After years of anticipation, the Taiwanese-backed NuTek USA Corp in Cupertino, California has finally come down to the wire with its Macintosh-compatible technology: the company claims that it has developed the first machine that emulates the Macintosh without requiring installation of Apple Computer Inc’s proprietary ROMs. The company claims that its system software and hardware is functionally compatible with applications software written for the Macintosh – only some of the most widely used ones have been tested, and the company provides a list of these – but it uses OSF/Motif as the graphical interface rather than a direct copy of the Mac screen. The machine also supports most standard Macintosh peripherals. The NuTek motherboard and system software are available now to dealers and other resellers at $900 and the company says it has accepted initial orders from dealers in Europe and will sign dealers in the US this month. The company also brought out a finished dual-standard machine, the Nutek Duet, which includes both 33MHz 80486 and 33MHz 68030 processors to run both its emulation of Macintosh System, and MS-DOS and Windows; no price was given for it. NuTek is delivering operating system software on disk and in ROM, and offers a chip set consisting of three application-specific integrated circuits and a video controller chip to provide the principal logic functions of the Macintosh; like Apple, it has licensed the NuBus from Texas Instruments Inc. In designing the system, NuTek says that it has been very careful to avoid any contact with former Apple employees, and kept under constant review the status of Apple patents and copyrights throughout the world.
