VMware.

I dunno. I think we are living in interesting times. I think Xara is in a vicious catch 22 cycle.

How do they increase their user base without funding a port to the more popular platform without the funds from an increased user base?

[wW]

Shef, For me drawing or creating vector art in Illustrator & Flash which have the most awkward drawing tools I've ever used is most difficult. Illus is so backwards thinking & working from the Draw-Xara path. I had a similar learning curve spike when switching from CADDAM to PC's CorelDraw back in the day.

If you can get your students creating vector art in Illustrator & Flash first, then Corel & Xara secondly as These seem to be the two schools of vector programs. Not shure where Fireworks fits in the picture. If your students learned from these 2 schools, they should be able to handle/create in any Vector app that they may run up against.
I suspect that starting your students with Illustrator would open more doors to mainstream graphic jobs in the states though. It seems like the west coast is more Mac entrenched than eastern US. Perhaps less so as time goes on since Mac lost the OS war to Microsoft. I'm not an expert on this subject but it seems that Mac had to adapt to the microsoft way to survive. Mac can run a Windows OS & Linux etc. Where as windows can't run the Mac OS. Didn't Microsoft bail out Mac OS?

Our dream to see Xara a household name in the graphics industry as it should be! I hope it happens one day.

With 3d & animation becoming such a dominant force in Hollywood. I wouldn't discount the career possiblities there. They use 20,000 dollar software though so it's a different path than the static art path we are on.

[John Rayner]

Hi Waldo,

Remember, quality animation is still created one frame at a time. I feel xara could do some awesome video editing/animation creation with their graphics engine. IT has to be better than the existing garbage out there.

[defunkt]

It will become a lot easier to run any Windows program on a Mac once they've moved to Intel chips.

The hardware will be 99% the same, just a specific Mac configuration. That's completely different from a software emulation (like virtual PC is now)

Apple has said that it isn't planning on making it possible themselves. They will not try to stop anyone who does, though.

[Sheff]

Hi Waldo,

First of all I teach illustration, not Illustrator classes. Even still, I have students tell me they hate illustrator. I never mention Xara. The only time I mention Xara is when students ask me what program I use.

It's not that I'm not a proponent of Xara, because I am. It's that there's no way I can get the school to even consider installing Xara in the labs if it's not a mainstream application that will be in the offices of the companies that will hire these kids.

I can't even get them to buy proper furniture. There are a lot of things that need to be done to fix the school.

Until Xara is professionally accepted by the masses, there's no point in promoting it.

In my opinion, if Xara really wants to make a high profile splash, they should offer it to some of the top artists/designers and pay them to create some artwork for them. Otherwise, it will remain a hobbist's tool.

No one will switch to a tool that a) is unavailable on their existing platform and b) isn't commonly used.

[Charles Moir]

My take on the Apple switch. It looked as if PowerPC was making headway - it's a great chip architecturally, way better than Intel processors in my opinion (remember we come from an ARM RISC background so PowerPC RISC is sort of similar). It has 128 bit wide registers and lots of them, SIMD instructions etc that means a PowerPC optimised Xara drawing engine could be awesome.

What's more with Microsoft moving to PowerPC for the next Xbox (three 3.2GHz PowerPC processors, each dual cored), the Cell chip in the Sony Playstation also being based on PowerPC core, it looked as if PowerPC might make some real headway. So we had been doing some research into how we might create PowerPC versions of our rendering engine.

And then, just as the world seems to be moving to PowerPC, Apple go and switch to Intel. I was stunned and it's sort of sad really. Having worked on every processor from the Zilog Z80 onwards, the 6502, 68000 and ARM of course - each of which has at one time threatened Intel's dominance. Apple were the only PC manufacture standing out against the Intel architecture, and now they have succumbed. So history is being made. The 30 year PC processor war has finally been won by Intel. OK other processors with have a niche - PowerPC in Games machines, ARM in phones and PDAs, but not on the desktop.

The good news is that, yes, we can use our assembly optimized rendering on Intel based Macs. I should perhaps mention the internal architecture of Xara X was always designed to be platform independent (a bit like the secret life of OS X, always being platform independent). Xara Studio (the original version) was designed to be ported to Mac, Acorn or other platforms - it's just that we never got around to do doing them (Acorn died, and 1995 Apple seemed doomed, after Jobs had gone) so it seemed not commercially sensible. And of course the rendering engine was Intel assembly language.

It's not a trivial amount of work by any means, to create Linux or Mac versions. There is quite a lot of user interface code that is Windows specific, but it does mean it's a more realistic possibility that a Mac version of Xara X could now be created.