gnasher729
Suspended
I have one, and it is my only machine currently that can read most copy-protected DVDs, so I have to keep it and hope it stays running. Haven't bought a DVD in a while though...
Arm-Intel-PowerPC Universal Binaries Are Possible
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Emanuel Rodriguez
macrumors 6502
It's quite easy to join multiple independently compiled binaries into one. The `otool` command does it. Once each binary is compiled, a dev should only have to glue them together for it all to work, assuming there aren't any differences such as resource incompatibilities. With that said, I highly doubt most devs would bother. Certainly something one could do on their own if they wished, though.
There's nothing stopping them including a 6502 binary, check out the lipo command for creating fat binaries. Wake ME up when there's a 6502 version of MacOS to run said binary on. Now THAT would be interesting.
PinkyMacGodess
Suspended
If polymorphic viruses are possible, why not apps? Simplifying it a lot, but either through hybrid install packages, or whole programs that can adapt their core operations to which ever environment they are running on. Maybe they can learn from viruses?
But Java was supposed to be 'one code, many systems', and look where that ended up. A bloated mess. *shrug*
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The Lisa 2 used a lot of 6502 type support chips in it. EEVBlog on YouTube dissected a Lisa 2, and I was surprised at the non 68000/Intel chips used. But Apple had a huge knowledge base on that lineage and used it to save time, and probably money. Can't blame them. Go with what you know...
But Java was supposed to be 'one code, many systems', and look where that ended up. A bloated mess. *shrug*
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The Lisa 2 used a lot of 6502 type support chips in it. EEVBlog on YouTube dissected a Lisa 2, and I was surprised at the non 68000/Intel chips used. But Apple had a huge knowledge base on that lineage and used it to save time, and probably money. Can't blame them. Go with what you know...
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ltpitt
macrumors regular
Currently using a powerpc mac as home server (mac mini g4 running debian) and I also have one in my electronic labs (iMac, read online tutorials, stream music, use arduino IDE).
Granted: I might have been clearer who "they" are.
Apple will make sure that for the businesses Apple cares about, that the 3rd parties who make the software those businesses need, will support the new architecture properly.
E.g. Apple already said Apple is working with Adobe to bing CC to ARM natively.
RE:So anything they release is likely to either have extreme long battery life, extreme light weight, or so much more powerful than any currentm, that everybody will forget about intel CPUs. . . . This sounds like it originated from a iPad fan, desktops and workstation don't work off batteries, either a laptop or desktop won't worry about small file size (lightness), and I have yet to see a program made so much more powerful just because of RISC code efficiency.
FWIW: I'm not a fan of the iPad. Phone or mac: no need for stuff in between for me.
The ARM has a better heat vs performance ratio than anything Intel makes for the mac.
They've proven that already. And use that as their rationale to switch
(and probably because Intel dropped the ball too often)
For laptops (they sell more of those than desktops):
Apple, designing the CPUs for their machine has choices:
- either they can use less power (and less heat) for the same sized battery and have something that works like it does now, just go much longer on a single charge (unlikely IMHO, MBPs run long enough for practical use scenarios)
- either then can use the same power than the Intel CPUs do, for the same sized battery and get something dramatically more performant in the same size and weight
- either they can pick the same performance than they get now from an Intel CPU, and use a smaller battery than they now do and get something as performant as they do now, but with a lot less battery and hence size and weight to it and still make it last as long as they do now.
Or they can go somewhere in between (most likely they'll go for that).
For an MacBook Air: surely they'll pick less battery and a bit more performance: that way it's lighter, smaller, and more performant - easy to market.
For a top of the line MBP: most liely same size or slightly smaller than now, and a lot more performance out of it: that way they'll show off how performant the ARM is for a given budget in power it can use.
For Desktops, power use is still important as it is restricting what you need to design as a thermal solution in the box. At the same time Apple seeks a greener image than they have at times, so using less power might also be important to them.
I can easily see Apple design the new iMac thinner than ever before, with much more passive cooling and still more performant. Just think of something thinner and smaller than the XDR display that's a complete iMac.
(or a huge iPad in form factor - as was rumoured already)
For a mac mini or so, they can easily keep the form factor and add more performance to it if they want to go that way.
For a Mac Pro ... big question is how far they will be able to push the ARM architecture in one generation. The current chassis is designed to allow for a huge budget in power to the CPU, either they keep using such a budget in a massively parallel CPU (if they can pull that off), or wether they won't need that much cooling anymore.
It's likely to be the last machine to change to ARM unless Apple wants to prove beyond any doubt that they can outshine Intel completely in every single aspect from the getgo (I doubt they'll do the hardest stuff first, there's too much low hanging fruit in the mass markets they're more likely to be (financially) interested in first.
Time will tell what'll happen with the MP and what they do with the other machines in terms of battery capacity vs. performance in real shipping production machines will give an indication before they get to redesign these machines.
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Catman8976
macrumors member
Obviously haven't seen r/VintageApple, some people have even managed to get work out of m68k Macs. Some have even gotten Macintosh Pluses onto the internet.
Wowfunhappy
macrumors 68020
...and yet now everyone just uses Electron instead, which is much, much more of a bloated mess.
I think Java was just a bit ahead of its time, unfortunately. Now Oracle has gobbled them up, so it's too late.
Catman8976
macrumors member
Mainly because of how thin Apple makes Macs leaving too room for good thermals and fans.
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RISC CPUs I like.There is no love for SPARC.
It's nice seeing something for PowerPC since it's very niche right now.
Doubt it.
I would say that about pre-2003 G4s, G3s, and pre-G3 PPC CPUs. Though a 933Mhz G4 from 2002 is still pretty capable, just not with Discord.
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Catman8976
macrumors member
Maybe, but doubtful since that was Jobs' Apple. Now we have Cook's Apple which is flat and a bit spiritless.
Williesleg
Cancelled
I wish Apple would have just switched to AMD, their chips are a lot better than Intel, and there's no way Apple can keep up with all those patents from AMD and Intel.
Why don't you just buy an external USB DVD drive? Or rip your DVDs to a hard drive?
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Perhaps. Time will tell. If they are going to switch, switching to the same architecture as all of their other devices makes a lot more sense than switching to AMD, though. They are one step closer to building the whole widget, which has always been their goal. And regardless of how Apple and its fans want to split hairs over where macOS ends and iOS begins, having everything running on Apple Silicon will also make it easier to simplify and unify things at a foundational level.
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Spock
Contributor
Don’t forget no Jony either...
Wowfunhappy
macrumors 68020
Switching to AMD would have required basically no work—nothing like this ARM transition at all. Hackintosh'ers already have OS X working on AMD systems. There are some stability issues, but they would be trivial for an actual Apple engineer to resolve.
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Macbookprodude
Suspended
Sorry, I am late in this discussion, but is it possible to see a revival of PPC, given this discussion ?
Wowfunhappy
macrumors 68020
Macbookprodude
Suspended
I think this will happen ! I am typing this on a G4 Ti powerbook 1ghz with still plenty of life left.
throAU
macrumors G4
Not really.
The binary format probably has a simple "architecture locator" identifier in the header which determines which platform(s) it supports and where in the file the binaries are located.
That would have probably been in the binaries since the Next days when they had next for both intel and 68k. If not at least when they did the PPC/Intel swap.
Point being, if you can do two different formats, it would be trivial to extend that mechanism to support to 3 or 300 or 3000 different platforms, its just a matter of how much space you want to consume on disk for it. The hard work has already been done.
Where "a lot of performance" = 10% of a modern iPhone or so depending on the task at hand...
Spock
Contributor
Wish I could say the same. My ti PowerBook is still functional but it lost it’s backlight and replacements are hard to find.