MacOS cloned!

["Peter Ross" <eonicman@erols.com>]

 An interesting development.  Perhaps there is a possibility of having the
MacOS 8 clone adapted to the TOS Platform.  It could be called Spectre 2000


Peter Ross
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German development firm developing "Mac OS 8-compatible operating
system"

Several readers have written in about a news item (in German) on
the German newsticker Heise Verlag, which indicates that when
German Developoment firm Omega ran into dead-ends in its efforts
to increase security in the Mac OS, it decided to work on the
problem "the other way around" -- and began development of its
own Mac OS 8-compatible operating system. Here's a translation of
the news item:

Stollenberg, Germany, based software development firm Omega is
developing a MacOS8-compatible operating system that complies to
the Unites States B2 security classification. COS (Crypto
Operating System) was intended to make MacOS more secure,
President Manfred Schmitz said, but when it turned out to be too
complicated, they decided to it "the other way around". The
result is a mulltiprocessor client/server operating system with
"real" preemptive multitasking, B2 security classification,
clustering and a custom QuickTime implementation. It is said that
COS is four times faster than the Original MacOS, takes 10 to 15
megs of hard disk space, 500 K of RAM, and runs on 68030- to
PowerMacs.

Omega plans to distribute COS as DM 169.- ( $100) "shareware".
The first public presentation will be given at MacWorld Expo
Dusseldorf in November.

How Omega plans to deliver an OS with any kind of interface
familiar to Mac users without treading on Apple copyrights and
patents isn't known, but the possibilities are fascinating, if
they do indeed have an OS that will run Mac OS apps so quickly
and in so little RAM. If you have any information on this, or are
able to confirm any of the details, let us know!