Trixology
General Category => General Computing/Macintosh => Topic started by: elagache on March 30, 2016, 11:32:56 PM
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Dear WeatherCat Mac evangelists,
We are lucky enough to be observing a great revival of the Mac, but even so there is a lot of software that is written for Windows. It became much easier to run Windows software when Apple switched to Intel processors in their Macs. Today there are at least 3 different ways to run the Windows operating system on a Mac: Apple's boot camp software (https://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/), Parallels (http://www.parallels.com/),and VMware Fusion (https://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/). Each of these products have their pluses and minuses, but for me they share one weakness: they require installing a copy of the Windows operating system. Since I?ve been using Macs since 1988 and have never owned a copy of Windows in my life, this isn?t my preferred choice.
There is an alternative way to run Windows software on a Mac that is based on an open-source project called WINE (https://www.winehq.org/) which originally stood for: "Wine Is Not an Emulator.? According to the WINE website (https://www.winehq.org/): ?Instead of simulating internal Windows logic like a virtual machine or emulator, Wine translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls on-the-fly, eliminating the performance and memory penalties of other methods and allowing you to cleanly integrate Windows applications into your desktop.?
The latest electronic fuel injection upgrade on my trusty 1965 Buick Special wagon included software that can be used to adjust the system and log how the engine is performing. With those logs, the dealer where I bought the system would modify the tuning ?program? as part of the purchase price of the system. So I really needed a way to access the fuel injection system and the only software available was for Windows. So this seemed like a good opportunity to see if the WINE framework could run such software directly on the Mac.
It is possible to use software directly from the WINE project, but it is difficult to use. There is a commercial product based on WINE that has a nice user-interface. Crossover (https://www.codeweavers.com/) provides an environment where you can install and run Windows applications as if they were Mac applications.
After installing Crossover, you can download any of the FAST software from the website. You can then follow the Crossover procedure to install the software. I was able to launch to different software packages from the manufacturer of my wagon?s electronic fuel injection system: FAST (Fuel Air Spark Technology) (http://www.fuelairspark.com/).
Once installed, launching FAST software is a two-step process. First launch the Crossover environment and then launch the FAST software from the display window. Here is a YouTube screen video showing this process in operation:
https://youtu.be/9QvPSRSMdb0 (https://youtu.be/9QvPSRSMdb0)
As you can see, Crossover is intelligent enough to redirect the request for the help documentation in the FAST software to the default browser on the Mac: Safari. Otherwise, the FAST software looks exactly as it does on Windows, even if it is running on a Macintosh.
After succeeding to launch FAST software, I ran into problem trying to connect to the Sportsman engine control unit or ECU. The solution was to be found on the Crossover website although it is a bit of a hack:
https://www.codeweavers.com/support/wiki/mac/faq/usbtoserial (https://www.codeweavers.com/support/wiki/mac/faq/usbtoserial)
Connecting to USB devices isn?t officially supported by Crossover, but there is a trick that takes advantage that OS X is based on UNIX, and in UNIX, even devices have a location in the file system. Following the instructions given on the Crossover website I was able to establish a connection between my Sportsman and my Mac. Below is the terminal window with the commands I used (mistakes and all:)
(http://www.canebas.org/misc/Voila_images/Linking%20USB%20device%20to%20COM1.png)
Having solved my connection problems, I was able to download the tuning program so that my Sportsman dealer could review it along with the logs that had been taken earlier. With this information, The dealer sent me a revised tuning program. Below is a link to a YouTube video showing my Mac connecting to the Sportsman ECU and uploading the tuning program.
https://youtu.be/EflXYoDUVKk (https://youtu.be/EflXYoDUVKk)
Note that you only need to make the hack to connect to the USB port once (so long as you always plug the Sportsman into the same port on the Mac.)
The FAST software also works just fine while the engine is running. Here is a YouTube video showing the screen activity while the engine is running.
https://youtu.be/RDOdnKdLLfo (https://youtu.be/RDOdnKdLLfo)
You will notice a period of time when only the dashboard is displaying the current engine conditions. This was the time while the following video was taken showing the engine running and physical connection of the Sportsman ECU with MacBook Pro:
https://youtu.be/PmgN0JfDBKY (https://youtu.be/PmgN0JfDBKY)
This video, taken with an iPhone, doesn?t provide a very clear image of the MacBook display, but it is sufficient to see the FAST Sportsman software running and the dashboard window.
The second to last video concludes with opening a table and the throttle follower graph. I picked two examples of the FAST software to illustrate that everything was working as you would expect on a PC.
So if you don?t want to get your hands on a copy of Windows and have some relatively straightforward Windows software that you need to run, Crossover might be a good alternative for you.
Cheers, Edouard [cheers1]
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Interesting post and videos. Thanks for sharing.
I used VMWare Fusion for a couple of years and absolutely hated it. Tech support was provided from somewhere in Asia and was far from ideal. The software was cumbersome and difficult. Every time I upgraded OS X I had to start over with Fusion.
One day in Costco I found a $299 Acer Netbook that ran Windows XP. I bought it and have been using it for the past 7 years for the infrequent times I needed to run a Windows app. Alas, this week I discovered the Acer has died. Crossover may be my replacement answer.
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I chose the idiot-proof, albeit more expensive route, Apple Boot Camp with Windows on a 100GB partition some time ago. Was running Windows 7 before installing the free upgrade to Windows 10 last Nov/Dec timeframe. No problems experienced thus far although I don't use it much.
Tidbit...bet you don't know the US Senate offices use iMacs...running Windows 8.1 off the central LAN. The Mac OS is not even loaded for staffer use.
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Dear Blick, Felix, and WeatherCat very infrequent Windows users,
Crossover will do okay if the application isn't to exotic or high-performance. I tried to use it to run my beloved engineering/illustration software Canvas when the Mac version was discontinued. Crossover made a valiant attempt, but couldn't make it work properly. However, I was hopeful that a program that must be written basically to run on many flavors of Windows would work okay with Crossover.
By the way, I drove my trusty wagon over to Orinda Motors to show off my achievement and it didn't work! I upgraded to the latest version of Crossover before visiting and that broke the symbolic link between the USB port device and the DOS COM1. As soon as I got home, I created the symbolic link once more and everything worked fine. Oh well, I will yet prove my point in person!
Cheers, Edouard [cheers1]