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IBM Businesses AMD Apple

IBM's PPC 970, AMD's Opteron, and Apple 520

Pharmboy writes "I haven't seen enough info on the new IBM PowerPC 970 CPU expected shortly. I found some info direct from IBM here plus more info in a couple other places. For those of us wanting to get away from Windows, but feel Linux is still not ready for the desktop yet, this might make Apple a more viable alternative. This also raises issues about the potential partnership with Apple and AMD. Will we see Mac OS X running on two different platforms/CPUs? Could we be that lucky?"
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IBM's PPC 970, AMD's Opteron, and Apple

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  • i object ! (Score:5, Funny)

    by ibbie ( 647332 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @11:55AM (#5800511) Journal
    I haven't seen enough info on the new IBM PowerPC 970 CPU expected shorty.

    watch who you're calling shorty, farm boy.
    • by FroMan ( 111520 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:56PM (#5801185) Homepage Journal
      This is an apple.slashdot.org post, that should be iObject, not i object.
    • two suppliers (Score:5, Informative)

      by gtmac ( 668321 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:58PM (#5801204)
      Surely the answer to the AMD rumors is obvious. Apple can not be dependent on a single processor supplier. Motorola are rapidly removing themselves from the game. When the IBM 970 comes out the G3 and G4 will be dead within a year. Motorola have no processors to complete and are heading deep into embeded land.

      Apple need another supplier so they limit their risk. They maybe getting AMD to fab a PowerPC type chip.

      Alternatively....

      Maybe they are just going to use AMD64 chips to build 8 and 4 way XServes?

      NeXT used to have fat binaries compatibility across NeXT Black hardware, Intel, Sun, HP and Alpha.

      Anthony

      • Re:two suppliers (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Frodo2002 ( 595920 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @03:58PM (#5803270) Homepage
        I don't think you are entirely correct. First of all, IBM manufactures the G3 as far as I know. Secondly rumour has it that the G3 can go much much faster than it currently does. Apple does not buy faster G3's from IBM because it would look rather silly if your G3 had a higher clock-rate than your G4. (This is ignoring of course that the G4 has that altivec unit which means that it would still beat a faster G3 on altivec optimized apps. But your average consumer probably does not understand these things.) Advantage of getting everything from IBM? You keep your G3 line going, but ramp up the speed considerably. The G3 goes into low end laptops. You drop Motorola completely and put a powered down version of the 970 into your high end laptops. (Rumour again is that at 1.4 GHz the 970 consumes energy at the same rate as the current G4's). The downside? As you correctly observed, Apple then has all its eggs in one (IBM) basket. But the situation does not seem to be as bleak as you make out.
      • Re:two suppliers (Score:4, Interesting)

        by aphor ( 99965 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @04:39PM (#5803714) Journal

        Except that the instruction decode unit is a modular part of AMD's chip offerings... As in, the AMD chips execute their own native sub-instruction internal code, and they have a programmable front-end to translate the x86 stuff. If you wanted a PPC chip from AMD, Apple would only have to give them the specs, and EXISTING AMD chip cores could be quickly (software) adapted to execute PPC machine code.

        All that's left is the pinouts and power/heat-dissipation requirements to sort out. The AltiVec is another side issue, to which I'm sure AMD would gladly offer a next-gen solution...

        • Re:two suppliers (Score:4, Informative)

          by benzapp ( 464105 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @05:45PM (#5812381)
          Yes, the original design spec of the NexGen Nx586 upon which The K6/Athlon/Operton is based allowed for the process to switch from 386 mode to its native RISC instruction set, which ultimately was to be PowerPC compatible.

          Some of this I believe may have had something to do with the processor being manufactured by IBM around the same time as OS/2 PowerPC edition was being finalized... That all fell apart however.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 24, 2003 @11:55AM (#5800513)
    http://www.macslash.org/comments.pl?sid=03/04/23/1 82250&cid=3

    First off, the disclaimer: this is my pet theory, i.e., a total, wild, pulled-of-out-my-*ss speculation, okay. I have no inside info or contact with people who might know this, but here is my speculation of why this AMD thing keeps coming up despite the fact that the use of the IBM 970 is almost a certainty.

    Put this AMD thing into a bigger context of recent events.

    We've heard that 10.3 will include a more integrated Classic environment where Classic Mac OS apps will be given many of the benefits of Aqua.

    Apple quietly releases their implementation of XWindows system, X11. Despite the fact that this news set Slashdot buzzing for days on end and probably should have had some mention from Steve Jobs in the keynote he'd given a few days prior, it was released very quietly. Interesting.

    Next, the somewhat unexpected news that Microsoft was buying Virtual PC. What on earth could Microsoft want with VPC? We can speculate that they want greater control over emulation of Windows on the Mac, but that sounds weak. They still control the operating system that gets installed on VPC so from that perspective they've gained nothing by buying out VPC.

    And then these weird, peristent, inexplicable rumors that Apple is in talks with AMD about something or other. Who knows what. It's very doubtful that it's about a chip that would replace the PPC since we've read many, many well-informed examinations of such a move and the technical hurdles would likely ruin Apple.

    So what could all this possibly point to? Apple has given us a system that can basically run software from three different operating systems: the classic Mac OS, Mas OS X (the Next OS), and Unix. They recently brought the Unix world closer with the release of X11. Wouldn't it be amazing if hardware in the near-future included an "add-on" chip (something like Altivec that works in conjuction with the PPC processor) that emulated the x86 hardware? Maybe it would give Mac users the ability to run Windows and PC software, not via software emulation, but with hardware assistance. Imagine the interest Apple could draw if they presented the world with a machine that runs the Classic, OS X, Unix and Windows applications... all in one environment and almost seamlessly.

    Now does Microsoft buying VPC make sense? Maybe? Maybe not. Maybe MS Mac Business Unit caught wind of this and wants to one-up Apple somehow. Any thoughts?

    AMD would be a likely partner is such a move since one could imagine the problems with Intel assisting Apple with this. If it was popular, Intel would be killing their own business. AMD, on the other hand, wouldn't, if I understand the situation correctly.

    Anyway... like I said... wild speculation, but that's what all this says to me.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 24, 2003 @11:59AM (#5800579)
      These same thoughts wandered through my mind and then out again, simply because apple have Been There Done That over and over before. there were PC compatibility cards for Pluses, for the Mac II, for the Quadras, and for PCI PPC macs... none of which were particularly succesful

      Then again the fact they've done it so many times before could mean they're likely to bash their head against this particular wall one more time
      • by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:48PM (#5801096) Journal
        The biggest reason those cards weren't "wildly successful" was their price, if I recall correctly.

        In the heyday of these offerings, it was about the same price to buy a complete, seperate PC system. Many folks said "Where's the logic in adding PC support to my Mac when I can own a full PC system for the same money?"

        The only market they really captured was the niche of people wanting to run both PC and Mac applications, but not willing to give up any more space in their home or workplace for another computer.

        Also, these devices were still add-on cards, which always lack some of the integration of having the compatibility truly "built in" to the system. The beauty of a PC, in many ways, is the "box of slots" nature of the thing. You have thousands of possibilities in the way of PCI, AGP (or in the past, ISA or EISA) cards. Want a special purpose graphics card? Just buy it and drop it in! Special high-speed serial ports for a multi-line BBS system, perhaps? Just buy a "Digiboard" and get 8 or more ports. With a PC on a card, you're limited to what's actually on the card itself, or what it's able to use on the Mac's own board.

        While I'm not so sure Apple has any interest in going the "PC compatibility" route again - I do think it would be a much different story if the compatibility was truly on the motherboard.
    • I like it, I want it, where can I buy it? And can I get it as a PCMCIA card for my TiBook? Would that work??

      Wild speculation or not, it's fun to think about.
    • by Surak ( 18578 ) <.surak. .at. .mailblocks.com.> on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:12PM (#5800713) Homepage Journal
      So what could all this possibly point to? Apple has given us a system that can basically run software from three different operating systems: the classic Mac OS, Mas OS X (the Next OS), and Unix. They recently brought the Unix world closer with the release of X11. Wouldn't it be amazing if hardware in the near-future included an "add-on" chip (something like Altivec that works in conjuction with the PPC processor) that emulated the x86 hardware? Maybe it would give Mac users the ability to run Windows and PC software, not via software emulation, but with hardware assistance. Imagine the interest Apple could draw if they presented the world with a machine that runs the Classic, OS X, Unix and Windows applications... all in one environment and almost seamlessly.

      Ummm...I'm pretty sure Apple already tried this once. They sold some PowerMacs with cards that had 486 processors on them so you could write Windows on it. Wasn't that thing a dismal failure?

      • Well, yeah, but that was also the model w/o a CD-ROM eject button and placed the power button directly under the CD-ROM tray.

        And what do you think the Windows users did? And why do you think they hated the Mac?

    • Sounds like fun! What I personally would like to see out of this is Apple releasing their own BSD distro. They did a lot of work to get Darwin to where it is. They could be working with AMD to optimize it further for x86 (64 bit?) and gussying up X with some Aqua-alike eye candy. Pretty much OSX without the ability to run Mac apps. I'd buy!

    • by shotfeel ( 235240 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:18PM (#5800789)
      I'd think more along the line of the PPC processor IBM was rumored to have in the works back in the 601 days that included an X86 compatible core on die (was that the 610?).

      That would be cool.
      • by tmasssey ( 546878 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:56PM (#5801180) Homepage Journal
        It was the 615, and it never saw the light of day.

        The early days of PPC were wild. Apple and IBM working together on hardware and software (Taligent and Pink, some of which got rolled into OS/2's System Object Model). The possibility of running OS/2, Windows *and* MacOS all on the same computer all at the same time via Microkernel... Cool stuff.

        A lot of things were attempted but never worked. The 615 is an example: a PPC with a 486 core (IBM has rights to Intel CPU's second only to Intel themselves). The 620 was another: an Itanium-like (without the VLIW) CPU with tons of pipelines and multiprocessor capabilities that never made it into production. Then there's PREP, CHRP, OS/2 for the PowerPC...

        1994 was a wild time for vaporware...

      • PowerPC 615 (Score:3, Informative)

        by John Bayko ( 632961 )
        Here's what the "Great Microprocessors" list has to say (in the Transmeta section, not the PowerPC section):

        In the early 1990s, Apple decided that the Motorola 680x0 series was not keeping up with the Intel 80x86 series, largely because PCs were Intel's primary market, while Motorola CPUs were used more in embedded systems. RISC designs were simpler and could be improved with less effort, so Apple switched to the PowerPC CPU in 1994 (after prototypes in 1991 using the 88K), but to maintain compatibility,

    • by daveschroeder ( 516195 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:36PM (#5800971)
      Or, instead a bunch of wild speculation, why not realize that Apple and AMD are both a part of the HyperTransport consortium and are (presumably) both very interested in 64-bit computing on the desktop, and that:

      1. One of HyperTransport's most commonly supported speeds is 6.4GB/sec;

      2. Apple is desperately in need of a revamp of the entire desktop architecture, especially memory and system bus (aside from processor itself);

      3. The IBM PowerPC 970 cooincidentally supports a system bus speed of 6.4GB/sec.

      Doesn't the HyperTransport relationship seem a bit more logical than all this off-the-wall stuff about Marklar, Apple switching/adding processors, etc.?
      • by bnenning ( 58349 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @02:16PM (#5802043)
        Doesn't the HyperTransport relationship seem a bit more logical


        Exactly. A year ago it might have made sense for Apple to switch to x86, but with the impending 970 release it would be silly. It would substantially reduce the currently huge demand for the 970, as buyers would fear the machines being obsoleted if Apple abandoned the PowerPC entirely. But HyperTransport is win-win for everybody (well, not MS and Intel, darn).

      • Yes, this makes far more sense - the AMD exec may consider Opteron and HyperTransport to be integral technologies designed with each other in mind. He may have thought the reporter was asking specifically about the Opteron with regards to the Tier 1 comment, and the exec responded with an admission of work on the HT project, with nothing to do with Opteron.

        As for the speculation - I doubt Apple is going to switch to Opteron. The PowerPC 970 will be the easiest transition to current performance hardware t
    • by DavidinAla ( 639952 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:43PM (#5801047)
      If Macs could suddenly run Windows applications (without something like VPC), why would anyone write anything except Windows apps? The big companies that now target both platforms could just drop their Mac software and tell Mac users to buy the Windows version. Companies that now specialize in the Mac market could start making Windows apps and sell to both platforms. Apple would totally lose control of the integration that has made the Mac experience what it is today. I just can't see any other reasonable result of what the poster suggests.
    • Microsoft and VPC (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jbolden ( 176878 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @01:03PM (#5801253) Homepage
      Actually I think there is a very good reason for Microsoft to buy VPC that has nothing to do with Apple. Intel has indicated they are switching focus over to the Itanium line, and over the next 5+ years the limits of the x86 platform are going to become more troublesome (things like 64 gig limit of addressable memory...).

      The Itanium's x86 emulation is only so-so. VPC makes a product which allows an entirely alien architecture to run x86 apps almost perfectly providing you have an x86 OS. It would be possible for the VPC guys to take their PPC code and recreate it for Itanium to create the same level of compatability for Itanium architectures. That would be functionality that Microsoft would want to offer their customer base.
      • by joeykiller ( 119489 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @01:12PM (#5801332) Journal
        Microsofts wants the Virtual PC technology as a means for customers to run older operating systems such as Windows NT 4.0 on newer versions of Windows.

        As strange as this may seem at first, it makes sense: Microsoft is now in the process of stopping support for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0. But some customers still have to run applications that requires these operating systems, and VPC will allow them to do just that:

        Quote from an article in Server Watch [serverwatch.com]:


        Part of Microsoft's attraction to Connectix's technology may be because it adds depth to its forthcoming Windows Server 2003 family by allowing existing NT 4 customers to keep their NT 4 applications running as virtual machines. This makes the technology a ready-made ramp to migrate customers from NT 4 to the new Windows platform.
    • by MarcQuadra ( 129430 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @01:05PM (#5801271)
      I have a better reason: AMD can fab those CPUS easily and IBM has better things to do than fab chips for Macs. Apple needs to make sure it doesn't have to stop the assembly line for IBM to fab more CPUs. My guess is that Apple will have AMD produce IBM 970 chips alongside IBM. IBM probably doesn't want to be the first in line for Macintosh CPUs, there's not enough money in it for a multi-faceted operation like IBM. AMD can produce ample chips and they might be able to make a profit doing it.

      This has nothing to do with Macs and x86, AMD produces a LOT more than just athlon chips, they'll be pumping out AMD-970s with their extra capacity.
      • by olePigeon (Wik) ( 661220 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @03:04PM (#5802585)
        I have a better reason: AMD can fab those CPUS easily and IBM has better things to do than fab chips for Macs. Apple needs to make sure it doesn't have to stop the assembly line for IBM to fab more CPUs. My guess is that Apple will have AMD produce IBM 970 chips alongside IBM. IBM probably doesn't want to be the first in line for Macintosh CPUs, there's not enough money in it for a multi-faceted operation like IBM. AMD can produce ample chips and they might be able to make a profit doing it

        I think you have this backwards. AMD just recently signed up to use IBM's new manufacturing plant to increase production yield on chips and allow for higher process manufacturing (.09 micron.) IBM wouldn't be disrupting anything to "just" manufacture chips for Apple. Since AMD will be booming in the embedded business when/if HyperTransport takes off, they'll need the extra manufacturing space to produce their chipsets.

        You're also overlooking a very obvious clue to the PowerPC 970 being the chip of choice for Apple: the fact that IBM has included an AltiVec engine (and by that name, too.) IBM has stated before and stated again that they will not be using AltiVec, that it's simply there for 2nd and 3rd party vendors to take advantage of.

        Can you name one practical vendor that utilizes AltiVec other than Apple? I highly doubt IBM is catering to Amiga.

        The whole thing about Apple being in talks with AMD is more plausible if it's put in terms of HyperTransport chipsets and software compatability, and not switching their entire platform over to AMD64. As noted before, IBM and Apple are both on the HyperTransport consortium, it's only reasonable that they need to talk to each other now and again regarding HyperTransport issues. If you see on The Register or some other place about Apple being a purchaser for chips from AMD, please keep in mind that it's most likely HyperTransport chipsets and not Opterons.
  • by Darth Hubris ( 26923 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @11:55AM (#5800523)
    If Apple can control the hardware on which it will run, an Opteron doesn't seem too out of the question. Running an opteron != Apple on PC board/hardware.
  • If... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dreamchaser ( 49529 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @11:56AM (#5800527) Homepage Journal
    If Apple starts producing AMD based systems, which I doubt will happen, don't expect an open architecture. You can bet that there will be proprietary elements to the platform and OS/X won't run on commodity x86 hardware.
    • While it's extremely unlikely that Apple would pursue two completely different platforms at the same time, I think we would be most likely to see different processors in different markets, i.e. the 970 in the consumer line, the Opteron in the server line, or some division like that.
  • Maybe for a while... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ruiner13 ( 527499 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @11:57AM (#5800539) Homepage
    "Will we see Mac OS X running on two different platforms/CPUs?"

    If we do, I think it would probably be only for a brief transition period, like when they switched from the 68K line of processors to PPC. But who knows. I really hope they don't switch to AMD, that would make people less inclined to write software that is still compatible with the PPC architecture I own (assuming they don't make binaries compatible with both... i don't think they can, can they?).

    • The type of bundles that Apple uses in OS X (from its NeXT roots) allow for support for however many architectures you want in the same bundle. Bundles are not binaries, they are collections of binaries and resources in a set of folders with a particular layout to them. For example, MyApplication.app/Contents/MacOS is where MacOS X PPC binaries live. If the app and relevant frameworks were ported to Win32 for example, the exe file(s) could live in MyApplication.app/Contents/Win32. I believe if the bund
    • by ivan256 ( 17499 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:20PM (#5800822)
      If we do, I think it would probably be only for a brief transition period, like when they switched from the 68K line of processors to PPC. But who knows. I really hope they don't switch to AMD, that would make people less inclined to write software that is still compatible with the PPC architecture I own (assuming they don't make binaries compatible with both... i don't think they can, can they?).

      This is the biggest reason I've doubted the Apple/Opteron rumors from the start. When Apple switched from 68k to PPC they chose a processor that was capable of emulating the old platform at full speed to ensure a seamless transition from the user perspective. I doubt Apple would be interested in anything but a seamless transition this time as well. Opteron, however, doesn't have enough registers (among other problems) to do a good job at emulation the PPC architecture. I would guess that there would have to be AMD chips that are 10x faster than PPC chips (they're getting there, but PPC isn't that far behind yet) or Apple would not be satisfied with the PPC emulation experience. I would believe the use of Itanium more that the use of Opteron, just because Itanium is much better suited to PPC emulation. Unfortunatly a single Itanium CPU costs more than most complete Apple systems right now, so that's probably unrealistic as well.

      As for all the people that say the 970 is vaporware because of the lack of hype, well there's always been much less hype from IBM and Motorola about their new CPUs than from Intel, AMD, and (formerly) Digital (remember the old Digital Alpha CPU ads back in the late 80s/early 90s? "We're on our third generation 64bit architecture. Our compitition hasn't even started designing their first." It was the first CPU specific TV ad I remember seeing. Classic). IBM markets to manufacturers, not to end users, so unless you're a developer you don't see the hype. IBM and Apple are well suited for each other because IBM has a history of licensing portions of their CPU cores and using them to put together custom processors for the customers. Apple would love to have that kind of control, and they won't get it anywhere else.
    • If apple were to officially port Mono to OSX and help build it into a robust development tool and environment then it would be possible for them to build .NET bindings for OSX that would run on both the PPC 970 and Opteron.
  • by glam0006 ( 471393 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @11:58AM (#5800552)
    Am I missing something? After extensive discussions/explanations on Slashdot and all of the Mac sites, why do some people still think MacOS will ever be released for the x86 platform?
  • More info from IBM (Score:5, Informative)

    by daveschroeder ( 516195 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @11:58AM (#5800555)
    The story missed a major source of information about the 970 directly from IBM:

    PowerPC 970 2002 Microprocessor Forum presentation [ibm.com]

    This contains a link to IBM Senior PowerPC Architect Peter Sandon's detailed presentation in PDF format.
  • Eh? (Score:4, Funny)

    by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Thursday April 24, 2003 @11:58AM (#5800559) Homepage
    but feel Linux is still not ready for the desktop yet

    Please mod story as (-1, Flamebait).

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @11:59AM (#5800567)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by tmark ( 230091 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:18PM (#5800790)
      Not everyone wants to roll up their sleeves and start coding just to use "desktop" software. There *are* people out there who just need to write documents/work on spreadsheets/balance their checkbook, and not all of them share the Open Source agenda: do you really think they all ought to participate in Open Source, instead of just switching to some OS they feel suits them better ?
  • Missed an option: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 )
    For those of us wanting to get away from Windows, but feel Linux is still not ready for the desktop yet, this might make Apple a more viable alternative.

    You forgot "and have the extra cash". Lets face it. The only reason I haven't gotten myself an iMac, is because I don't have the extra grand or so to buy one.

    Now if AMD jumps into the mix, things may get interesting...
    • by __aaaaxm1522 ( 121860 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:13PM (#5800732)
      Yup, that's right. Keep perpetuating the myth. Have you looked at the Apple Store lately? iBooks are <$1K ... compare to a Dell or similar notebook and you'll find that Apple matches or beats their pricing.

      True - the desktops are still somewhat pricey. $1000 more? No. Not if we're talking iMacs, and if you're comparing them to a machine purchased from a major manufacturer like Dell or Compaq - If you're talking beige-boxes, well then yes. Apple computers are $1000 more than a beige box ... as are the Dell, Compaq, HP, IBM and Gateway machines.

      But keep in mind, Apple is really focusing on the portable market segment this year, so that's where most of the value is going to be.
      • by labratuk ( 204918 )
        Apple computers are $1000 more than a beige box ... as are the Dell, Compaq, HP, IBM and Gateway machines.

        Exactly. At least with the Dells et al. you have an alternative where you can be in the same league. People keep going on about how much you get for your money with a mac. I don't dispute that. I also don't want half that crap.

        If I just want an x86, to run linux, I have to spend about $300.

        If I want anything that will run OSX, it's going to cost me at least $1000. I don't have that kind of
  • by Chmarr ( 18662 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:03PM (#5800623)
    Me and a few friends have long held the belief that Apple releasing OS/X for the x86 platform would KILL Apple. Unlike Microsoft, Apple's 'coin' is their hardware platform, rather than software. The software is just there to sell the hardware. If they released OS/X for x86, then their hardware sales would plummet.

    Yes, they could make some money off selling OS/X. However, they would then have to become MUCH more interested in ensuring their software is not being pirated, and that means some kind of DRM. A lot of folk love Apple because of their anti-DRM stance, and a lot of that love would disappeaer if Apple went down this route. As it is, Apple don't seem THAT concerned about piracy of their software, instead relying on those that want to 'do the Right Thing' with Apple, which is a fair percentage of their user base.

    Instead, this is my theory on the Apple/AMD relationship, if there is one.

    - It would be STUPID of Apple to rely on a single-source for their new processors, so, who better than to ask as a 'second source' than AMD? Yes, I'm sure Apple/IBM will get a leetle percentage out of all the chips that AMD make, but I'd bet my dollars that's what's going on.

    Of course, the other possiblity is that AMD HAD talks with Apple, and they consisted of "Hey, lets go do lunch." "No." :) But... that's still 'talks', isn't it? :)
    • by TheAwfulTruth ( 325623 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:17PM (#5800776) Homepage
      Actually I believe that the complete opposite is true. Apples market share could go up 10x overnight if they released Mac OSX for x86. Hardware is a tough place to make money, the hardware COSTS money. Lost of it, profit margins are slim.

      And even if Apple made the OS free-standing for any x86 machine, that would not stop Apple from being able to build ultra-stylish, high-priced, boutique x86 machines and put their own OS on it now would it? They'd probably sell exactly the same # of machines that way as the die hard Apple aficinados would probably still prefer to buy apple branded machines, AND it would grow their OS market share tremendously, maybe even driving their branded machine sales higher in the future.

      Frankly I think not porting OSX to x86 was a huge blunder that will hold the company back another 5 years till the next actual achetecture change is forced upon them.
      • Well, given that Apple were making more systems than Gateway, and there's a LONG held belief that the Apple systems are overpriced, profit margins can't be THAT slim :)

        Again, if Apple release OS/X for the x86 platform, they're going to have to get a lot more interested in DRM. This isn't just a policy change; it's a complete about-face.
        • I believe that they have already incorporated full DRM in their music products and an upcoming huge music announcement for some on-line music service will probably be taking full advantage of it. The about face is already happening.

          The DRM question of "Will Apple have DRM" no longer exsists, but is now just "How will it be used?" is left to see.
      • I don't think x86 makes sense quite yet.
        Their still dragging developers and users kicking and screaming into OS X. Having to support x86 and PowerPC would be BAD.
        You'd need Photoshop, [insert other mac app here], etc. ported to x86, and PowerPC....
      • by scrotch ( 605605 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:52PM (#5801143)
        Actually I believe that the complete opposite is true. Apples market share could go up 10x overnight if they released Mac OSX for x86. Hardware is a tough place to make money, the hardware COSTS money. Lost of it, profit margins are slim.

        Market share != Profit;
        10 * $129 < $1500; // 10* OSX cost < average Mac price

        Hardware is a tough place for Windows PC makers to make money. Apple has been doing pretty well there. Dell and Gateway have problems and losses because they're in competition with each other and with your cousin who makes PCs in his garage. Your suggestion that Apple would make more money by competing with Dell and your cousin is strange.

      • Apples market share could go up 10x overnight if they released Mac OSX for x86.

        I think you mean MacOS X's market share, not Apple-branded computers. In any case, why would it?

        Is it because of the iApplications? Well, a Windows user needs to throw away all his old apps and pay $130 to get them. I think most switchers see them as a nice bonus, but not a primary factor.

        Is it because of Mac-only applications? I think we can safely rule that out.

        Is it because of a Unix core? Since Linux hasn't exact

  • by generationxyu ( 630468 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:05PM (#5800642) Homepage
    It's not exactly Mac OS X, but it's the Darwin core -- http://www.gnu-darwin.org.

    Apple did make an "x86-compatible" Mac a few years back, I think it had a 486 chip alongside the PPC (or even 040?) I don't remember too much about this, I think it worked by pressing Cmd-return, at which point it would switch to the 486, while maintaining state on the PPC. Essentially like the Orange Micro PC compatibility cards they used to make. (NuBus what!)

    I'd love to see an Apple/AMD collaboration, either a licensed port of the whole Mac OS X to x86 architecture, or a dual-processor machine. It'd be pretty badass.
  • I am a little ignorant on this, so please enlighten me. Can instructions for the PowerPC 970 be migrated to the Power4 chips without too much trouble? The point being, is there the prospect that Apple will put the Power4s in some new, really high end Xserves?

    If so, that could let Apple break out of just the 1U market and compete with 2U and 4U servers with more than just two processors.

  • Enough already! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by psyconaut ( 228947 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:07PM (#5800676)
    Why do we have to have a story about "MacOS on x86" every few months on Slashdot?!

    -psy
  • by wazzzup ( 172351 ) <astromac&fastmail,fm> on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:13PM (#5800727)
    So Apple says this is the year of the laptop, right? If I'm not mistaken, AMD chips run hotter than just about anything out there. So who wants a laptop with 15 minutes of laptop life and the capability of burning your wang to a small, blackened stump of carbon (or for the ladies a sizzling fajita)?

    Besides, are they or any of the Mac software vendors going to support two versions of their Mac products? No.
  • Hypertransport (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vanced ( 668313 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:15PM (#5800755)
    Does nobody remember that both AMD and Apple sit on the consortium for Hypertransport? If you look at Apples current lagging hardware specs you'll see a need for two things. A faster Bus and a faster CPU.

    AMD == Hypertransport && IBM == P970

  • Lucky? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Logic Bomb ( 122875 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:16PM (#5800769)
    "Could we be that lucky?"

    Define "lucky". You mean, not only having to find Mac software, but now having to find software for your particular Mac platform? appleppc.slashdot.org along with appleamd.slashdot.org? Developers throwing up their hands in disgust and walking away when confronted with a platform redesign two years after the last one? Sounds lucky to me.

    Seriously, give whatever Jobs has up his sleeve a chance. If he wants a decent PowerPC chip, he'll get one.

  • by Farley Mullet ( 604326 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:18PM (#5800793)

    Apple has heavily optimized OS X and the so-called iLife apps (iTunes, iPhoto, etc.) for AltiVec, the special vector instruction set that the G4 has. That's why OS X runs much more nicely on G4's (which have AltiVec) than on G3's (which don't). The reason all the buzz started about Apple migrating new Macs to the 64-bit IBM chips in the first place was that IBM introduced AltiVec workalike instructions for their new chips, so Apple could move up without sacrificing the AltiVec optimizations. Moving to x86-ish hardware would mean that they'd lose all the AltiVec optimizations they've made, so it seems unlikely to me.

  • desktop (Score:4, Insightful)

    by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:21PM (#5800823)
    For those of us wanting to get away from Windows, but feel Linux is still not ready for the desktop yet, this might make Apple a more viable alternative.

    Come on, don't hide behind "not ready yet". Just spit it out: "I don't like the Linux desktops". Now, that wasn't too hard, was it?

    That's fine, I don't like the OS X or Windows desktops either. That's why they make so many different kinds. But let's not pretend that there is a single desktop that is oh-so-much-better for everybody than any of the others.

    Your statement makes about as much sense as saying that "vanilla ice cream isn't ready yet for the kids of America, but strawberry, which is clearly so much better, is too expensive".

  • Dont forget (Score:2, Informative)

    The Huge Future Apple CPU Thread [infopop.net]. A very informative read focusing on the PPC 970, 980, and Moto 7457.
  • Speculation du jour (Score:3, Informative)

    by angst_ridden_hipster ( 23104 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:23PM (#5800846) Homepage Journal
    I think everyone(*) is anxious for Apple to jump ahead in the GHz game. Considering how fast the Intel/AMD folks are cranking up the chips, it feels like we're being left behind.

    We can talk until the cows come home about how CISC/Hybrid MHz are not RISC MHz, but the fact is we all want our machines to be faster. Even if they're already really, really fast.

    But I can't see Apple making a transition to a platform that's not binary-compatible with PPC. It was painful enough when they went from 68xxx to PPC, and then to force everyone to buy all their applications again with the transition from OS 8/9 to OS X.

    To do it again, within a year or two of the last major transition, would be disastrous. While I'm sure the software companies wouldn't much mind forcing everyone to buy a new version of all of their applications, how many users would put up with this? How long would people wait for Photoshop 8?

    (* at least all the Apple users, and maybe a fair number of Unix/BSD users)
    • by tgd ( 2822 )
      I think very few people are anxious for Apple to jump ahead of the game. Contrary to what the /. crowd makes the tech marketplace look like, very few people want plexiglass windows, neon green alien decals, hard drive cables that glow under blacklights, the latest 7ghz processor and a $400 video card.

      I think everyone(*) wants their computer to be able to take care of what they want it to, and everyone(**) is probably pretty happy with where Apple's hardware is right now, because everyone(***) knows how muc
  • by iJed ( 594606 )
    It is certainly possible that we will see Mac OS X on x86 at some point in the future. It is another question, however, if Mac OS X x86 will be able to run on any x86 hardware and not just proprietary hardware from Apple.

    It is rumored that Apple do currently have Mac OS X running on x86 in the form of project Marklar and that it is kept up-to-date with the PPC version. It is also true that NeXTStep ran on 68K, x86, Sparc and PA-RISC so this shows that the Mac OS X team is likely to capability to easily p
  • by stilwebm ( 129567 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:26PM (#5800873)
    For Apple to run OS X (or it's descendants) on Apple branded computers, they would have to create serious confusion and frustration among Apple users. Apple users don't want to think about "what processor version installer should I run." Sure there are so-called fat binaries that include binary code for multiple platforms, just as Apple used when transitioning between Motorola 680x0 (aka 68K) processors and PowerPC processors. However, that was a one way transition. People knew that PPC was the future or all Apple as well as an upgrade. PowerPC processors could run 680x0 code through emulation quite well with no user intervention. With a transition to x86, however, Apple would have a huge problem with backwards compatability for existing applications. PowerPC emulators are in the works for x86 (actually, at least one will work on most modern architectures), but believe me, they are not an acceptable solution for production use - especially among most Mac users.

    Using two simultaneous platforms is a big problem for sales and developer relations. Which is better? Why even bother with the other platform then? Or, why is the new platform so much better yet it has little available software? Why bother porting to the second platform when sales are sluggish on that platform? Then existing customers get angry. Why is my platform being abandonned? New customers feel the same if the gamble doesn't pay off and gets killed. The only partial exception is if one platform does not substitute for the other, say appliances vs. desktops and servers. Think Sun's purchase of Cobalt.
  • all wrong... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by liloconf ( 560960 )
    sorry but apple is a hardware company not a software one. If you check there income you'll see they make very little on there OS and ilife products. If Apple came out with a new computer using an AMD chip they would be hurt drastically by those building there own apple computers instead of spending the premium in the apple store. The ibm 970 will happen, AMD might be involved but only with helping Apple on hyperthreading i think...
  • by stienman ( 51024 ) <adavis@NOsPAM.ubasics.com> on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:45PM (#5801055) Homepage Journal
    Will we see Mac OS X running on two different platforms/CPUs? Could we be that lucky?

    In short, NO.

    Firstly, as everyone knows, Apple makes money off one thing, and one thing only - HARDWARE. They make great software only to sell their hardware.

    The benefits of controlling the hardware are
    1. A better user experience
    2. Lower tech support costs
    3. Better quality control
    4. Specialized/customized designs with an eye toward aesthetics
    They CANNOT allow others to create hardware upon which their software will run. This means that they have to use a special BIOS, and manufacture their own boards. IF they switch to an OS that can be run on an x86 processor (and custom mothboard/bios/etc), you will find, the very next day, a crack for the software which will allow it to run on any generic motherboard, and further down the line a BIOS image which will allow an unmodified software to run on a non-custom motherboard.

    Right now they can control it because a 'commodity' PPC motherboard costs more than the same apple motherboard. It would surprise me if Apple wasn't applying some pressure to various suppliers to prevent the widespread availability of commodity PPC equipment which is very similar to Apple's own. This is common in the industry. Furthermore, they may even have a slightly altered/customized version of the various PPC chips they use.

    The only way for Apple to play against WINTEL is to not compete - not competing means selling essentially different products. Apple would die if they had to sell their OS and try to make a profit at it - the company is simply not designed to compete against MS. (Although if they did Windows would improve dramatically)

    Put another way, Apple is a whole user experience company. They don't want the user to go to a generic theatre, sit in seats made by some strange company, eat food purchased from GFS, and watch a movie made by three different movie studios. They want you in their theater, their seats eating their food, and watching their entirely controlled movie.

    This is good for those who only want to deal with one company, and are willing to pay for it. They know their market. They may be trying to expand it a little towards the geek segment that play with software but don't care about hardware (we run unix!). It is unlikely that they will ever capture the imagination of the hardware geek, they know it, and they aren't courting us.

    So stop posting freaking stories about OS X on any commodity hardware, ok?

    -Adam
  • by jceaser ( 666366 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:45PM (#5801057)
    Could someone please explain to me why there is such a "need" to have Mac OS X on an x86 processor? Why is it a good thing to run on a processer with 4 registers (8 if you use the address registers for non address calculations) and an outdated asm languages when 32 registers and risc is just so much fun? Their are a lot of different processors out there and I really don't think x86 is the best in the world. Why would anyone what to run any code on anything made by intel. I'm not trying to start a flame here, I just want to know why so many people want x86 over anything else (mips, sparc, hp-risc, power-pc).
    • by ocelotbob ( 173602 ) <ocelot.ocelotbob@org> on Thursday April 24, 2003 @02:02PM (#5801883) Homepage
      Because X86-64 doesn't have just 4+4 registers. They've added 8 more general purpose registers, plus 8 more registers for working on SIMD code like SSE and SSE2, bringing the total of general purpose and special registers to 16 64 bit registers and 16 128 bit registers. While 8-32bit x86 assembly is ugly, x86-64 has provided a good number of features that make it more like a good RISC processor. Same goes for Itanium, where technically it has 128 registers, with 32 of them being visible through "traditional" means, and the others being visible through a register stack mechanism.
  • by nycroft ( 653728 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:46PM (#5801073) Homepage
    I think it was back in '95 or '96. IBM [ibm.com] and Motorola [motorola.com] were in development of dual-platform supporting processor called CHRP [firmworks.com] or Common Hardware Reference Platform.

    The Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) Specification describes a family of machines based on the PowerPC(tm) processor that are capable of booting multiple operating systems including Mac OS, Windows NT, AIX® and Solaris(tm).

    Wouldn't that have been cool? What ever happened to that idea? Here's the old documentation. [firmworks.com]

    It appears that IBM has some information [ibm.com] on their site that is still recent, dated Sept. 2002. Weird. I'd love to have one of those machines. PowerPC 970? Forget about it.
  • by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:53PM (#5801151)
    ArsTechnica to the Rescue:

    * Inside the IBM PowerPC 970 Part I: Design Philosophy and Front End
    http://arstechnica.com/cpu/02q2/ppc970/ppc970 -1.ht ml

    * Ars Technica Newsdesk A Brief Look at the PowerPC 970
    http://arstechnica.com/archive/news/103475624 5.htm l

    * Ars Technica - CPU and Chipset Guide
    http://arstechnica.com/cpu/

    Hope it helps fill that Gap.
  • by Master Of Ninja ( 521917 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @12:57PM (#5801195)
    If you read the IBM link, you can see that the 970 is multiprocessor enabled. Once apple gets their hands on it they can easily create 2 way systems, and probably 4 way systems and up. I'm not sure about benchmarking, but linking processors in this way will help offset the x86 processor speed advanatge. And with IBM technology behind them, I'm sure it's easily possible.

    BTW, I think AMD are trying to pull off a similar trick with the multiproc. Opterons, and eventually Athlons.
  • by cygnus ( 17101 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @01:06PM (#5801283) Homepage
    if you're looking for 970 info, Hannibal has a decent article [arstechnica.com] over at Ars Technica, and a followup is on the way. also there's a +1 thread of deth [infopop.net] in Ars' forums.
  • by aliens ( 90441 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @02:23PM (#5802123) Homepage Journal
    I know smaller die fabs allow for cooler chips etc, until you start filling everything in with more transistors etc.

    If you produced a Pentium 1 core or even a 2 using a .13micron process could you make a very cool running chip as compared to the P4's?

    Just something I never figured out. Thanks for any replies.
  • by neildiamond ( 610251 ) on Thursday April 24, 2003 @03:14PM (#5802702)
    Okay, regardless of whether or not Apple ever designs X86 computers, if they did it wouldn't lower their profits. Why? They can still charge more their computers if the OS only runs on their version of x86 hardware! If it runs faster, the Mac faithful will be pleased. Sure someone is likely to hack it to work on a white box PC, but as far as average end users are concerned, it is not a big issue and any piracy issues would be easily offset by the number of new people buying slightly cheaper Windows compatible Macs. (Heck, I might even consider it.)

    I also suspect that OSX (if written properly for a small set of sound/video cards) would be faster than Windows on the same machine. Even if it isn't, people crave the Mac experience. Mac users have never minded paying more. They don't even care that Macs are the slowest on the block right now. It's about the user experience folks. Plain and simple.
  • by afantee ( 562443 ) on Friday April 25, 2003 @05:05AM (#5806944)
    A 1.8 GHz Opteron or a 3 GHz P4 consumes about 80 W, compared to 40 W of a 1.8 GHz PPC 970.

    More importantly, a 1.2 GHz PPC 970 burns only 19 W, which makes it possible for Apple to design cool and sexy fortables without huge heat sinks or noisy fans.

    The low energy consumption is also critical for 24/7 servers, it reduces electricity bills and hardware failures. So I can't really see why Apple or anyone else should be too excited about the hot chip.

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