Hello All,
I have Openstep 4.2 and NeXTSTEP 3.3 running in virtual machines and was able to install Lotus Improv on both.
However on both occasions was told that the software didn't contain anything that could be run on this machine.
I suspect that the Improv binaries are Mach 680x0 type and they don't run on the virtual machine.
Was there ever a NeXT Improv that did run on x86 machines (not the Windows versions 2.0 and 2.1) but a genuine FAT binary of Lotus Improv that worked on more than one NeXT platform esp x86?
Thanks.
To find out the architecture(s) of an application, you open the Terminal, cd inside the app bundle ("Improv.app" in this case), and find the UNIX binary (probably called "Improv"), and run "file Improv". This should return something along the lines of this:
Improv: Mach-O executable for m68k architecture
The NeXT .pkg Installer bundle format is architecture-indepedent, therefore meaning that m68k apps whose installers run without an architecture check (this should be possible, don't know if it's ever been implemented) will install (but not run) on x86, SPARC, and PA-RISC machines.
It appears that there was a demo port of Improv for NEXTSTEP Intel but it was never released.
QuoteNote: Lotus Improv for NeXTStep Intel never shipped. No work was done beyond the demo for NeXTWorld. It would have been a fair amount of effort to finish the port and Lotus wasn't really interested in investing any further in the NeXT market. By that point we had already focused attention on developing the next release for Windows and Macintosh. (Yeah, the Mac version of Improv never shipped — Lotus lost interest in the Mac market around 1993, and except for Lotus Notes, never really went back).
http://www.bobcongdon.net/blog/2006/03/its-like-deja-vu-all-over-again.html