Apple Switching to Intel 2950
Steve Jobs announced at the WWDC keynote today that Apple is switching to Intel processors. MacNN has live coverage. The bottom line is that Mac OS X for the last five years has been running on Intel, the switch is expected to be complete in two years, and Rosetta will allow PPC apps to run on Intel-based Macs, transparently. If you're using Xcode, it is small changes and a recompile; otherwise, you might be seeing a lot of work ahead of you. You will be able to order the 10.4.1 preview for Intel today.
This is bullshit. (Score:2, Interesting)
For Apple's actual customers, this fucking sucks.
I've been using macs for... I can't even keep track. Somewhere between thirteen and sixteen years now. Shortly into this, I had to deal with a painful and extremely nasty transition, when Apple switched from the 680x0 to the PowerPC architecture. This was necessary. The 680x0 was not a growable architecture; the PPC architecture was (and still is). The PPC represented such a massive boost in power that the 680x0 could be emulated with more speed than the fastest mac 680x0s themselves offered. But it was still hard. Mac users had to deal with the obnoxiousness of fat binaries vs ppc vs 68k for years, and the slowdown when those 68k apps were running, and the 68k binaries never quite went away all the way up until OS X. Getting PPC binaries was in theory just a matter of recompiling, but sometimes relatively essential apps had been made by developers who had disappeared off the face of the planet, or had made their programs dependent on legacy programming tools without ppc support, or were just plain lazy. In practice FAT binaries were a luxury because devs generally either had compiled for 68k long ago and didn't feel like recompiling, or were compiling on PPC and didn't feel like going to the bother of compiling and distributing FAT just for the convenience of the users of a discontinued architecture.
Awhile after this, I had to deal with another painful and extremely nasty transition, when Apple switched to OS X. This too was necessary, and we'd known it was coming for years; most of us were getting quite impatient, since we'd been waiting since Spindler for an OS where we could for(int *p=0;;*(p++)=0); without having to reboot. But it wasn't effortless. Aside from random complaints about the spatial finder or migrane-inducing cutesy interference bar patterns everywhere, the mac software library was kind of messed up for a long time. Classic was not really usable except in an emergency, especially not since the early versions of OS X dealt so horribly with RAM starvation and Classic was a big RAM demand. Classic also didn't work with a lot of apps, especially in the A/V area. So this wasn't like the 68k switch, where having the wrong binary meant a little bit of slowdown; the software library had to start over at zero. Yeah, we got Word and IE and the other big apps relatively quickly, but that does not a software library make. You need support apps. You need Adiums and VLCs and Colliloquys. You know, the little programs that maybe aren't in day to day usage and maybe not everyone -- but everyone needs one of these apps eventually, and when you need them, you need them. Unless like me you were lucky enough to know how to escape into UNIX-land and use the software library there, for a long time you would find yourself periodically screwed. But, this was necessary, and this passed. It took five years or so, but the software library has now gotten to the point where if I suddenly find myself thinking "hmm, I need an app that does blah" I can look on versiontracker and more likely than not find it.
Except now this new transition is going to make that library restart once again at zero.
And this transition is different. There isn't a viable benefit to the customers. When the whole thing's done, in three years or whenever, we'll have a marginally faster computer, maybe a few tens of percents faster. Or rather so long as you weren't using any Altivec-heavy apps (since SSE is a poor replacement) and as long
Will they still use custom hardware? (Score:3, Interesting)
That'd be nice.
I wanted to go see that historic keynote (Score:1, Interesting)
IBM Screwjob (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, the question is... what will the new platform be called? Certainly not PowerMac...
Switching ends? (Score:4, Interesting)
x86 or x86-64? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder if it was actually a Xeon, with x86-64 support.. At this stage in Apple's evolution (and the state of the x86 market), I can't see them ever using a 32bit CPU. It just doesn't make sense.
But, that also opens a lot of other questions..
One big need is for a next generation PowerBook. What will power that? The Xeon is too hot & power hungry to use in a laptop (just like the G5). So, Intel must have a x86-64 Pentium-M in the works.
Also, why Intel and not AMD? It seems like the power management on the AMDs has been much better than Intel.
Have to wonder if Apple couldn't get PPC chips. (Score:4, Interesting)
Cool (Score:3, Interesting)
And yes, I know that many of you think it will never happen because Apple will do some shenanigans at the hardware level to make sure it never works. But I'm not so sure they can. Remember -- OS/X runs on an open-source Kernel. The point of a kernel is to be a hardware abstraction layer between the upper layer software and the hardware. This means that the part that Apple can fool with is Open Source.
Now, I'm sure they'll put in some sort of dealies here and there to test if they're running on genuine Apple hardware, but these things can be fooled.
It may take a little while, but we will definitely see OS/X running on standard hardware. And what's interesting is that Apple knows it. So here's the big question...
Will Steve allow it to happen, perhaps grudingly, and make a ton of money in the process? Yes, yes, I know, Apple makes their money from hardware. But selling software hasn't exactly hurt Microsoft, now has it? The money has always been in the software.
We'll see, should be verrrry interesting.
Better be on Mach-O, folks (Score:4, Interesting)
This isn't good news for many developers using Codewarrior. Either build for a second-class processor, or switch over to a new IDE (whose quality is why many keep to CW). There's a third option there, but it's not very pretty.
Re:AMD64 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Cross-compatibility: OS X and Windows (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't like this move at all.
Intel branding (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:This is bullshit. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sad that we are leaving PPC. I love my PPC macs. But, where the Steve goes, we follow.
You should look at the Pentium-M roadmap... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Have a taste... (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a huge blow to PowerPC's credibility, though. First, Motorola had problems, then IBM couldn't deliver competitive chips. Without MAC, that leaves IBM's own machines running PowerPC, which will vastly shrink PowerPC's Slashdot fanboy club. MAC is what made PowerPC 'cool' outside of the embedded world.
It'll still be true that it's x86-64, SPARC, and PowerPC moving forward as the surviving ISAs, but the overall balance in the demographic will be quite different by a few million CPUs after two years.
Apple Computer - WORLD CLASS MANAGEMENT (Score:5, Interesting)
"Mac OS X has been "leading a secret double life" for the past five years, said Jobs. "So today for the first time, I can confirm the rumors that every release of Mac OS X has been compiled for PowerPC and Intel. This has been going on for the last five years."
Damn. This is forward looking, hedge all your bets corporate Management. World class Management.
I don't know if this thing will succeed or fail, but just parsing that statement above shows me that Jobs and Apple Computer will continue to evaluate all possible options at all possible times.
This is one well run company.
Re:apple getting out of hardware? (Score:2, Interesting)
Didn't NeXT do exactly this? What makes you so sure that Jobs won't make that same decision a second time? Yes, I know that eventually forced them to abandon hardware sales and doesn't look so good in hindsight. Maybe Jobs is doing something that doesn't look good in hindsight. Maybe he sees it differently (thinks different?) than the rest of the world.
Don't get me wrong. I don't begin to imagine that I understand WTF is going on here. My hat tastes bad.
Yes. But.. (Score:3, Interesting)
But... VMWare and Microsoft can now make changes to their virtualisation software (which, remember, can emulate any hardware they chose to code, limited only by the CPU architecture) so we can run OS X in a Virtual Machine at native speeds.
That would be pretty damn cool.
More likely... (Score:4, Interesting)
My guess is IBM told Apple that they are not going to be creating new PowerPCs chips useful for desktop workstations, and are instead going a different direction with the platform... i.e. maybe to support parallel processing efforts, like the Cell chip in the PS3, etc.
Faced with no long term vision that works for their needs, they had to switch to the only other alternative.
That is, it isn't supply, but product lifecycle that influenced the decision.
Re:So here it is (Score:3, Interesting)
2. Running on Pentium means Palladium. I think that HAS to have been a major factor in choosing Intel, and I would imagine that it can be used, along with OpenFirmware, to lock beige boxes out.
Re:So here it is (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm with you. A lot of clever people are going to devote a lot of effort to finding a way to hack OS X for their homemade beige boxes.
Here's my main concern: they will succeed, and a significant "pseudo-clone" market will spring up. It will cannabilize Mac hardware sales. In self defense, Apple will force users to register their copies of OS X. No more slipping the DVD into the drive and clicking on "install". No, now you'll have to enter a 30-character registration number, and you'll have to authorize the OS within a certain time limit. In other words, I'll be jumping through exactly the same hoops that I've always hated dealing with in the Windows world.
Re:So when can I get a copy? (Score:3, Interesting)
You can use C++ with Cocoa, as well as mix C++ with ObjectiveC. ObjectiveC is evidently an acquired taste, though I don't know of many programmers who have wanted to use C++ once they got used to ObjectiveC.
68K to PPC transition wasn't so bad (Score:5, Interesting)
And it is likely that this transition will probably go even more smoothly: Early versions of the PPC MacOS still were running a lot of 68K OS code in emulation; it is a safe bet that the Intel OS X will be 100% native code. And there is less hand-tweaked assembly code running around, so it will be easier for developers to simply recompile. Most major applications are already cross-platform, so developers already know what to tweak to enhance Intel processor performance.
My guess is that the transition will be smoother than the PPC transition, and much smoother than the OS X transition.
Financially, this is going to be a big bump for Apple. I'm certainly not going to order any more new Macs until the Intel systems are available. This may be one reason why they chose to do it now, when the success of the iPod will carry them through.
It may be the best decision for Apple, but I still think that it would have been better if they'd been able to reach a deal with IBM to develop the PPC further. I would much rather have seen multicore PPC's.
The question of whether the Intel OS X will run on generic Intel hardware seems to still be open. I'd guess not, but then I didn't believe that they'd switch to Intel in the first place.
Re:Better be on Mach-O, folks (Score:4, Interesting)
And they could always just interface to the Intel version of GCC or Intel's compiler.
Re:Apple getting out of hardware? (Score:3, Interesting)
However, I think this may spur the sales of the mac minis, as it seems an effective and cheap stopgap while everyone waits for the new Intel machines to start sprouting.
Re:So here it is (Score:3, Interesting)
I expect Leopard will not run on beige boxes because Apple will still be putting custom hardware on the motherboard (which will probably itself be a custom design), and using Open Firmware.
The preview 10.4.1 for x86 will run on the x86-based machines Apple will make available to ADC members at the same time. RTFA.
This is good, here's why. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Holy crap. (Score:4, Interesting)
"Our goal is to provide our customers with the best personal computers in the world, and looking ahead Intel has the strongest processor roadmap by far"
Really? Last I checked, AMD was running circles around Intel in the 64-bit arena. Does Steve know something I don't know, or is he blowing smoke?
Why is no one saying "x86"? (Score:3, Interesting)
The first thought that pops into my head, is: "why 386 instead of AMD64?" The 386 is finally on the way out, so it seems strange that anyone would migrate to it nowdays. But everyone seems to be inferring that that is what Apple intends to do.
But they didn't say 386, they said Intel.
So that makes me wonder if they're doing something weirder, like migrating to the IA64(Itanium) or maybe even an Intel PPC clone.
If they really do mean the 386, as everyone seems to think, then WTF are they going to do as the 386 fades? Mac users do lots of multimedia work, and they're going to be among the first to bitch about the limits of 32-bit address spaces. Is there going to be Yet Another migration right after this, where "fat binaries" contain code compiled for 68k, PPC, i386, and AMD64? Sheesh.
Why is anyone surprised? (Score:3, Interesting)
The core of OS X is booting and running on commodity hardware NOW. There is no speculation needed. It's here.
I also hear complaints about how now Apple is starting from scratch again with their software base, libraries, etc. Newsflash #2. They're almost starting from scratch, but with a much larger audience, AND a more enthusiastic developer base (see [1],[2],[3] yet again, and [4] [opendarwin.org]).
Steve Jobs knows this. Why do you think he's releasing this preview for developer consumption now? Because by the time the x86 Apple machines actually ship, developers and users will have already been running full Darwin/OS X x86 system for quite awhile. He's leveraging early adopters and the OSS movement. This will be a far better transition than the m68k/PPC was.
[1] http://www.opendarwin.org/ [opendarwin.org]
[2] http://developer.apple.com/darwin/ [apple.com]
[3] http://www.gnu-darwin.org/ [gnu-darwin.org]
[4] http://darwinports.opendarwin.org/ [opendarwin.org]
Re:Have a taste... (Score:4, Interesting)
The majority of Mathematica is written in Mathematica. Porting Mathematica over is probably akin to porting Emacs: you get the elisp going, and you're pretty much done.
Sure there is some code to port over, but remember that Mathematica runs on Windows, MacOS X, Linux, and Solaris, and that the majority of the code is in Mathematica and doesn't need to be changed... I'm a little surprised it took 2 hours.
Jedidiah.
Re:This is bullshit. (Score:3, Interesting)
Apple a pawn in Intel vs Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft needs to do this by telling Intel that they're expendable. They send this message to their closest business partner (Intel) do this by making a deal with their biggest enemy (the guys who pour billions into Linux) for the XBox just to prove it can be done.
Intel has the harder job of needing to prove that Microsoft is expendable. They do this with Linux initiatives and by working with guys like Apple. Even if they paid Apple to use their CPUs it'd be important to Intel to show that another commercial OS can run on Intel chips now that all the proprietary unixes (sco, hpux, etc) are dead.
The real winner in the MSFT/Intel war - the consumer who will benefit as Intel and Microsoft both drive each other into zero-profit commodity suppliers.
Re:Apple getting out of hardware? (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder what this will do to commercial deployment ton Mac OS? Games? Adobe?
It's not binary computability, you have to recompile, which means that $2,000 a graphics artist just invested in Adobe and Macromedia software is down the tubes if they want to upgrade their MAC. My employer is having a lot of problems with customers who are in the middle of massive MAC upgrades. What do you think this will do? A lot of newspapers are struggling with getting upgraded to Mac OS X machines, now they'll have to worry about if the software they're installing is for MAC OS X PPC or MAX OS X Intel?
And now our client software has to be recompiled for, tested on and deployed on MAC OS X PPC or MAX OS X Intel? Please.
I was considering a MAC before, and I'm ditching the idea now. I'll keep the iPod that I got as a gift, but I'm not investing anything in their hardware.
Re:You know what this means, Power PC Apple Users? (Score:1, Interesting)
Apple are not fools (anymore). They won't kill of the one niche that they have a stronghold in.
EAT YOUR HAT (Score:3, Interesting)
Bad news for GCC (Score:4, Interesting)
So not only has Apple dumped IBM, they also appear to be planning to dump gcc.
Re:This seems familiar to NeXT owners (Score:1, Interesting)
It was NeXT's earliest customer that prompted the abadnonment of hardware though. Many individuals were unhappy, but the institutional customers made the call. In fact I know the guy who told Steve to drop hardware; he was in goverment service then...
Sorry about the AC, I'm at work and don't recall my password right now.
OK - so no more Apple for me. (Score:2, Interesting)
When I bought a G4 PowerBook 3.5 years ago (wiped OS X and installed Debian), it immediately enabled me to find errors in the g77 I/O library that only came to light on a big endian machine (before that I had a Pentium II Compaq Armada).
I hope IBM will deliver a PowerPC 64 based Linux laptop within a year, otherwise I'll have to switch to a SPARC one, which Sun undoubtly will tout as "one more sale of Solaris" (ugh).
Re:Could they ever go AMD? (Score:3, Interesting)
that if Apple wanted to, they could make OSX run on anything that BSD runs on.
Think about it. They've abstracted enough to make a smooth (presumably)
transition from PPC to x86...they can probably transition to any architecture
they want without too much trouble.
Re:Bad news for GCC (Score:2, Interesting)
Highly doubtful.
Just because IBM has xlC compilers available for OS X, Apple doesn't use gcc?
Still, wouldn't be a huge surprise if Apple starts using the intel compilers for the OS and their own apps.
I'm interested if intel will support translating Altivec into SSE3 code, where applicable. Also, obviously, 64-bit.
Presumably though, Apple will build their x86 boxes with OpenFirmware, or whatever stuff Intel's doing with next-gen BIOS...
Re:RMFP Re:Apple getting out of hardware? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Interesting)
Trusted Computing/DRM? I don't see any other way then through some form of remote attestation. Given their track record with iPod DRM, i wouldn't put it past them, either.
Perhaps the Mac crowd will become the ultimate DRM apologists, claiming, with some credibility, that Mac couldn't survive if it didn't have TC/DRM involved.
A unique argument: We're using technology to preserve a monopoly - except that it isn't really a monopoly.
Re:Have a taste... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Interesting)
You're right.... dammit! (Score:5, Interesting)
That the chip guys could start spending resources on actual innovation in hardware design, without having to keep one foot in the bucket of x86 binary compatibility.
That PowerPC, or the Cell, or anything with less than thirty years of binary baggage, might get out ahead and stay there long enough to put x86 to rest.
Dammit!
Re:ARM-chair Punditry (Score:3, Interesting)
1. A much larger base of loyal customers.
2. A much stronger reputation. (Over a year before Be sold its assets to Palm, I had prospective employers look at my resume, see my internship at Be, and say "Be, I remember hearing about them. They went out of business, didn't they?")
3. A much larger and more visible community of software companies which support them.
4. A much deeper pocketbook ($7 billion in the bank, $11 billion/year revenue, $1.2 billion/year free cash flow)
If Apple doesn't wait too long to embrace an identity as a software company, OEM is not the only route. There are a lot of people, myself for example, who prefer MacOS to Windows but use Windows exclusively because we need Windows-only software and can't justify buying twice as many computers. If Apple offered a boxed software OS X for vanilla Intel PCs, I would gladly spend a couple hundred dollars to be able to dual boot. This didn't work for Be, but it might work for Apple, because as I argued above Apple is not Be.
Another route Apple could take would be to make an implementation of the Cocoa API which can be compiled into a Windows app, and sell it to software developers as a way to make a more stable, more reliable app that will with just recompilation run on 1) Windows PCs, 2) Apple/Intel PCs, and 3) Legacy Apple/PPC computers.
Strategically, the second route is Apple's best counter to the possibility of Microsoft breaking Office for OS X (short of Microsoft's reluctance to abandon 16+% of their upgrade market), since whatever Office substitute arises on Macs (AppleWorks, WordPerfect Office, Lotus Smartsuite, OpenOffice, something new, whatever) would instantly become a credible substitute for Office on Windows PCs.
Yes, this is a risky route for Apple to take. Yes, Be failed when they tried a similar route with less resources and community support. But I think they have a good chance of succeeding, at least enough to stay viable.
Re:This is good, here's why. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Have a taste... (Score:5, Interesting)
You have to wonder if maybe he's hedging his bets. If IBM or one of the PPC licensees comes out of their coma and delivers, he has plenty of opportunities to backstroke. Nothing like having some options.
Re:You're right.... dammit! (Score:2, Interesting)
Remember that the PPC970 is a heck of a lot smaller than the Intel and AMD x86 chips, and is very flexible as to what is can be morphed into.
So, even though it hasn't won the MIPS race, it does have benefits that x86 doesn't.
Examples: Apple is shipping ~2M G5 systems per year, and that's only 1/50th of IBM's chip business. Thus, even considering the AMD64 chips they make, that's a whole lot of PowerPCs that they make for other purposes.
Re:Bad news for GCC (Score:5, Interesting)
What hypocracy! When Apple wanted to "prove" that Intel was slower, they used GCC. Now that they need to use Intel, they're using the manufacturer's recommended compiler and getting better results.
Rob Enderle's take (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Where does this leave me? (Score:3, Interesting)
Macs use standard RAM, and there's nothing to stop you using the software/hardware you already have.
If you bought a PC there's no way you'd be able to use video cards released in 2008/2009 either.
Apple has been working on the OS/X port for years (as anyone who has heard of Darwin can attest) as a contingency plan. If they don't switch, they're going to go out of business - they simply won't be able to compete in the mobile market with powerPC - and note yesterday's story that mobile is where its at (laptop sales outpaced desktop).
So, would you rather - no more apple (and definately no more support for your shiny new g5) in 2008, or Apple surviving and possibly thriving, and OS/X continuing to be your OS?
smash.
Not using openfirmware (Score:5, Interesting)
from cnet today:
http://news.com.com/Apple+throws+the+switch%2C+al
--------------
After Jobs' presentation, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will," he said. "We won't do anything to preclude that."
However, Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac," he said.
Here's why Jobs likes Intel and not AMD (Score:4, Interesting)
[begin excerpt]
"The move is being made because Intel has "the strongest processor road map by far," Jobs is quoted as saying in a statement released as the keynote got under way.
"As we look ahead, although we've got some great products now, we can envision some amazing products we want to build for you. And we don't know how we can build them with the future PowerPC road map," Jobs said during his keynote.
The problem with the future PowerPC chips is performance per watt, Jobs said. Intel's chips are far ahead of IBM's when it comes to delivering performance without consuming a lot of power, a quality that is very important to Apple's future products, he said."
[end excerpt]
Jobs is looking for better "performance per watt" and picks Intel over AMD which was not a very smart decision on his part. Apparently he is unfamiliar with the newest AMD 'venice' [lostcircuits.com] core and the derivative 'Turion' [amd.com] AMD mobile chips which offer better performance than the Pentium M with less power consumption.
Re:Saddening. (Score:5, Interesting)
Either that, or that Jobs has made a mistake in going to Intel.
AMD kept Intel Honest. (Score:4, Interesting)
It is just in the same way that Linux forced Microsoft to improve. If you don't believe me see Windows 3.1 and compare it to windows 95 - 98. And now compare it with Windows 2000 and 2003. Microsoft OS's are much more dependable then they were back 10 years ago and much more then they nessarly wanted it to be.
Now with Mac using x86 this will probably keep the Dells, Gateways, and other honest by having With these new Macs being able to Run windows as well (although not supported). So now the consumer can either choose a well designed system, that can run OS X with all its niceties and run Windows too.
Re:This is bullshit. (Score:2, Interesting)
At this level, you might spend 3 grand for a PC, or 4 grand for a Mac, but you will spend another 12-25 grand on each workstation after fibre channel cards, video capture cards (or Digi cards for audio), SCSI/SATA cards and drives, and software licenses for Avid/FCPHD/Boris/Degidesign/Media100. The point is, original platform hardware is a small cost when getting 'burned'. It's a small cost at any point. The 3rd party equipment costs hurt more then having to buy a G5/Xeon. It is more the compatibility issue. And given the problems with upgrading to XP from a Windows/DOS platform, and the future problems with longhorn not implementing
The other big issue is reliability. If it isn't broken, a lot of people just won't upgrade. My boss is still using OpCode's Vision audio/MIDI sequencer, and has no regrets. It does everything he needs it to, and it is exceedingly stable. The thing that most people don't realize about the Audio/Visual industry is that equipment is still purchased and used the way it was 30 years ago. You use it until it breaks, or until new stuff is needed to get the job done. That is why Macs have always been prized in my industry. They are as reliable as the 24 track magtape Otari sitting next to me.
Re:Have a taste... (Score:3, Interesting)
Steve Jobs = As Seen On TV (857673) (Score:1, Interesting)
Steve Jobs told today to CNBC that "[Apple is] a ship that leaks from the top".
So As Seen On TV (857673) [slashdot.org] could be Steve Jobs himself.
I bet he was here just to decoy the big announcement with some other interesting, but not so top-secret, facts about their products.
And I bet he was the one to "leak" information to cnet and Wall Street Journal, so that he could use that "It's True"-slide in his keynote.
Why not x86-64? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:This is bullshit. (Score:3, Interesting)
The Windows "emulation" in OS/2 was never good, and you'd recognize this if you'd ever spent any time dealing with it.
Truetype? DirectX?
(Oh, yes. I realize that Truetype formally existed in Warp 4, but by then, nobody cared anymore...)
OS/2 died because it was ugly. Windows had themes and expansions and (what many consider) fun. OS/2 was a drab shade of aqua marine with corporate grey highlights.
OS/2 died because it was hard to use (unless you call needing to install SIO into your config.sys in order to reliably get online easy, assuming you were able to stick with it even long enough to learn that much).
OS/2 died because it had horrible support for what ended up being the PC's true Killer Applications: Stealing music, watching porn, looking for someone to fuck, and playing stupid Shockwave games.
OS/2 didn't die because it happened to have Windows emulation: It died because the numbers were never big enough for large software developers to give a shit.
And when an incremental upgrade to Win32s froze OS/2's ability to handle 32-bit Windows programs, what happened? The authors requiring this newer Win32s didn't care that their software no longer ran under OS/2 -- even when prompted. They just carried on, selling record numbers of units for Windows-using world.
OS/2's Windows support didn't hamper OS/2 any more than Cygwin or UMLWIN32 [sourceforge.net]hampers Windows XP.
Why would it be any different for OS X?
Re:Jobs vision: multiple cores!! let's get them to (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless by "unlock" you mean "reverse-engineer non-standard support chips", there's nothing to unlock:
As for
Schiller doesn't like that:
(with no indication of whether that's legal, technical, or both).
Re:You're right.... dammit! (Score:2, Interesting)
Consider 2 homes, one clean and one cluttered. Walking through the clean home is a much simpler process, and typically, faster because there is no mess to dictate where you are going.
But what if the first home is really small and the second is a mansion. Then, despite clutter, there is generally more room to move around in. Hence, you can get around faster, but not as fast as possible (then say, if you had a clean mansion).
This analogy could also be used in a RISC vs. CISC debate as well. I know it's limited and looks over certain things, but this is the simplest way I could think of to phrase it.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Precedent: Silicon Graphics "Visual Workstation" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Where does this leave me? (Score:2, Interesting)
In this mythos, the average user is not that inclined to even know what processor their machine runs (let alone browsing slashdot - why aren't you running linux BTW??). So, today's annoucement had little effect if any on them.
The big mistake you made is not realizing that buying a new computer is like buying a new car. The minute you get it home its value quickly evaporates, and there is nothing you can do about it. If there is anything worse than buying a car or computer, that would be software. Which is like buying fish, which turns stinky when you get it home. This is the reason why you see so many open source advocates around here. But I digress.
Which is the reason why I run linux on crappy old hardware cobbled from junk piles everywhere because I refuse to spend a lot on computers.
In a couple years from now, microsoft is going to expect everyone to upgrade their current PC so that it can run lamehorn^H^H^H^Hlonghorn. So, actually you are in a slightly better boat than all of the PC users out there. Besides that, you really are using state-of-the-art equipment right for this moment, and that's what you really wanted, right??
Plus the lifecycle of your machine is probably more like four years, probably because programs will run on both platforms for the switchover. Then by that time you will want to upgrade anyway. Just don't buy new stuff. Just pop for the slightly used anyway. Also, it will be a lot clearer what the fallout of the new platform will exactly be by that time as well.
When you decide that the computer in front of you has turned into a pile of crap, you can do what I do - run linux on it. By then linux guis should be considerably more polished so that even a Mac user could learn to like it.
You will also find that living life on the back slope of computer technology is actually more enjoyable and less frustrating than a trip to the bleeding edge.
Re:Here's why Jobs likes Intel and not AMD (Score:2, Interesting)
In any event, it doesn't matter because Apple is getting in on the future Intel CPUs which will be derived from Banias/Dothan. Here is an interesting thread on overclocking Dothan [xtremesystems.org]. The results make me wonder if Intel has kept it's FSB hobbled to avoid direct competition with the P4. We have to imagine Yonah or Merom will be like one of these little screamers plus dual core and a better FSB. Of course, AMD will have improved too between now and then, but if tweakers can make Dothan competetive with a cooling solution that belongs on a northbridge then I would imagine that Intel can flat out prove to Jobs just what they have coming down the pike.
Re:Um... NO... (Score:1, Interesting)
If all that is just software, then fine by me. I was always left with the impression that some of that responsiveness was the architecture, but maybe that was all just Apple Marketing smoke/mirrors.
Re:but what about 68k code? (Score:3, Interesting)
iScroll2 (Score:3, Interesting)
Use iScroll2 which adds two-fingered scrolling of the new PowerBooks to older PowerBooks [rwth-aachen.de].