OSX on IBM desktops & laptops

[Grimace]

So far as I know - this doesn't exist. But, what if IBM decided to launch an OSX wing of its company. IBM already has a processor/OS combo that works for Apple. Could a manufacturer capitalize on the draw of OSX and make cheaper computers? (I know that the chip making side of IBM is completely different from the computer-making side.)

Maybe IBM could give Apple a run for its money in the eMac and iMac classes. Would there be any good reason for IBM to do this? It would provide choice, and not visible competition for its PC making side. Just a random thought I guess... :rolleyes:

[saabmp3]

Apple doesn't allow you to run OSX on any non apple branded computers. Of course it's possible to do it, but it would be illegal and a real company like IBM can't do it. This is just a "clone", something which Jobs did away with when he took the helm of apple a while ago.

BEN

[Grimace]

Weren't the clones licensing Apple's OS? I wasn't thinking that a new vendor wouldn't pay for the rights to use OSX.

[Horrortaxi]

There's more than just the OS to consider. IBM makes PPC processors for other purposes than Macintosh comuters, but that doesn't mean those applications can run the Mac OS. What makes a Mac a Mac is the ROM. You can't copy that and without it you don't have a Mac.

[kidA]

Weren't the clones licensing Apple's OS? I wasn't thinking that a new vendor wouldn't pay for the rights to use OSX.

Right, but for a 3rd party to build a clone and license the OS, it's Apple that would have to sell them a license of OS X, which would never happen. they couldn't just write Apple a check and start using the OS if Apple didn't want them to.

[Grimace]

Ah, so what I think you're saying is that Steve Jobs closed the door on any vendor beside Apple from using OSX.

Hmmf.

[osprey76]

Affirmative. The clone time period for Macs came too late, especially when the company was struggling with direction. Cheaper Macs from Umax, et al. were just competing with Apple's offerings rather than expanding the Mac user base.

There is an interesting open source project called PearPC (http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/) that aims to emulate a Mac on x86 architecture. Kind of like VirtualPC, but going the other direction. Somehow they've gotten around the ROM (there may be a virtual ROM or something like that).

[MisterMe]

Affirmative. The clone time period for Macs came too late, especially when the company was struggling with direction. Cheaper Macs from Umax, et al. were just competing with Apple's offerings rather than expanding the Mac user base.

There is an interesting open source project called PearPC (http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/) that aims to emulate a Mac on x86 architecture. Kind of like VirtualPC, but going the other direction. Somehow they've gotten around the ROM (there may be a virtual ROM or something like that).People, people, people, since Apple introduced Open Firmware-based computers, the Macintosh Toolbox ROM has been a file in the MacOS 8/9 System Folder. MacOS X 10.x does not require the Toolbox ROM at all. Today, there are virtually no technical impediments to building a Mac clone. It is, however, a violation of the Macintosh EULA.

There's more than just the OS to consider. IBM makes PPC processors for other purposes than Macintosh comuters, but that doesn't mean those applications can run the Mac OS. What makes a Mac a Mac is the ROM. You can't copy that and without it you don't have a Mac.As I stated above, this is not true. It has not been true since the original iMac. What makes a Macintosh today is a Cupertino company named for a fruit. It is perfectly possible for any computer manufacturer to build a computer that runs MacOS X, but it is illegal to sell it with the OS installed. It is also illegal for the user to install the OS on the computer. But, the bottomline is that it is possible. PearPC did not copy the Mac ROM, but MacOS X runs on the emulator.

Weren't the clones licensing Apple's OS? I wasn't thinking that a new vendor wouldn't pay for the rights to use OSX.The clones did much more (or much less, depending on your perspective) than license the MacOS. The "clones" were not really clones at all. The term clone implies copy. Macintosh clones were not copies of the Macintosh. Each box contained a genuine Macintosh Toolbox ROM manufactured by Apple Computer. For all practical purposes, the "clones" were real Macintoshes. The clone makers were Apple customers who used Apple products to undercut Apple prices. Apple had agreed to support them with the understanding that they increase Macintosh marketshare. They chose to compete for Apple's existing customers instead. By supporting the clone makers, Apple was commiting suicide. One way or another, the "cloning" experiment was going to end.

[MisterMe]

Oops!

[johnnowak]

As I stated above, this is not true. It has not been true since the original iMac. What makes a Macintosh today is a Cupertino company named for a fruit. It is perfectly possible for any computer manufacturer to build a computer that runs MacOS X, but it is illegal to sell it with the OS installed. It is also illegal for the user to install the OS on the computer. But, the bottomline is that it is possible.[b]

Is it -really- possible though? How much would you sacrifice? Could you get DVD burning to work on a self-built system? Would quartz extreme be okay? I'd think the audio might be a bit tricky...? Hm.

I know its not "legal" and all... but has anyone done this? I'm simply curious.

[strider42]

People, people, people, since Apple introduced Open Firmware-based computers, the Macintosh Toolbox ROM has been a file in the MacOS 8/9 System Folder. MacOS X 10.x does not require the Toolbox ROM at all. Today, there are virtually no technical impediments to building a Mac clone. It is, however, a violation of the Macintosh EULA.

As I stated above, this is not true. It has not been true since the original iMac. What makes a Macintosh today is a Cupertino company named for a fruit. It is perfectly possible for any computer manufacturer to build a computer that runs MacOS X, but it is illegal to sell it with the OS installed. It is also illegal for the user to install the OS on the computer. But, the bottomline is that it is possible. PearPC did not copy the Mac ROM, but MacOS X runs on the emulator.


I'm almost positive that that there is a boot rom that is still propietary. For instance, you can go buy a PPC motherboard with no problem, there are companies that make them. But you can't run mac os on them.

Also witness processor upgrades ont he original iMacs. The manufacturers had a very hard time doing it because the apple boot rom was located on the processor daughter card, so they had to use used boards to upgrade the processor. They couldn't manufacturer them.

So while the rom the system actually uses is now a software file, there is still a boot rom that makes the apple motherboards proprietary.

[MisterMe]

I'm almost positive that that there is a boot rom that is still propietary. For instance, you can go buy a PPC motherboard with no problem, there are companies that make them. But you can't run mac os on them.

Also witness processor upgrades ont he original iMacs. The manufacturers had a very hard time doing it because the apple boot rom was located on the processor daughter card, so they had to use used boards to upgrade the processor. They couldn't manufacturer them.

So while the rom the system actually uses is now a software file, there is still a boot rom that makes the apple motherboards proprietary.The boot ROM is Open Firmware, a published standard. The problems that processor upgrade vendors had with the original iMac seem to be with proprietary wetware rather than proprietary firmware or hardware. That is, Apple's iMac design may have included some proprietary information rather than proprietary components. However, this issue of moot with respect to a clone manufacturer. A clone manufacturer would be interested only in the design and features of its own machine. There is no technical barrier to building a computer which will boot MacOS X. Since the computer can't be sold as a Mac clone, however, it is simply not worth the trouble.

[Celeron]

Personally I think this is route that Apple should go. Their market share is practically nothing and if they were to contract with one of the major PC makers to produce a line of cheaper (comeon, you know they need a more differsified list of offerings) I think Apple would make a ton of money.

If Apple made a copy of OS X that ran on my Intel hardware I would most certainly buy it. OS X is such a more pleasent user experience.

[Grimace]

If Apple made a copy of OS X that ran on my Intel hardware I would most certainly buy it. OS X is such a more pleasent user experience.

I think that is what Apple is trying to avoid. That option might prove that the OS is what really makes apple special.

[MacBoyX]

Personally I think this is route that Apple should go. Their market share is practically nothing and if they were to contract with one of the major PC makers to produce a line of cheaper (comeon, you know they need a more differsified list of offerings) I think Apple would make a ton of money.

If Apple made a copy of OS X that ran on my Intel hardware I would most certainly buy it. OS X is such a more pleasent user experience.

I could not disagree more. Aside from the techincal issues discussed about what makes a Mac a Mac, I feel it's Apple that makes it that way. The marketshare issue is not that big a deal and to be honest I don't want a Mac from an Apple that has a huge marketshare. I like that there is a smaller user base it makes for an more enjoyable experience and as far as OS X on a PC...this would be HORRIBLE. Being a PC support person who switched to Macs, I can tell you that one of the best things about Macs is there are no driver conflicts. I love that Apple has to approve everything that can be used on a Mac and that they control the base configurations.

Apple stock (of which I own plenty) is doing fantastic and steadily rising so don't give me any of the "OS X on PC = more money" OS X on a PC is a badddd idea that will ruin the Mac user experience and on top of that... I don't want PC users getting my user experience. YOu want the experience buy a freaking Mac. End of story.

Just my 0.02 Cents.

macboyX
(http://www.macboyx.com)

[blueflame]

one of the reasons that everything apple works so well, is becuase its from apple. Windows has to deal with like 1million kinds of hardware, and has to e compatible with it all, the Mac OS only has to know its own specific hardware that apple puts out, much loess confusion, and much less bloating. that sounds about right
Andreas

[Celeron]

I'm not suggesting releasing a version of OS X for every Intel platform. Instead I think they could make a large chunk of change contracting with someone like Dell or IBM to build a standardized platform, using Intel hardware that can run OS X.

Lets face it, Intel's hardware runs circles around even the G5. Its been tested time and time again and Apple looses almost every time. Don't get me wrong, the hardware looks nice, but it just isn't as fast as whats out on the PC market.

I'm not trying to spark a riot, which I'm sure the above comments will, just stating my opinion and some simple facts.

[JFreak]

I'm almost positive that that there is a boot rom that is still propietary. For instance, you can go buy a PPC motherboard with no problem, there are companies that make them. But you can't run mac os on them.

no, there isn't, that was explained very clearly few posts ago. it is only a matter of drivers - all the chipsets used in the motherboard would have to be the same kind apple uses, and the same actually goes to all hardware needed to boot the computer. the osx installer has drivers for only such hardware apple itself has used in its hardware, and some of those are proprietary.

drivers, that's the key. ever tried to install a windows nt on a current pc hardware? pain. the same thing - missing drivers.

[maxvamp]

PegasosPPC (http://www.pegasosPPC.com/)

Really not worth it though. About $700 -> $1500 for the board. The hardware is expensive, and this board is more aimed at people who want LINUX on the PPC platform.

The next cheapest I have seen is ref design boards for as much as $4k ea.

Take care.

Max.

[Mord]

what i would like is for apple to let companys like gigabyte and asus make ppc compatible motherboards to shut up the amd crowd and for motorola and ibm to make socket prosessors

the rest of the components are standard generic parts

even if apple sold there own parts for you to build a mac that would be great but there is a huge market for self built stuff

i would never buy a pre built mac again if i had the option

clones could be a viable option because this time apple has somthing that they cannot toutch and tha is style back in the clone days a beige box was a beige box but now apple can make stunning peices of kit that would be worth paying that little extra and the clones could be attract the pc crowd.

[Mord]

Lets face it, Intel's hardware runs circles around even the G5. Its been tested time and time again and Apple looses almost every time. Don't get me wrong, the hardware looks nice, but it just isn't as fast as whats out on the PC market.

I'm not trying to spark a riot, which I'm sure the above comments will, just stating my opinion and some simple facts.

then why are you saying intel hardware runs circles round a g5 when it clearly dose not?

only in gameing benchmarks do pc's do better and if you want to game get a pc or better yet get a console

[Celeron]

Actually it does, and its been proven many times over. The G5 doesn't stand a chance compared to AMD's Athlon64 FX or even a P4.

You are correct in your assessment of gaming on the Mac platform. If the G5 was indeed as quick as a P4 then why does it get totally owned when benchmarked using the same game? All other things being the same, video card, amount of memory, etc..., the G5 gets totally owned in games like UT2004. Why is that exactly?

[Mord]

show me a non game benchmark and a fair one

[Anarchy99]

with the g5 vs a p4 or other pc's the g5 is better in 98% of things but with the same games or apps it depends whats in the computers and if the developers worked more on the pc version vs the mac version just look at the benches for the g5 on apple.com pc users said the pcs were unfairly tested because the programs used to bench them were not optimised for amd or intel but they also were not optimised for the g5 apple could have made those look lots better but they didnt
you cant say that about the lots of those other benchmarks are not designed to be optimised for amd or intel
but that can work both ways but the point is if you cant test it for your self dont belive benchmarks

[Mord]

the only benchmarks i pay attention to are ones that use programs that i use on systems i am interested in getting

i would wait for the 2.5GHz g5 before claiming that and pc will trounce it

[Mord]

http://www.macspeedzone.com/html/hubs/performance/mac-vs-wintel.html

here is a good page of links to some independent benchmarks.

i dont really care though i enjoy useing my mac and i dont enjoy useing my freinds pc or any other pc

my ibook dose everything i need of it and if it gets slow i can overclock it 150MHz (iCook) it's not about the speed of the prosesor it's about the amount of work you get done the prosessor is a factor in that and so is the operating system who ares that a photoshop gausian blur takes a fraction of a second longer? (even though with the dual 2.5GHZ g5 it will be way faster)

[Sun Baked]

Would not be surprised to see OS X running on Apple-branded IBM equipment in the future.

Such as IBMs Workstations, Blade Servers, etc.

Nor is it completely off the wall for it to possibly run on POWER processors in addition to just the PowerPC.

[MacNeXT]

I'm an Apple user because of Mac OS X, not because of the hardware. In fact, coming from platoforms such as Windows NT, and Unix-like (including nextstep), I really, really disliked Mac OS 9 and therefore Apple in general at that time.

Don't get me wrong, I love Apple hardware. It's top quality and looks great. Much better than your average Intel box. But in the end its the software that does it for me. IBM and HP professional workstations, which reside in the same price class as Apple hardware, are top quality too. I wouldn't mind having one of those on my desktop if it would run something as good as Mac OS X.

Just like NeXT did, I think Apple should drop PPC and go with what's widely used. Be multi platform just like NeXT was, as modus vivendi. They could start with switching to Intel with their own hardware. Then make it run on clones. Come on, PowerPC might be a great processor but it's clear that there can be made more money with intel hardware than with PPC. Look at statistics, be realistic! Set aside your pride as a long time Apple user and anti-Intel advocate!

Be honest, if Apple did just that, would you switch to linux or windows because you disagree with Apple's descision? Or would you keep using Apple software on high end Intel (maybe Apple) hardware? Answer this in all honesty and realize this wouldn't be a bad move for Apple to make at all.

Apple should become a software company. It has the potential to be a great player on the professional PC market and eventually on the home user market too.

Really... believe whatever you want, but actually I'm sure this scenario will be real at some time in the future. Whenever Steve Jobs goes away, and more pragmatic (less idealistically driven) people will drive the company, exactly this will happen. I hope it won't be too late though.

[johnnowak]

Apple makes most of their money on hardware, which in turn funds their software research. Apple as a software only company would not work.

[jhu]

Personally I think this is route that Apple should go. Their market share is practically nothing and if they were to contract with one of the major PC makers to produce a line of cheaper (comeon, you know they need a more differsified list of offerings) I think Apple would make a ton of money.

If Apple made a copy of OS X that ran on my Intel hardware I would most certainly buy it. OS X is such a more pleasent user experience.

beos is in many ways superior to windows. look where they are now - dead. that's where apple would be if they ditched their hardware department and became a software company.

[jhu]

Would not be surprised to see OS X running on Apple-branded IBM equipment in the future.

Such as IBMs Workstations, Blade Servers, etc.

Nor is it completely off the wall for it to possibly run on POWER processors in addition to just the PowerPC.

it already does (http://maconlinux.org/)

[legion]

Would not be surprised to see OS X running on Apple-branded IBM equipment in the future.

Such as IBMs Workstations, Blade Servers, etc.

Nor is it completely off the wall for it to possibly run on POWER processors in addition to just the PowerPC.

IBM sells solutions to the business marketplace (this is where they make most of their money; their semiconductor business is their money lossing segment.) No one in the large corporate business world wants OSX on their equipment, so IBM will not be interested.

Consumer sales for IBM is such a minor business. Those who want IBM want AIX or Linux, not OSX. OSX provides none of the truly benefically factors that UNIX does to the business world (part of the reason why OSX has been unable to qualify for the UNIX name; they have corrupted a lot of the securities that BSD has implemented in order to make it a desktop/grandma friendly system.)

For some reason, Apple fanatics think Apple is primetime for the business world, but nothing in Apple's playbook says they are ready to tackle that field. They don't have the support infrastucture or the deployment or equipment capabilities. IBM generates a lot more revenue than Apple has ever paid to IBM, so they could care less. Remember IBM is a computer company started in the late 1800s and have been in the mainframe business for a really long time.

[Sun Baked]

IBM sells solutions to the business marketplace (this is where they make most of their money; their semiconductor business is their money lossing segment.) No one in the large corporate business world wants OSX on their equipment, so IBM will not be interested.I guess that must explain why IBM worked with Apple on the Taligent/Pink project for an IBM/Apple OS, and why Sun & IBM worked with NeXT on porting portions of the OS to the Solaris, Sparc, and AIX OSs before.

Basically get Cocoa to run on their machines and OS.

They've wanted both an Apple designed OS and the portions of the NeXT OS on their equipment before.

HP was in this mix also, while NeXT merged into Apple and Taligent got sucked back into IBM.

[SiliconAddict]

The marketshare issue is not that big a deal


Tell that to Palm and other 3rd party developers. They apparently missed the memo that market share isn't important. This is the same old type of song and dance that Mac users made about speed on the G4 PowerMac pre G5. Excuses. At the end of the day the computer industry sees market share as important. I can guarantee you that any large company who even looks at Mac considers it important. Show me one fortune 500 company that has standardized on the Mac.

[legion]

I guess that must explain why IBM worked with Apple on the Taligent/Pink project for an IBM/Apple OS, and why Sun & IBM worked with NeXT on porting portions of the OS to the Solaris, Sparc, and AIX OSs before.

Basically get Cocoa to run on their machines and OS.

They've wanted both an Apple designed OS and the portions of the NeXT OS on their equipment before.

HP was in this mix also, while NeXT merged into Apple and Taligent got sucked back into IBM.

"Sun & IBM worked with NeXT on porting portions of the OS to the Solaris, Sparc, and AIX OSs "

SPARC is not an OS; it is a chip architecture. Also, what "OS" was IBM porting exactly to other OSs? This is sheer lunacy. IBM was never interested in running NeXT on IBM hardware (neither was SUN.) Taligent provided a different solution and was to be the next OS for Macs (during the period that SJ was with NeXT)-- it was abandoned by Apple and taken in by IBM because Apple systems couldn't handle the requirements of Taligent. In essence, Apple realized they were out of their league with developing a microkernal and sought IBM's help who had experience in such things. Also, taligent was C++ not Cocoa. Taligent was the equivalent of OpenStep in its latter days. Still, it was IBM engineers developing software independent of NeXT and helping out Apple and in the end they absorbed it back into IBM because it was IBM's intellectual property. It ended up being no one else's; so I don't know how you can say IBM wanted to run an Apple software/OS. Also, never was SUN involved.. it was originally Apple (who gave up) and then IBM and then HP added in and Microsoft NT also supported CommonPoint (the eventual result of all the work.)

I'm sorry, but maybe you could clarify. HP footed the bill for NeXT (and was screwed when SJ fumbled the ball on it.) They were the venture capital that Steve dwindled away. Also, realize that IBM today is a completely different company than in the NeXT/OS2 days. They are a perfect example of adapting to the business environment and becoming a true solutions based provider (one that almost all large tech companies look to now.) In the NeXT days, IBM was floundering with finding a spot between their mainframe business and the emerging demise of mainframes to a decentralized system. IBM looks at the ROI when they adapt a product (as any good business should.) If it takes a minor tweak to attain compatablity, they'll do it to open a larger market. However, if it involves a substantial amount of investment, they'll ignore it. Running OS X on IBM hardware falls into that segment. Today, IBM is only interested in Linux as the way forward and rightly so as businesses they market to are clamouring for it.

[EminenceGrise]

IBM sells solutions to the business marketplace (this is where they make most of their money; their semiconductor business is their money lossing segment.)

I can assure you that IBM would not have dumped a shedload of cash into its brand new Fishkill semiconductor manufaturing plant if it was a "money losing segment". It may or may not be a cash cow, but it definitely makes IBM money. IBM is a massive corporation, with more than a few divisions, ALL of which are designed to bring in cash either directly or indirectly. Not to mention a huge part of their business involves the POWER architecture, which IBM controls from top to bottom (including its manufacture - hence the Fishkill plant). Is this money losing too?

No one in the large corporate business world wants OSX on their equipment, so IBM will not be interested.

Consumer sales for IBM is such a minor business. Those who want IBM want AIX or Linux, not OSX.

Those who want IBM on the high end want AIX or Linux, yes - however you seem to have forgotten the huge volume of PC's they ship with Windows installed. This is where OSX is best positioned to compete as far as IBM would be concerned. I'm sure that IBM would like nothing better than to ditch Windows (they've already tried a few times (OS/2, Taligent/Pink, ...)), but Windows is what most businesses have wanted, and IBM (at least in recent history) has learned to deliver what the customer wants as part of the whole "solutions" focus. This may, however, change in the near future with the overall cost of Windows rising with every security hole.

OSX provides none of the truly benefically factors that UNIX does to the business world (part of the reason why OSX has been unable to qualify for the UNIX name; they have corrupted a lot of the securities that BSD has implemented in order to make it a desktop/grandma friendly system.)

This is patent nonsense. OSX doesn't qualify for the UNIX trademark because it's owned by the Open Group, and Apple has not ponied up the cash for the name and the compatibility testing required. This is why the Open Group has thrown a fit that Apple is calling OSX 'UNIX based'. The Open Group also owns the POSIX specification (not strictly UNIX, but widely implemented in the UNIX world), which costs money to even get at the documentation - on a side note, Linux is largely POSIX compatible, but was implemented largely by reverse engineering the spec, as Linus Torvalds didn't have the cash to buy a copy of the official (Open Group) POSIX documentation. None of it has anything to do 'corrupted BSD securities'. In fact, I can't think of an example of any inherently 'BSD securities' that Apple has broken with OSX; filesystem permissions, protected memory, separate users, packet filtering, sudo, ssh - they're all there. In fact, some of those are even additions to the 'original' BSD 4.4-lite code from which OSX (and the FreeBSD based 'BSD subsystem') are derived. As far as I can see, the one thing OSX doesn't implement is kernel securelevels, but since the OSX kernel is Mach based and not BSD based, it's a bit hard to fault them for that. Not to mention most SYSV ('AT&T' UNIX) based Unices don't have that either, so it clearly doesn't get in the way of being certified as an official UNIX(tm) (as AIX, Solaris, and HP-UX are). That's not even getting into the fact that most of the 'approved' UNIX versions have more holes than Swiss cheese in the default install, especially compared to the free *BSD's and OSX. In short, security isn't a big issue when talking "Official UNIX" - shelling out cash is. OSX offers ALL of the benefits of UNIX with ALL of the benefits of an easy to use and administer desktop OS - I don't see why any company wouldn't want that.

For some reason, Apple fanatics think Apple is primetime for the business world, but nothing in Apple's playbook says they are ready to tackle that field. They don't have the support infrastucture or the deployment or equipment capabilities. IBM generates a lot more revenue than Apple has ever paid to IBM, so they could care less. Remember IBM is a computer company started in the late 1800s and have been in the mainframe business for a really long time.

No, Apple doesn't at present have the setup to support OSX 'in the enterprise', but IBM does. Consider the situation where IBM licenses OSX to sell to major corporations, on IBM PPC hardware. In other words, Apple could handle the consumer side, which they are best at, and IBM could pitch the 'business version' of OS X to the "Fortune 500" companies everyone keeps whinging on about as being the only thing that matters. It would have the potential to be win-win for both IBM and Apple, especially with the backlash building against Windows with every new virus/worm. Apple gets the 1st class business support that only IBM can provide, and IBM gets the 1st class OS that it's been looking for ever since Billy Gates skunked them and started selling DOS to the PC clone makers. However, I highly doubt this will ever happen with Steve Jobs at the helm - he won't give up control of his baby without a fight, his megalomania will never allow it (which also explains the whole "themes are dead" thing, among others...). There is also the problem of 'clone' sales cannibalizing Apple, as happened in the period leading up to Jobs' return - which is another reason it will probably never happen. Apple is, after all, a hardware company - it only makes software to get you to buy the hardware. If they had to compete against IBM, even indirectly, they would be steamrolled. It would only work if IBM bought Apple outright - which brings us back to problem #1: SJ would never allow it. A bit of a bummer for seeing IBM OSX hardware, but it may well be for the best.

[qubex]

http://www.2khappyware.com/ sells a case that, once coupled with some parts available as spares, will run MacOS X. A friend of mine built one about a year ago: 1.25 Ghz G4 for the equivalent of only 450 USD.

[Mord]

I've seen that before and for me i could build one right now with any pc case i have the skills to modify it but service parts are hard to come by in the uk and you have to pay 20% duty if you import, not to mention shipping.

[Sun Baked]

Legion I'm so glad you know you're Mac history so much better than us.

Yes they did sink money into what is the current Cocoa framework when they sunk money into the NextStep/OpenStep effort -- which was Steve Jobs effort to save the company.

But I'm so glad you told us they did it for giggle & kicks and never ever planned on using it (what's worse in history basically supports this since so many customer were saying they were willing to dump NeXT as soon as Taligent was "ready")

Yes they did sink money into Taligent, which Apple's effort to do what Stevie was doing.

There were TWO efforts -- I thought I put a ", and" between them, but maybe I forgot.

You'll probably have to forgive me for writing "Solaris, Sparc" intead of "Solaris/Sparc" -- but you say Sun was never involved, so the NeXT effort to get OpenStep running on Solaris/Sparc was a Steve Jobs fantasy anyway and means this NeXT history is fake.

The OpenStep API was created as the result of a 1993 collaboration between NeXT Computer and Sun Microsystems, allowing this cut-down version of NeXT's NeXTSTEP operating system object layers to be run on Sun's Solaris operating system (more specifically, Solaris on SPARC-based hardware). Most of the OpenStep effort was to strip away those portions of NeXTSTEP that depended on Mach or NeXT-specific hardware being present. This resulted in a smaller system that consisted primarily of Display PostScript, the Objective-C runtime and compilers, and the majority of the NeXTSTEP Obj-C libraries. Not included was the basic operating system, or the display system.As far as IBMs not having any interest in NeXT, that probably explains why NeXT spent time deciding what portions of the NeXT framwork/APIs they were going to port to AIX -- back in the days when IBM was actually going to port those parts to run on AIX.

And how none of these companies weren't above betting on two (or more) companies hoping at least one of them would be able to deliver and object-oriented framework or OS -- to compete with the evil Cairo project.

As far Taligent never being an Apple OS or their intellectual property, that could be why "Apple" spun off Taligent into an independent unit to develop an object-oriented OS, a company that later decided to get staffed by IBM engineers/CEO and change their focus to develop and object-oriented programming framework.

As far as "how you can say IBM wanted to run an Apple software/OS" -- when IBM came into Taligent -- it was a let's build an OS project -- later the IBM focus groups decided nobody wanted a new OS, and they also worked with the quickly killed NeXTstep AIX project. So I can see where you'd say IBM never wanted an AppleOS, since both are AppleOSs, or AppleOS projects (for less than a year under IBM.)

[OldManJimbo]

I think Apple would make a ton of money.

If Apple made a copy of OS X that ran on my Intel hardware I would most certainly buy it. OS X is such a more pleasent user experience.

This would be a terrible mistake and I trust the folks at Apple understand - deep down - how important it is to keep the community small. If the user base grew substantially, we'd get all sorts of software that "sorta" worked on some of the machines and "sorta not" on others.

Leave greed and rapid growth to the folks at Micro$oft and DELL.