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Did Apple Do The Right Thing in Moving To Intel From PowerPC???
- Thread starter rashdown_online
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Whoa, what an insult!!
So a 1GHz and above G4 PPC is too slow for anything you do?
Power is different from PowerPC!
The Power architecture is different from, but related to, the PowerPC! That's a key point of importance...
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_POWER
The Power architecture is different from, but related to, the PowerPC! That's a key point of importance...
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_POWER
Good observation (as usual
), I'll try & give a perspective from the "other side" of the age spectrum.We never saw what was coming (and really, we didn't, cuz if'n we did, we'd have had flying cars a long time ago). Phones still dialed, you only had one in the house, cars were made of steel & iron and took regular or ethyl, all leaded, and computers filled a room, were owned by the government or universities, and had less processing power than a $50 microwave does today. In 1969, the lunar lander had a computer that had a whopping 4K of RAM.
Myself, I've been in & around computing for over thirty years now, and I'm as excited about the advances today as I was in the early '70's. Unlike most other industries, all facets of the computer world, hardware, software, and human demand, have all pulled the others forward in a never-ending cycle. Once a new chip came out, or memory got cheaper, programs were written to take advantage if it--and a little bit more. The users wanted better speed, or a new feature, so that got coded in, and pulled the hardware to the next level.
By the '90's, this was the accepted (and largely transparent) model for growth, and then gaming blew the roof off of desktop development. Competition between chip makers (AMD/Intel/Motorola), OS developers (MS/Apple/all the *nixers), Board manufacturers (NVidia/Radeon/AdLib/SoundBlaster), Software publishers (everybody!) has pushed & pulled development effors to dizzying levels, that seems to increase in tempo year over year.
So, were we happy? Sure. Did we want more? Of course, but then, as now, we really didn't know specifically what we wanted, other than bigger, faster, more detail, color, storage, whatever. There was really no way to know what was to come of our collective desires or efforts, but we figured that we'd end up buying whatever it was. I used a floppy-based word processor and played Flight Simulator from a cassette tape on my Apple ][+, and was perfectly content. Today, I have my 2.16 Blackbook with all kinds of previously unimaginable goodies, and am just as content. In a couple-three years when I replace it, I will be totally stoked then, too. Have the fun is not knowing what tomorrow will bring, ya' know?
This is more like left-field:
I've always found even Mac's to be behind where I'm looking. Every now and then there are small sweet spots, but what I want to do seems to always exceed what is available.
Back in the mid-seventies I read in Toffler's book "The Third Wave" that one day there would be a ubiquitous information network that would allow one to work from wherever. He didn't know what it would be called or the mechanics of it, but it was obvious that this was where technology was heading. I waited 20-30 yrs for it and moved into the country years before it arrived amongst other things to take advantage of it when it finally did materialise.
I've had Apples since '84 have always found software and computers to be uncomfortably slow, but I keep persevering. Prior to OSX I could only get about 1/2 an hour, often only 12 minutes or so between constant crashes - courtesy of Adobe and Microsoft. I had just about given up on even Mac's when OSX finally debuted. The original iteration was really slow, but at least it was more stable than OS9, and you didn't have to reboot the system when the apps crashed.
Trying to build the tables that I need for work in Word is still so slow that it's almost a pointless exercise.
At the moment I'm building integrated spreadsheets in Excel with about 500,000-700,000 cascading or interlinked cells, orchestrated with interlinked and nested macros. Now Office 2008 doesn't support VBA. On about half a dozen occasions in this project I have exceeded the maximum macro length and hence have to interlink them. My cell formulas have a tendency to exceed the maximum length and so I must cascade them across multiple cells. Excel has a finite number of cell formats per workbook and I've had to break workbooks down and interlink them because of it, as well as for the constant crashing and crazy behaviour Excel manifests when pushed to its limits. It's also huber-slow with anything complicated.
I have the last of the PowerBooks with 2Gb RAM and a 120Mb drive but it's deathly slow for video-work - even viewing home videos pushes it to its very limits, so that it often jumps frames. You have to nurture it along.
I'm looking forward to upgrading to an MBP with Leopard when they are released, but I have learned not to expect too much too soon. Still, I guess that's what drives innovation. You work with the tools that you have and it tends to make you more creative and efficient. That said there are exceptions: Windows, for example, tends to stifle the creative process.
The thing I like about Apple is its forward-looking innovation. The rest of the industry seems to prefer a sideways consensus, and without Apple's lead we would be left to the mercy of people who seem only able to think inside the square and so produce: boring, backward, beige, boxes; complicated phones; and MP3 players that just play songs.
This doesn't even touch Apple's indirect influence on the development of the Web, etc., etc., and the thousands of other things that brilliant minds have done with it all.
Any particular reason you aren't using mySQL/MSSQL/Oracle? It seems like you would benefit from the power and flexibility.
That's because you are you and I am me. It's called opinion.
In other words OSX doesn't support the programs you need. Hardly a recommendation, is it? I realise, of course, that there is Mac software that wont run on a Windows PC but then there's usually a perfectly good alternative - maybe not quite as good, but good enough.
But that's not the point...
Broadly stating that one OS is 'better' than an other is meaningless because it's always going to come down to the needs of the individual or organisation in question.
The first PC I used was an Apple Macintosh II in Edinburgh University's labs when I was 14. I've used them on and off since then. Like anything else they have their good and bad points. At the moment I like the Macbook for light personal use because it's a simple, stable platform with a good build quality and I don't need it to do anything too heavy.
That's nice but you are not the world.
You're using a non-native OS through a utility on a system it's not designed for. On my current PC XP has never hung on startup. Actually, Vista hasn't either.
Now Me used to do it all the bloody time but, hey ho...
Different horses, different courses.
So disable them.
What? That's nonsense.
Never had that problem. Now Vista, that does treat you like an idiot although, thankfully, you can disable those features through UAC. Still don't like it though.
From Chambers UK:
rabid adj 1 said of dogs, etc: suffering from rabies. 2 a fanatical; unreasoning
That's the definition I'm using.
The reason I don't think you know what you're talking about is because your experience of Windows seems to come from using it via boot camp on a Mac. On the other hand I use OSX Tiger on a Macbook and XP and Vista on a Windows PC because that's what they're optimised to use.
The main point is that you don't like Windows and you can't see why people would use it. I disagree and to state that I'm trolling or seem to be relishing the fact that I might get flamed is just wrong.
^^ harsh ^^
p.s. there are many more users that have both windows experience that is not via bootcamp...remember that vista runs fastest on a mac
p.s. there are many more users that have both windows experience that is not via bootcamp...remember that vista runs fastest on a mac
This is incorrect. Windows running on a Mac is running natively. The hardware in a Mac is exactly the same as a PC. It was designed to run on that system as it is just a standard PC. The only difference is that Macs use both EFI and BIOS (for Windows compatibility).
I'll use examples from today to give you an idea of what I am talking about. I have a Mac Pro. It is an incredibly fast machine, but there are tasks which still take 30 minutes to complete. There are other tasks which might take 2 days to complete. That is obviously unacceptable. Until those tasks can be completed in less than 10 seconds then computers will not be fast enough for me. But by then new technology will have come along that I want to take advantage of, which requires more processing power which starts the whole process off again.
If your computer needs are 100% static then excellent, you can just buy a cheap computer and keep it for 20 years and be happy. Mine, and many others are not. Our current uses of computers do not do exactly what we want, or it does but it takes an extraordinary amount of time to complete. That is the nature of technology.
Physics simulations are notorious for requiring huge amounts of CPU power and I'm sure that scientists will clamoring for as much computing power as they can get for years to come.
hhmm so therefore the BIOS is emulated... apart from that SMALL hole it all runs natively
hhmm so therefore the BIOS is emulated... apart from that SMALL hole it all runs natively
It is not emulated.
oh. how does it..eerr.. work then?
p.s. computers will NEVER be fast enough for a lot of peoples needs, i figured that out a long time ago.
The BIOS was provided in a firmware update.
When you use Boot Camp it does not actually install anything until after you have Windows up and running. If that is the case it obviously can not be emulated as it would not be able to install Windows without Boot Camp installing something first.
ok that makes sense... what doesnt make sense is that an intel EFI supported computer is capable of supporting the BIOS... idk just seems wierd to me.. then whats the use of intel doing that?
Intel included BIOS compatibility in EFI. Just like why Apple included Rosetta in Tiger for Intel. It is to help with the transition.
Only my own ignorance. Thanks for the tip. Am always looking for better ways.
Primarily I am developing commercial Excel apps for an industry that only uses Excel and not Oracle.
Can Oracle produce self-contained apps, that don't require the user to have a copy?
So, hypothetically, could you wipe the HDD and just run it off XP without Boot Camp? Would the BIOS support module in the EFI pick this up automatically?
Because that's what I mean by 'native'.
Vista and XP aren't optimized for anything, they're designed to run on any 'compatible' hardware. If anything, Macs have been shown to run Windows better than most other manufacturer's PCs. Even Microsoft themselves have used them to run demos of their software (their whole Office 2007 campaign springs to mind, when all the presentations were run off Macs running Windows). PC World and PC Mag have both stated that the fastest laptop they've ever tested Windows on is the MacBook Pro.
Half of what you say self-contradicts.
For example, OS X not supporting half the programs needed. As you said, there are going to be alternatives for everything on both platforms, and yet you yourself stated that the Mac equivalents are usually better?
As it happens, I've found there are more things I cannot do in Windows that I CAN in OS X, as in actual applications (not the computer sense, but the 'what you can do' sense).
RE the popups, you can't always disable them. For example, I've just come in from the studio, where I run a rig with a high-end PC, and an absolutely fresh, 'clean' install of Windows (which I fully updated before installing any other software or drivers), and even though it's never going to have any interactions with other external media (USB keys, hard drives etc...) and it's not on any network or internet connection (completely standalone), it still constantly pops up telling me I have no AntiVirus installed. VERY frustrating and irritating.
Also refuses to shut down now.
Windows is a Frankenstein of old and new code, patched together, and it looks it too.
[soo off topic]It can, but I am not a fan of them as they usually run in Java which can be slow.
It really depends on what the users have to implement. You could make a web application (using php or perl) and have it retrieve and add stuff to the database. All that would be needed then is a web browser (on the client side).[/soo off topic]
EFI includes a compatibility mode to support operating systems that require BIOS. It's not emulated in any sort of way.
Older Macs required a firmware update for this but current ones can be wiped out of the box and have any other x86 based operating system installed on it.
The Boot Camp Assistant is just a simple live partition editor and Apple provides the drivers for Windows.
Source please. Oh, and let's look at comparable configurations, not 'all PCs' please.
Yes, to sell Windows and Office to a new market. A deliberate strategy by MS.
At that moment in time, it isn't now - that would be the Micro Express IFL9025. Which doesn't mean the MBP isn't a lovely bit of kit because it actually is. You get what you pay for.
Really?
And I said that where exactly?
No, I don't believe I did. I said that the equivalents aren't maybe as good - and some are or are better - but that wasn't the point.
Like? Again examples please.
Uh... you can disable that feature.
Yes? And?
No, not really.
Look, I don't want to derail this topic over personal opinion. It's just that saying OSX is better than Windows in all circumstances is a bit silly. Both OSX and Windows have their good and bad points and it's really up to the end user which they prefer.