Apple Goes Intel...

[Huw Davies]

On 07/06/2005, at 9:47 PM, Cini, Richard wrote:

> I for one am happy. I've wanted to Try OSX as a replacement for  
> Windows but
> I didn't want to spend the $$$ on Apple hardware...not because it's  
> better
> or worse than PC-compatible hardware but because I have a ton of  
> current PC
> stuff. I've toyed with buying a Mac Mini, but it's still $500.
>
> I've dabbled with Linux but I would feel better if there was a  
> substantial
> company behind it. OSX is better integrated and has a lot of right- 
> brain
> features that my wife and kids would like.
>
> For $129 I'd take a flyer and commit one of my spare PCs to it. I  
> couldn't
> totally divorce myself from Windows but I would at least like some  
> options.

The problem here is that Apple have already said that you won't be  
able to run OS-X/Intel on anything other than Apple's Intel hardware  
- that is, whilst Apple will be using x86 as the CPU, the resulting  
hardware environment will not be Windows compatible - as far as I'm  
concerned this is a good thing - I don't want strange holes in my  
memory map above 640K for BIOS and graphics.

Apple have made the difficult (but in my opinion correct) decision to  
phase out PowerPC and move to x86. They've done this for several  
reasons, including outright performance and also MIPS/W so that they  
can have high performance, long battery life laptops.

Where Apple are going isn't new - Digital/Compaq/HP have already been  
here with the VAX/VMS -> Alpha/VMS -> Itanium/VMS moves as well as  
the Alpha/NT -> Intel/NT move as well. These decisions weren't easy  
to make, and certainly hurt and surprised customers as well as Compaq  
staff - I remember well hearing about the demise of Alpha. However  
(donning flameproof suit now), Alpha had no future due to the overall  
chip cost and Itanium at least looks (looked?) promising in terms of  
price/performance - CPU cost per MIP.

Looking back in Computing history, lots of nice/desirable/kill for  
architectures/software/operating systems have died as new paradigms  
took over. Yes, losing something familiar hurts but in our industry,  
standing still is usually fatal.

Huw Davies           | e-mail: Huw.Davies at kerberos.davies.net.au
Melbourne            | "If soccer was meant to be played in the
Australia            | air, the sky would be painted green"