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Emulation Programs on HP-UX

HP 9000 PA-RISC computers were mostly used with HP-UX Unix for technical computing between the 1980s and 2000s with third-party Unix engineering applications. To integrate with wider PC and Macintosh environments for productivity and office suites, several emulators were ported to HP-UX in the mid-1990s.

There were at least four commercial emulators for HP-UX 9 and 10 that allowed Mac OS and DOS/Windows programs on PA-RISC. There might have been more emulators, including early open source and even hardware solutions. Nowadays there is QEMU, a modern emulator for PA-RISC and HP-UX on PCs.

Emulation on HP-UX; Dates and versions approximate
Software	Vendor	Emulated	Versions on PA-RISC	Time
MAE	Apple	Mac System 7	2.0 to 3.0	1996—1997
SoftWindows SoftPC	Insignia	Windows DOS	1.0 to 4.0 3.0 to 4.0	1994—1997 1993—1995
Wabi	Sun	Windows	1.1 to 2.2	1994—1996
Liken	Andataco	Mac System 6	2.0	1994
QEMU		HP-UX	2.12 to 9.2.0 or newer	2018—now

Macintosh Application Environment (MAE)

MAE, Macintosh Application Environment from Apple, is an emulator for Apple classic Mac OS programs on Unix systems for Enhanced productivity through shrinkwrap Macintosh applications. Apple released MAE 2.0 and MAE 3.0 in the mid-1990s, which supported HP-UX among other Unix systems and allowed HP PA-RISC computers to emulate classic Mac OS programs and environments on Unix. MAE was a commercial product sold and distributed by Apple Computers.

MAE was used often in commercial and research settings for using Microsoft Office in Unix environments, via the Macintosh emulation. We are able to take software packages made for Macs, and offered to research institutions for free, and run them on the UNIX workstations. The bulk of development and engineering in these setups was done on Unix workstations with documentation, presentation preparation, and some other activities outsourced to MAE.

Apple MAE emulated a Motorola 68000 processor and Macintosh computer on HP PA-RISC. AppleTalk connectivity was possible on HP-UX through the bundled STREAMS/UX service. MAE used X11 for graphical display and was meant to be a local application on workstations. It supported data exchange between X11 and Macintosh, launching Unix applications and manahing Unix files and accessing Unix services including TCP/IP (MacTCP).

MAE 2.0

MAE 2.0 supported HP-UX 9.03, 9.05 and 9.07 and HP-UX 10.01 and was based on Macintosh System 7.1 with some 7.5 features, emulating a rather complete 68040LC Macintosh. HP-UX 9.0 versions needed specific HP-UX patches for MAE 2.0. System requirements were 32 MB RAM, 38 MB hard drive space, X11R4 or X11R5 and minimum processor speed of 712, 715/100, 735 or faster.

MAE 3.0

MAE 3.0 supported HP-UX version 9.0.5 or HP-UX 10.10 and was based on Macintosh System 7.5.3, it emulated a 68040LC Macintosh. MAE 3.0 recommended, like MAE 2.0, a 712 or 715/100 for optimal performance. System requirements were X11R5 or later, 48 MB RAM, 75 MB hard disk space. MAE worked with HP VUE (but needed a patch), required FLEXlm license manager and came with several Claris demo applications (ClarisWorks, FileMaker, ClarisImpact).

Apple documentation for MAE was quite exhaustive in those times, with many detailed webpages and documents available.

MAE 2.0, Apple Computer 1997 archive.org
MAE 2.0 Installing and Getting Started, Apple Computer, 1998 mirror archive.org
Macintosh Application Environment 2.0, The virtual Macintosh for open systems - White Paper, Apple Computer, 1998 mirror archive.org
MAE 3.0 Documentation, Apple Computer 1997 archive.org
Macintosh Application Environment (3.0) User Manual, Apple Computer 1997 archive.org
Macintosh Application Environment (3.0) Administrator Manual, Apple Computer 1997 archive.org
Macintosh Application Environment (3.0) White Paper, The virtual Macintosh for UNIX systems, Apple Computer 1997 archive.org
Macintosh Application Environment (3.0) Data Sheet, Apple Computer 1997 archive.org
A real PowerBook: the Macintosh Application Environment on a PA-RISC laptop, Old Vintage Computing Research August 2025

SoftWindows and SoftPC

SoftWindows and SoftPC are emulators for x86 PC hardware from Insignia Solutions, originally developed to allow DOS and Windows programs on Unix computers. This was later extended to a variety of host and target platforms. The use case for Unix workstation owners was to to access personal productivity applications of the mid-1990s such as Lotus SmartSuite, Microsoft Office, and Novell PerfectOffice, usually not available on Unix and RISC.

As part of SoftWindows for Unix, Insignia wrote Windows device and display drivers to facilitate compatibility between Windows on the Unix host. Most PC devices were supported in the emulated DOS and Windows PC, including ports, networking, floppy, video and CD-ROM. Windows OLE and DDE were supported. Networking support was extensive, including Novell NetWare, Windows NT, LAN Manager, Banyan VINES, the ODI standard and TCP/IP.

For PA-RISC and HP-UX, several SoftWindows versions were released:

SoftWindows95 4.0 (1997): Emulates an Intel Pentium with Windows 95 on HP-UX 10.20, it needed 64 MB RAM and 180-290 MB disk drive. Version 4.0 supported 32-bit applications and OLE 2.0 on Windows 95. DirectX was supported, as were SVGA and VESA modes. Winsock, Ethernet and Token Ring were supported. It was Internet Ready with Internet Explorer, RealAudio, MacroMedia Shockwave, Adobe Acrobat, Java and Active X
SoftWindows 2.0 (1995): Emulates an Intel 486, with FPU, on DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 (WfW), both preinstalled, on HP-UX 9 and HP-UX 10. Extensive networking support was included, Novell client and LAN manager were bundled. Supported A: and B: floppy drives, CD-ROMs, SVGA and Hercules graphics and I/O ports.
SoftPC 4.0 (1995): Emulates an x86 PC with DOS or Windows, SoftPC might have been included with NeXTSTEP as trial, possibly only in the Intel version.
SoftWindows 1.0 and 1.1 (1994): Emulates an Intel 386SX to 486SX with licensed DOS 6.2.1 and Windows 3.1 on HP-UX 9, sold for $549 with flexible licensing technology.
SoftPC 3.0 and 3.1 (1993): Emulates a Windows PC (i486) for HP 9000 PA-RISC and 68000 workstations, with major DOS device support (80287 FPU, SVGA, floppy) for $495. Had Windows 3.1 preinstalled.

Documentation on the Insignia website in the mid-1990s was modern and extensive:

Unix SoftWindows Fact Sheet and Requirements, Version 1.0, Insignia Solutions 1997 archive.org
SoftWindows Version 2.0 for UNIX, Insignia Solutions 1997 archive.org
SoftWindows 95 Version 4.0 for UNIX, Insignia Solutions 1997 archive.org
SoftWindows for Unix Patches, Insignia Solutions 1997 archive.org
NeXT Computer Inc. and Insignia Solutions Sign Collaboration Agreement, Insignia Solutions 1997 archive.org
SoftPC User’s Guide HP 9000 Series 300/800 Computers (98870-90011), Hewlett Packard 1989 bitsavers

WABI

Wabi was an Windows emulator from Sun Microsystems for Unix host systems, including HP-UX, released between the early to mid-1990s. In contrast to SoftWindows, Wabi emulated (or rather implemented) the Windows 3.1 and 3.11 API and did not emulate a complete Windows environment.

There were Sunsoft-certified products to fully run on Wabi after Windows instalation, with a rather limited selection (list linked below), plus an unofficial list of compatible applications, that has been lost, however. The official list included: Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, Powerpoint, Project), WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, Borland, Aldus Pagemaker, WordPerfect and a few others.

Wabi was later licensed by HP from Sun and shipped as HP product for some of its HP 9000 700 workstations in the mid-1990s. Apparently, there was no Wabi version for 32-bit Windows applications.

Wabi 1.1 (1994), HP product B3248AA, was offered by HP for the new 712 workstations, integrated with the HP VUE X11 environment, offering i486 performance for 13 popular Windows applications
Wabi 2.0 (1995), HP product B3248AA, was now certified to run 24 Microsoft Windows 3.1 applications
Wabi 2.1 (1996) added support for Windows 3.11 (WfW), ODBC (open database connectivity), but HP-UX support is a bit unclear
Wabi 2.2 (1996) provided integrated with CDE (X11 desktop), OLE/DDE between Windows software and was optimized for Pentium-class perfomance. More Windows applications were supported. HP Wabi 2.2 was HP product B3248CA and B3249EB, for HP-UX 10.20 and was a bundled HP Wabi product on HP-UX Application CDs
Wabi 3.0 planned (1997) to offer Windows 32-bit support for Windows 95 and applications but development was abandoned in 1997. There was also no Windows NT 4.0 support for Wabi planned.

Sun had extensive documentation on its Sunsoft Wabi product, but specific information on the HP Wabi product and releases was rather sparse, as HP Wabi was (mostly) bundled on HP Application CDs or software packs.

The world in a (single!) box , Sun World Januar 1996 archive.org
Windows Applications certified for Wabi 2.2 and 2.1, Sun Microsystems 1996 archive.org
When worlds collide PC/Workstation Integration, HP Professional November 1994 archive.org
The Wabi White Paper, Sun 1996 archive.org
Wabi 3.0 (Sun Wabi Technical Knowledge Base), Sun 1996 archive.org
Sun Wabi Technical Knowledge Base, Sun 1996 archive.org
Wabi User’s Guide (802-6306-10), Sunsoft May 1996 oracle

Liken

What sounds like WABI, but looks and feels and works like a Macintosh? — Andataco Liken, another Macintosh emulator for Unix systems, developed by Andataco and released in 1994. Liken 2.0 supported Unix computers including HP-UX on PA-RISC and emulated a standard Macintosh System 6 (6.0.7), which needed to be installed separately.

Liken was used to integrated HP-UX Unix workstations in Apple-centric environments for Mail and file exchange, it was much more limited that MAE (or SoftWindows). Display output was monochrome-only, and System 6 was already slightly outdated in 1994

Andataco Liken emulated a Motorola 680x0 processor and ran the Mac Finder in an X11 window. Performance was limited however, a HP 712 achieving the speed of a Mac IIsi. Liken does a reasonable job of executing, but even on a fairly well equipped UNIX host, it is very likely that a mid-range Macintosh will outperform Liken.

Very little information remains on Liken, which it seems was discontinued soon.

Liken: Macintosh Emulation For Your UNIX Workstation, HP Professional August 1994 archive.org
Emulation: RISC’s Secret Weapon, BYTE Special Report 1994 April halfhill
Emulation: RISC’s Secret Weapon PDF version archive.org
Macintosh Emulation on UNIX Workstations Benchmarks Archives, January 1994 archive.org

Emulators for PC and Mac on HP-UX