Originally posted by k2k koos
Altivec or not, isn't that just a brand name of Moto?
IBM is mor ethan capable to produce avector processing unit that is compatible with"Altivec" instruction sets, and I don't think there are any legal problems either, afterall were they not all together in developing the PowerPC concepts in the first place?
IBM actually developed the architecture and owns the rights to the name "PowerPC". It's an IBM registerred trademark that Apple and Motorola both have licensed.
The aforementioned "AIM" agreement though, has been disbanded. IBM and Motorola split their roadmap after the G3. The oddball thing is, I always thought it was going in the wrong direction. Of course... if Motorola had been able to keep their Mac clone division, it'd probably be a case where Motorola would be amped up about the Macintosh. Yet... the minute Jobs killed off cloning, I think that took the desire and will out of Motorola to focus on desktop development. In a lot of ways, if there was anything Apple could've done to be "choosy" with their clone vendors... they migth've been smart to retain Motorola and Motorola only. Although... that could've brought on some potential lawsuits...
The G3 name is a joint owned name, owned by Motorola and IBM and is applied to 3rd Generation of PowerPC's. The first generation were the 601/602(Bandai Pippin@world)/603/604/615 (64-bit processor, rumored to house an IBM BlueLightning Pentium-compatible core)/620 et al.
Second Generation was the 603e/604e series.
A merger of the two design roadmaps yielded a much faster processor (akin to the 604e) with the affordability of production and better efficiencies of the 603e. This was... the G3. It shared very little with it's previous designs, but it did evolve from both spectrums to get where the G3 was at. Fast... and very efficient.
The G4 is a revamped G3 design (
meaning it did change beyond just slapping on AltiVec, don't read that as to mean it's anything but what I've said, the FPU, processor bus, and other technologies were alterred but it still was highly based on the G3 version of PowerPC architecture and design) employing AltiVec (a SIMD vector architecture, designed by Motorola), called Velocity Engine by Apple. The name G4 and it's associated rights thus far is owned by Motorola as IBM at the time had no interests in pursuing SIMD technology as IBM's application for PowerPC was not hinged around speciality processors, as they use it under very portable outlets; i.e. Linux and formerly A/IX. Neither of which are geared towards accessing specialty processors, with no major Linux distro focused on any SIMD technologies. Obviously... that has changed in IBM's case now...
Oh and for the record... IBM's PowerPC 970 *DOES NOT* use AltiVec. IBM's technology is a SIMD vector unit that is compatible, though not identical, with Motorola's AltiVec technology. Think of it as 3DNow vs. MMX on the PC side, although in this case... close enough that if you write for one, it works effectively for both. Sort of how an AMD vs. Cyrix vs. Intel processor was once compatible back in the 486sx/dx days.
So I expect the new processor to carry the "G4" name. I'm sure Motorola is at a stage where they'd rather focus on the embedded sector (more profitable and more in their key market anyhow), and with as often as the Somerset manufacturing plant (formerly owned by IBM and Motorola, now solely Moto) has been raided and plundered of engineers by it's competition, Motorola might be gearing very much towards dumping AltiVec-based processor production in favor of further evolutions of embedded chips; either PowerPC G3-evolutions... or more towards Digital DNA.
IBM does a lot of server-level hardware... to me the marriage between IBM and Apple always seemed a strongly beneficial one. Motorola seemed very much like their goal was to become a major player in the computer market riding on the coattails of someone. I think they had plans to make the Mac a veritable breeding ground of Motorola machines. The problem was... Apple socked them in the eye when they tried to beat them to market, and a lot of that was due to the slow-moving nature of Apple at that time. Morale was low as Apple was just recently taken over by Jobs... and it took him a bit to right the ship and set it's course.
The fact.
If Jobs didn't kill off the clones, there'd not be an Apple today... yet in doing so, he royally pissed some people off. Not that the clones were as good a machines reliability-wise. I firmly believe Radius/Umax were the best of the litter... and Umax was quirky at best, Radius machines used Apple mainboards and were geared towards video editing out of the box. PowerComputing were fast machines, but their reliability quotient and the required extra drivers to make them work (many machines require CD Toolkit for drivers for the CD-ROM's, a hassle) was a pain. The early StarMax Motorola machines weren't much better/worse than the PowerComputing machines. Daystar were obscure and high-end but not necessarily better in many ways than their lesser processored competition. The rest of the bunch was akin to getting an Acer or Packard Bell, except these were APSTech and MacTell machines.
Granted driver support would've likely changed if Amelio could've retained Apple, kept Apple afloat (suspect), boosted morale (laughable), and made Rhapsody a reality as it was going to be geared more and more to be like Windows and support a wider range of drivers (and probably become verrrrry buggy in trying to do so; it was after all planned to be designed for an open platform that was going to open Pandora's box... basically become the Mac version of the PC industry and spread itself verrrrry thin). Yet... with Jobs at the helm, cloning didn't stand much chance.
may be someone else can shed some light on these "politics"?
It's a good question, you can't really tell. My ex-gf's mom used to work for Motorola. Soon after Apple (under Jobs) jammed a broomhandle in the spokes of Motorola's CHRP/PPCP-based G3 Macintosh, the first G3 to debut on the market but never ship... Motorola has been "VERY" bitter about the whole deal. As far as fire-sale ditching of any machine with a multi-hued Apple logo on it. Hell she was allowed to bring many "old" Macs home without payment just to get rid of them since Motorola was moving their offices over to PC... In other words, Motorola dumped the Mac das pronto. It bordered almost on an irrational move as some of the machines that were dumped were fairly new at the time.
They also began actively attempting to pursue Microsoft for Windows CE/PocketPC compatibility at that time. I don't believe much ever came of that, even though some of the embedded PowerPC's are just as good as the very popular ARM/StrongARM and some of the smaller Intel-based PDA processors.
I don't particularly see Motorola sticking around, and I don't think they have the want to fight anymore. They see the writing on the wall, they killed their own G5 plans and roadmap long before the 970 was announced even, and I think they did so to tell Apple "Hey, find someone else". I don't think we'll see a fight out of them, and the faster they can avoid having to spend tons of $ on R&D for a processor lineup that probably barely breaks even for Motorola's intents and purposes... the G4 is probably something they long to axe at first opportunity. My belief... the faster Apple can move everything to IBM, the happier Motorola will be. Seems weird because you'd think they'd want that extra revenues... but desktop and laptop processors aren't particularly in the niche that Motorola I feel most wants to gear towards *now*. They probably can make 10x's as much $ selling to embedded applications... like ECU technology for GM cars, perhaps cell phone technologies for their own cell phone lineup, and maybe work harder on technologies for usage in car stereos, personal stereos, etc. etc. Maybe even accessory chips for computers rather than the main CPU. All of which are based on a similar architecture, and one where the R&D is recouped 10x's over via larger volume sales.
IBM on the other hand... found a way to turn a source of revenues for it's server-class Power4 based PowerPC chipset... and by simply catering to Apple's need for SIMD, they now have a processor they can use in blades running Linux, and sell x # of processors to Apple for use with OS X in their PowerMacs in higher volumes than their own machines, and therefore there's a % of every new Mac going into IBM's pocket that was rather miniscule with G3 only (last machine running G3 was iBook and it was destined to change). The R&D costs were already there, and it's a source of revenue. Win/Win for both Apple and IBM... plus embedded focus (Motorola) vs. desktop/server application focus (IBM, Apple)... which is more fruitful for the parties? It's only logical that IBM which isn't as geared on embedded as Motorola favors Apple better.
That isn't to say that there weren't some concessions to be made in the development process... but with servers brute speed in all manners isn't always the key focus (reliability being more prevalent, especially in blades where you can always toss in more processors to do the dirtywork anyhow if you need more speed). IBM could've likely more focused attack Itanium and Hammer head-on and surpass them, but to retain compatibility with the Mac... they probably made some revisions that in the short term slowed them down... but in the long term seek to grow both sides.
