The 68K ODBC Bridge is a PowerPC-ODBC driver that makes it possible to use existing 68K drivers with a native PowerPC ODBC application.
Apple and Visigenic have managed to create two completely incompatible ODBC architectures on the Macintosh. PowerPC applications can't use 68K drivers, and 68K applications can't use PowerPC drivers. I don't really understand why it was done this way, even Microsoft managed to be slightly more compatible between the 16- and 32- bit architectures on the Windows side.
There are currently many more ODBC drivers available for the 68K architecture. There is for example no PowerPC ODBC driver available for such a major database as Informix. There are, however, several PowerPC ODBC client applications available or on their way, e.g Tango, PowerBuilder 5, Oracle PowerObjects 2.0 and others.
Installation
You will need to have both the 68K and PowerPC ODBC architectures installed. They are usually installed together with ODBC drivers or client applications. You can see that they are installed by looking in your "Control Panels" folder. You should have both "ODBC Setup" and "ODBC Setup PPC". The current version is 2.1.2 (Nov. 96).
You will also need at least one 68K ODBC driver, and data sources configured for that driver.
To install "68K ODBC Bridge", just put it in your "Extensions" folder. There is no need to reboot.
To configure a data source for use with a PowerPC application, use the "ODBC Setup PPC" control panel.
Click on the button "Setup Data Sources...".
In the following dialog, click "Add...".
In the list of ODBC drivers, choose "68K ODBC Bridge".
The configuration dialog is rather simple, just type in the name of the 68K datasource you want to use and press OK. The PowerPC datasource will have the same name, just specify that name in the client application and you are ready to go!
How To Register
68K ODBC Bridge is shareware. You are allowed to use it for free for a period of 30 days. If you want to use it beyond this period, you must pay for it. It is not awfully expensive:
$15 per user, with a Site License available for $300, which covers all locations for your organization within a 50 kilometer radius of your site. One big advantage of a Site License is that you do not need to keep track of how many people at your site are using the software. A World-Wide License costs $600 and it covers all locations for your organization on the planets Earth and Mars.
Paying should be fairly simple. Open the included Register program. Enter your name, your email address, and the number of single user licenses you wish to purchase (or Site or Word-Wide licenses). Save or Copy or Print the data from the Register program and send the data and payment to Kagi. More specifics on the Register program to follow. Kagi handles my payment processing.
If paying with Credit Card or First Virtual, you can email or fax the data to Kagi. Their email address is sales@kagi.com and their fax number is +1 510 652-6589. You can either Copy the data from Register and paste into the body of an email message or you can Save the
data to a file and you can attach that file to an email message. There is no need to compress the data file, it's already pretty small. If you have a fax modem, just Print the data to the Kagi fax number.
Payments sent via email are processed within 3 to 4 days. You will receive an email acknowledgement when it is processed. Payments sent via fax take up to 10 days and if you provide a correct internet email address you will receive an email acknowledgement.
If you are paying with Cash or USD Check you should print the data using the Register application and send it to the address shown on the form, which is:
Kagi
1442-A Walnut Street #392-FV
Berkeley, California 94709-1405
USA
You can pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries but at present if you pay via check, it must be a check drawn in US Dollars. Kagi cannot accept checks in other currencies, the conversion rate for non-USD checks is around USD 15 per check and that is just not practical.
If you have a purchasing department, you can enter all the data into the Register program and then select Invoice as your payment method. Print three copies of the form and send it to your accounts payable people. You might want to highlight the line that mentions that they must include a copy of the form with their payment.
Kagi can not invoice your company, you need to act on my behalf and generate the invoice and handle all the paperwork on your end.
Please do not fax or email payment forms that indicate Cash, Check or Invoice as the payment method. As far as we know, there is still no technology to transfer physical objects via fax or email and without the payment, the form cannot be processed.
Payments send via postal mail take time to reach Kagi and then up to 10 days for processing. Again, if you include a correct email address, you will hear from Kagi when the form is processed.
Performance
Obviously, the necessary mixed mode switches does cost a bit in performance. I have not made extensive measurements, but it doesn't seem too bad. I tried loading the dictionary information - tables and columns - from a SAP R/3 Informix database into Tango. That is a very simple query from the database point of view, that returns a massive amount of rows - there are about 4000 tables - so it should be close to worst-case for this driver. Using 68K Tango with a 68K ODBC driver, it took 60 seconds, using PPC Tango with 68K ODBC Bridge and the same 68K driver took 90 seconds, i.e a 50% overhead. In most real situations, the time spent in the database executing the query makes the extra overhead of using this driver much less significant, and it can be more than compensated for by making it possible to use a PowerPC version of the client application - compare Powerbuilder 4 to Powerbuilder 5 on a PowerMac and you will see what I mean.
Other ODBC architectures
This driver is of course only a part of the solution. It could probably be useful for someone to have a similar driver to acces a PPC ODBC driver from a 68K. I have not had an immediate need for that, so I have not implemented it. It would not be difficult, though, so if you need it, tell me about it ( bdlogik@ kagi.com). A single world-wide license would probably be enough motivation.
There is one run-time architecture for which Apple and Visigenic does not provide any ODBC support, CFM-68K. If you are writing a CFM-68K application and have a need to use ODBC, I can provide an implementation of the client API. Basically, it is the same code as the 68K ODBC Bridge, just compiled for 68K instead of PPC. Send me mail at bdlogik@kagi.com if you are interested. It should work with 68K OpenDoc as well, though I haven't tested that. Check the Register application for the moderate licensing cost.
