A completely different thought about x86 based OS X

[ulrik]

I have red a rather interesting article written by one of the Windows programmers...

what if Apple would port OS X over to x86? OK, this horse has been beaten to death, most of us agree that it would be the death of Apple since they have to sell their hardware....but....what if they would still make the hardware?

Imagine OS X on x86 processors (AMD, Intel, Transmeta) manufactured by Apple! The OS would still need Apple hardware (they could implement some kind of "watermark" into the motherboard, so only if the motherboard comes from Apple, the system starts). We all have to admit that AMD makes faster processors than Motorola. OK, they are instable like hell, but still....

I am a bit puzzled. I'd like Apple to stay with Motorola, I can afford the hardware, I am happy with the hardware, and I can live with the fact that our processors aren't the fastest (allthough the Dual 1Ghz is in the top league) but we have MILLIONS of other gadgets.

But what do others think about this? Would it bring speed increase? Would it make Apple systems instable? Would it drop the price?

Tell me what you think about it....

[vanguard]

I think your long term strategy has to be to pick one. Microsoft dropped PowerPC, Alpha, and MIPS support for NT because they found them to be unprofitable.

I doubt that Apple would find both to be profitable in the long term. They would probably have to pick one just like everybody else does. Now the question is, "Who do you pick?"

It's not an easy question. There was a time that the PowerPC guys were actually faster than the x86 guys. That hasn't been true for several years now (despite some convoluted benchmarks Steve may use) but it could be true again. Is the G5 going to leapfrog the x86 guys again? I don't know.

Anyway, I'd say that going x86 is a good idea. As far as I know, it's faster, cheaper, better. Also, Motorola's chip dept has been through massive layoffs. Are they going to be around in the long term? Going x86 just seems better.

[ksv]

If Apple could start their own x86 chip manufacturing plant, everyone would be happy. There's no way I'm going to use an intel based Mac!

[vanguard]

I wonder what Intel did wrong? Anyway, Intel is one of about three x86 producers. Maybe you can have an AMD based mac. Their chips are faster and unlike the P4, it runs in an SMP configuration.

Vanguard

[ulrik]

Originally posted by ksv
If Apple could start their own x86 chip manufacturing plant, everyone would be happy. There's no way I'm going to use an intel based Mac!

Why not? Intel makes good products! They are damn stable! The P4 came to a bad start since the major part of it's performance relied on RAMBUS, which never got standard...but I think Intel makes the best chips out of the three x86 manufacturers.

AMD is fast, good in floating point operations but bad a integers compared to the others, nothing you wanna have in a web/database/fileserver

Intel is quite as fast, has great server capabilites, and, IIRC, doesn't consume as much power and doesn't have that many small bugs that the AMD has

Transmeta is purely great for the idea the put behind their processor...

[RacerX]

This argument is getting a little old. Porting from one processor platform to another would basically mean leaving all of the old software behind. Talking about alienating a lot of developers and users. And for what? We would have no increase in the number of applications, or increase in the numbers of gadgets for that matter (because those things aren't married to a processor type, they require drivers)!

And I don't care what you guys say about actual processor speed, according to Intel the 800 MHz Itanium is faster that the 2.2 GHz Pentium 4, and the current G4s are running faster than the fastest Itanium. And if you think that the AMD is faster, then go use it. It is not fast enough to warrant years of development, and then asking all our developers (again) to convert their code and all our users (again) to buy new products. The reality of all this could not be clearer.

And we have all seen this before. Rhapsody was ready to ship, and developers said they would not convert their products to run on it. And then it disappeared. And even before Apple pulled it, the ratio of PPC apps to Intel apps was more than 2 to 1 (this coming from developers who were originally developing apps for OPENSTEP on Intel systems!).

If (and this is a big if) Apple wanted to move to a new processor, IBM's POWER3 and POWER4 series would be a better choice (full 64 bit and still PPC), but again, what a head ache! Apple shouldn't, and wouldn't, move processors for at least another 5 years to get everyone a rest from this move (which was bigger than both the 68K to PPC move and the System 6 to System 7 move combined).

[ksv]

Originally posted by RacerX
This argument is getting a little old. Porting from one processor platform to another would basically mean leaving all of the old software behind. Talking about alienating a lot of developers and users. And for what? We would have no increase in the number of applications, or increase in the numbers of gadgets for that matter (because those things aren't married to a processor type, they require drivers)!

And I don't care what you guys say about actual processor speed, according to Intel the 800 MHz Itanium is faster that the 2.2 GHz Pentium 4, and the current G4s are running faster than the fastest Itanium. And if you think that the AMD is faster, then go use it. It is not fast enough to warrant years of development, and then asking all our developers (again) to convert their code and all our users (again) to buy new products. The reality of all this could not be clearer.

And we have all seen this before. Rhapsody was ready to ship, and developers said they would not convert their products to run on it. And then it disappeared. And even before Apple pulled it, the ratio of PPC apps to Intel apps was more than 2 to 1 (this coming from developers who were originally developing apps for OPENSTEP on Intel systems!).

If (and this is a big if) Apple wanted to move to a new processor, IBM's POWER3 and POWER4 series would be a better choice (full 64 bit and still PPC), but again, what a head ache! Apple shouldn't, and wouldn't, move processors for at least another 5 years to get everyone a rest from this move (which was bigger than both the 68K to PPC move and the System 6 to System 7 move combined).

Exactly.
No way.
Apple will never convert to x86, as long as Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller is alive

[fryke]

yes and 640KB will be enough for every user ever. to quote bill gates. please don't quote a whole blo** message just to add two lines. *sigh*

yes, the subject is VERY old. porting os x to x86 is no big deal. everyone knows that mac os x was running on pc hardware up until rhapsody 5.1 or 5.2, before mac os x server 1.0 came about and finance/politics ruled the pc version out. also cocoa makes it possible to recompile for x86 and you're fine. carbon is different though, but feasible, i guess.

but that's not the subject, isn't it.

imagine an imac with an amd duron 1.3 ghz. great eh? well, not so. the g4 800 mhz is a better deal with its altivec engine.

if apple is looking for an alternative to the g4 processor (and can't wait to the g5 processor) then viable alternatives might include everything from a mips to a sparc processor, maybe even amds 64bit or intel's itanium processor. but not bad old x86 processors which are basically end-of-lived?!

if apple ever were to make a big transition with a clear cut, the positives must outweigh the negatives so very hard that it'd be a miracle if every other operating system wouldn't jump on the bandwagon. i.e. the g5.

i don't know, guys, but aren't your macs good machines? i personally wouldn't want my tibook to sport an amd mobile duron or athlon or (shriek!) a pIII mobile processor. i actually LIKE the g4 at 500 mhz fine, and i believe the g4 has still a bit life in it for mobile computers.

the 1 ghz dual processor powermac? well, although it'd be nice to have a 4 processor amd 1.4 ghz (they're not really much faster yet although they've been renamed something like xp 2000+) running osx, but would you want things like the bios of your mo-bo not supporting the procs at full speed? read the tests of those beasts. this ram don't work, those graphics cards are not yet supported...

motorola has had a bad record ever since the introduction of the g4/500 processor. but the g5 will be a jump. and if the g5 doesn't arrive 'til july, apple will boast 4 or 8 g4s in a machine, believe me. and whether they'll run at 1.2 or 1.4 ghz, those machines (not its single processor) will rock our world.

not mine though. i want the dual processor 1 ghz tibook.