MicroStation in MAC OS

Hi everyone,

Does anybody knows if MicroStation works in MAC OS?

Thanks

Bill Prassas

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  • This past summer my desktop, running Windows XP, crashed. One or both of the memory chips failed (total memory 512MB), apparently during a critical operation while shutting down or updating the OS, resulting in a corrupted OS. (Overheating due to clogged ventilation ports may have caused the chip failure). Even with a new memory chip (1GB), the computer will not boot into Windows. While searching for a way to create a bootable CD or DVD to try and salvage data and repair the OS, I came across Ubuntu and Puppy Linux. With the new memory in place I was able to boot into Ubuntu and Puppy Linux via CD.  Ubuntu recognized but would not read or write my thumb drive.  Puppy had no problem and I was able to copy files from the hard drive to a thumb drive and transfer those files to a new laptop. My intention is to try to repair the XP installation. Failing that, I may just wipe the drive and install Ubuntu, Linux Mint or, Puppy (or maybe multi-boot). This experience has gotten me to thinking. MicroStation used to support both Windows and Apple/Mac (thru MS/SE) and there have been numerous requests to support Apple or Linux or Unix, etc.

    My thought is this: Why support any OS? Puppy only takes up about 100MB of ram - not much for the entire OS - and a heck of a lot less than plain vanilla MicroStation all by itself. Why not check out Linux and develop a tailored minimal OS (Bentley Linux?, Bentley OS?) and support only that - (as long as the OS is capable of running open source or commercial office software - software types that users are likely to be using in addition to CADD). Most of the Linux flavors will run quite well on a variety of hardware platforms besides the ones that typically run Windows. This way Bentley products could get away from dependencies on someone elses software (OS), including not having to wait for bug fixes in an external vendor's OS or develop work-rounds for those bugs while waiting for a fix so that the Bentley applications can function properly. This would make MicroStation and its applications available to Windows users, Mac users, Sun Sparcstation users, etc, without having to support, validate, certify, etc. MicroStation's use on any of their respective operating systems. It seems to me that this could significantly broaden the prospective customer base for Bentley products with comparatively minimal effort.


    Installation of the "Bentley OS" and Bentley products on a dedicated machine should yield the highest possible performance for any machine that meets the minimum hardware requirements. But Linux flavors can also run inside of Windows (with a performance penalty) using virtual machine software. This could give access to drivers for hardware that may not exist (yet?) for Unix/Linux.

    I wonder if there might be available linux software along the lines of Wine (which provides an environment that some Windows software can be installed and/or run) that is specifically designed to provide an environment for installation and use of non-Linux device and hardware drivers.

    In effect this would, in fact, be porting to Linux instead of Windows, but in the long haul it would probably be more beneficial than maintaining an "affair" with Windows.

  • Hi,

    I do engineering, drafting, Mstn customization & vba programming, IT, and interaction with clients.  My oversized desk is already too crowded and I definitely don't want a second computer on my desk.  The one computer I have is running Microstation, email, our contact/project management software, and Microsoft Office constantly.  It'd be hard to do that on a stand-alone operating system.

    Good idea, but I don't think it'd work for everyone.

    --Robert