970 Ahead of Schedule?

[MisterMe]

Originally posted by NavyIntel007
Don't doubt that moto would pull the plug so fast on the G5. Look at the auto industry. They spend millions in designing outragious cars for auto shows. Some morph into real car models, others die a quiet death. Even some of the ones that die have engines and all the fixings.

Apples and oranges. Show cars are a part of research, not a product of it. Even here, that is changing. More and more we are seeing show cars that are intended as product previews rather than research exercises. The development of computer models have eliminated the need for most physical models as research exercises.

Originally posted by NavyIntel007
Hell, look at the space program. They were billions into the replacement for the space shuttle and Bush cancelled it. I even saw the prototype lander in Houston.

Apples and oranges. Contractors have to spend billions to research and produce proposals, such as the prosposed Shuttle replacement. The decision to accept such a proposal for implementation is informed by technical, economic, and political considerations.

Originally posted by NavyIntel007
Don't even think there ever will be physical proof. This is Apple we're talking about. They aren't exactly open with their development plans. If they were, sites like this wouldn't exist.

That's just it. The most important resource in this technology era is the idea. When your chief competitor has the ability to expropriate your ideas with near impunity, then your ability to maintain the confidentiality of your ideas until they are products is key to your survival.

 

[Grimace]

We’ll see the 970 in desktops at WWDC this summer right on schedule. Powerbooks will have them around August 1st, in time for back-to-school; a market that Apple still has an enormous interest in.

 

[ddtlm]

carletonmusic:

We’ll see the 970 in desktops at WWDC this summer right on schedule.

On schedule huh? Doesn't mean much when noone here knows what the schedule is.

 

[Frobozz]

Originally posted by Zeke
Actually, economically this makes sense. Generally companies do R&D on tons of stuff (even making prototypes) which never go into production.

Yeah, I agree. R&D is not a lost resource, because you learn from any mistakes and can use your R&D on a given failed product on a new, prosperous product.

That's not to say the guy a couple messages up was wrong about Moto never having a G5, but my guess is that it had them and canned them. Just my gut. Other evidence supports this, as some people have deduced. I think the theory of "Moto G5 cancelled and IBM picking up slack" is more likely.... otherwise we'd be using Athlons (eeek) if there was never a G5.

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by macrumors12345
Now, is it possible that there was SOME OTHER (real) Motorola G5 that we NEVER heard anything about and that was entering production yet suddenly got canceled? Conceivably, that could be true. But since, again, we have NEVER heard any rumors about this chip, there is absolutely no reason why we would think that it would exist, especially since it would make no economic sense.

I think that I'd have to disagree. I'd guess that some (maybe not all, or even most) of the rumors that we've heard about the G5 over the years were about the 'real' G5 from Moto. Just because some rumors are unfounded doesn't mean that all of them are. So, I maintain that we do have reason to believe that it did exist, also noting my previous comment that Apple's current situation with processors makes no sense otherwise.

 

[DakotaGuy]

Originally posted by socokid
Wouldn't there be legal rights owned by Moto on the G5 name? After all the G-series machines were directly named via the Moto chip generation number.

I would suspect the death of the Gx name from Apple if the 970 is used.

I thought G-series was an Apple thing. The current G3 (750fx) is an IBM, designed and built by them, yet Apple still calls it a G3 processor. I don't think Moto has to build it for it to be called a G5. My guess is it will infact be called a PowerMac G5 and Powerbook G5, because for marketing reasons the common consumer sees it and knows exactly what it is....better then a G3 or a G4 and it would be the 5th generation of a PowerPC chip used by Apple.

What I don't want to see is the old number system, 6100, 6500, 7100, 8500, etc, etc, that was SO confusing!!!

 

[macrumors12345]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
I think that I'd have to disagree. I'd guess that some (maybe not all, or even most) of the rumors that we've heard about the G5 over the years were about the 'real' G5 from Moto. Just because some rumors are unfounded doesn't mean that all of them are. So, I maintain that we do have reason to believe that it did exist, also noting my previous comment that Apple's current situation with processors makes no sense otherwise.

What rumors did we hear of a G5 that was about to ship (with magnificent performance, no less) besides the ones from The Register (www.theregister.co.uk)? I follow the Mac rumors scene quite closely, and the only rumors of a G5 being in production that I ever heard were either from The Register (or Architosh, whose credibility is what began this debate) or from stories quoting The Register (for example, www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech/12/03/G5.mac.idg/). But there were so many Register articles (at least a half dozen) and so many other articles quoting the Register, that many Mac rumor addicts began to accept the existence of the G5 as fact, rather than unsubstantiated rumors. And apparently it got so bad that people STILL live under the fantasy, even today, that there was actually a G5 that was about to ship, and for some reason Apple and Moto just decided to cancel this chip, because they were afraid that they might start actually making money or something terrible like that, God forbid.

I challenge you to find even ONE remotely credible article about a Motorola G5 that was ABOUT to ship (as opposed to simply referencing an undated Moto Roadmap) and that is NOT from The Register and is NOT simply rehashing The Register's G5 rumor. This is the Internet, and there is a pretty good search engine called Google. If there were any non-Register generated Motorola G5 production reports out there, then you ought to be able to find them in a matter of minutes - it's not very hard. But UNTIL THEN I ask you to STOP spreading this nonsense that "we do have reason to believe that (the G5) did exist (in a shipping form)", because you have, in fact, given us NO REASON to believe that it exists. Give me a credible link, and then there will be a reason. Until then, talking about the existence of the G5 is almost as silly as talking about the existence of unicorns. Just because this is a rumors forum doesn't mean that we have to COMPLETELY eschew common sense and respect for factual information and live in a fantasy, make-believe land. So once again I challenge the Motorola G5 advocates: either put up a CREDIBLE link to support your claims of a sampling, production quality G5, or admit that you are wrong! It is your choice, one or the other.

 

[Flynnstone]

Whats the point about all this talk about the Motorola G5?
Its all wasted bits!
Is it likely that Apple has designed their new systems using a proverbial G5 ... No.

Anyone disagree ?

 

[wdlove]

>
> 2003--PowerPC 970 released.
> 2004--Apple's market share reaches 30%.
> 2045--100th anniversary of war ending. Apple becomes monopoly
>
> (To get us back on topic.)
>
> Phil

from infiniteloop.com - any comments on the possibilites of above? I think the PPC 970 2003 is almost set in stone.

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by macrumors12345
What rumors did we hear of a G5 that was about to ship (with magnificent performance, no less)...?

This debate, while pointless, is curious. I think that we're arguing at cross purposes here. You seem to be asking me to provide some proof that there was a G5. Of course I can't do that. Very few people could ever do such a thing, and most (if not all) of them never would, anyway.

I've read the Register article, and neither I nor it make the claim that there was a chip that was 'about to ship'. The claim is that said chip was in a final development stage. Here's a quote:

The 8500 update is revision 0.6, and is said to fix the cache coherency bug we reported a little while back. There still appears to be an issue with the G5's AltiVec performance, so while that has been improved with this revision, it's still only around 85 per cent of the third-generation G4-class processor...

You say that I have given no reason to believe that a G5 ever existed. But I'd say that all I've tried to do is provide reason, not proof. Reason dictates that Apple would not sit on its laurels using the G4 processor without having a next generation processor in the works, probably before the G4 was originally shipping. If Apple was so foolish as to do this, then Apple would have gone belly up long ago. Again, reason dictates that if there hadn't been something like a G5 in the works, including sampling chips, Apple would have moved in a different direction before now. Perhaps gone over to the x86 world. We 'know' that there have been versions of the MacOS running on x86 architecture as far back as System 7.6.

Further reason would say that Motorola continued to try to make its own production schedules. Surely they don't want to stab their customers in the back by telling them they'll have a chip, and then not delivering...

All of that said, here are a few links that I found. The first two concern Motorola's processor road map, and the last is (heaven forbid) an Architosh article that refers to the earlier article that predicted the G5

http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/9909/24.g5.shtml

http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0009/27.mot.shtml

http://www.architosh.com/news/2002-10/2002c-1023-mcp7457-rm1.phtml

P.S. As I said to start with, this is a rather pointless debate. I know that I don't know for sure that there was or wasn't a G5 anywhere other than on paper in Motorola's published roadmaps, and I really doubt you know any better than I do. I'd suggest that we agree to disagree at this point.