Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) Coming for the PC?

[BenRoethig]

3) it would promote hardware purchases to get Native PPC speed.

You're partly right about native speed. A good deal of software currently on the Mac is ported from x86 code to PPC. Those ports (games especially) would run faster if the x86 code was retained. While a lot pro apps will have the G5 destroy x86 processors, for the average consumer programs running on MacOSX x86 would probably be faster than the OS on PowerPC.

 

[Kelson]

Let me sum it up for you....

There are lots of good reasons to be skeptical about this rumor, but I'm astonished that no one even seems to think that this would be a good idea. The computer landscape has changed enormously just in the last year, and with Tiger and Longhorn on the horizon, there are ways to think about licensing OSX that are both exciting and reasonable. And a version of OSX running on x86 hardware might be the perfect plan.

Virus/spyware problems have become increasingly significant in the minds of both consumers and buisnesses. The success of the ipod, the advent of the G5, the introduction of the Mini, and the continual flow of good press, have made Apple not merely cool, but tempting. OSX matures while XP stagnates. Longhorn is two years off and the initial release is likely to be fraught with issues, especially issues of backwards compatibility with both hardware and software. All these things together give Apple a real opportunity to change the balance of power. But I don't think Apple can do this on its own.

Imagine that HP had an inexpensive machine with an intel processor that ran OSX. It wouldn't be a graphics power house, or a game machine, it would be a bare bones box, easy to use, even easier to maintain, and probably even cheaper to own than a Microsoft box if Apple doesn't gouge on licensing. It would be a fantastic machine for the tens of miilions of offices around the world. And it wouldn't even need drivers for all the myriad hardware products out there.

Should Apple make a machine like this themselves? Haven't they already made something similar in the Mini? It doesn't really matter what Apple makes, because Apple does not currently have the right channels to sell to business, and building these channels takes years and huge effort. But if they partner with HP, then they're in the door already. Moreover, these machines don't have to hurt Apple hardware sales at all. It's a totally different market. And the beauty of a version of OSX on x86 would be that Apple could license this while maintaining a monopoly on OSX on PPC, insuring their hold on high end machines.

This strategy is potentially brilliant for HP, make tons of money for Apple, and I don't see any downside. Not only should this not hurt Apple's own hardware, but it would expose business users to Mac, who would then buy Macs for their own use at home.

But you worry, what would keep HP from selling these cheap boxes to consumers and stealing all of Apple's sales? Again, potentially that's a nice thing about licensing a x86 version of OSX. One reason to buy Apple would be to get PPC. (I'm assuming that even with excellent emulation, PPC would be faster, and I'm also assuming that IBM will continue to make good progress.) Indeed, even if HP sold millions of low cost machines to consumers I don't see why that would hurt Apple at this point in time, when Apple's users are by and large those who are already willing to pay a little extra for Apple excellence. On the contrary, this strategy would allow Apple to focus on the high end. Steve really only enjoys making insanely great luxury computers anyway. Let HP, or somebody else, deliver the commodity boxes.

If this sort of licensing happens soon, then Apple would be fully prepared when Longhorn finally makes it way to market. Two years from now there will be uncountably many articles with titles like "Lion trounces Longhorn." (I'm speculating that OSX 10.5 will be called Lion, and that Jobs will time its appearance to coincide with the release of Longhorn.) After this point in time, every current Windows user who buys a new machine will have to make a choice: do I get a new Longhorn machine and buy all new software and hardware to match, or, if I've got to upgrade everything anyway, shouldn't I buy Mac, which all the press reports tell me is better.

Apple has a "window" of opportunity, but they will need support from HP and others to take advantage of it.

Actually, that's all a bunch of hooey, and this is why.....

1. End users don't know the difference between x86 and PPC. They do know that everything they want runs on Windows tho.

2. Porting OS X to x86 does not let you run windows programs.

3. x86 chips are not inherently better than PPC chips. They are little toasters with a diminishing return for increased heat and power consumption.

4. When you buy a new computer, the average joe doesn't look at the x86/PPC architecture. The ISA for the CPU is a non-issue. They buy a PC cause it runs windows and all their programs.

5. If you port OS X to x86, the primary market is a whole bunch of people that want to replace windows on EXISTING HARDWARE. If you are buying a NEW computer, the PPC/x86 is a non-issue.

For AAPL to move to OS X on x86, they would have to abandon the PPC architecture, all to capture the small part of the market that have existing hardware. From a business perspective, it is ridiculous.

- Kelson

 

[warfare]

No need for emulation...

Applications on MacOS X are just a recompile away.. (and sorting out endian problems..)

MacOSX still supports "fat" binaries. Remember these days of the 68k/PPC transition? When you had "fat" Apps which would run on either architecture natively?

This was possible with Nextstep, where you had one binary for four Hardware Platforms (m68k, x86, HPPA and Sparc)

And "lipo" (greek or latin word for "fat") is still there....

The [U]lipo[/U] command creates or operates on "fat" (multi-architecture) files.

You can even choose the build-architecture in XCode. i386 isn't mentioned yet, but could only be a mouseclick away..

And by the way, who uses Intel EtherExpress 100 nics in a Mac? Why are there drivers for this card, which is commonly used on commodity Intel Hardware?

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple already has a Panther Build running on Intel...

 

[vollspacken]

Windows is an OS that runs on the x86 platform, not the platform itself. The game would still have be written for the operating system. Not having to deal with x86 specific code and edian issues would simplify ports considerably.

Soooooo?

then why are we talking about emulation that enables apps which were written for Windows on x86 to run on OsX for PowerPC??? your answer to my response does not address the issue I was pointing at.

I was responding to his idea that including a very fast "Virtual PC"-like app with OsX would be a clever idea (which is not) and the whole point of emulation (both for the end user and the software company) is the fact that you don't have to rewrite it for another OS...

vSpacken

 

[Eniregnat]

A poor timeline, but even if overly generalized- it may point to some trends.

Next- Cutting edge hardware, software, protocols and ideals.
Next as a close source company. "Black Box"

• 
  Next controls hardware.
  Next controls software.
  Next is semi-profitable, bordering on failing.

Next as an open source company. "White Box"

• 
  Next ports OS and allows for open hardware sources.
  Next controls os and some software.
  Closed development platform for software and protocols, but not hardware.
  Next becomes profitable

Apple Closed and confused- "Beige Box"

• 
  Controls Hardware and OS,
  Loose control 3rd party devices and software.
  Clone days.
  Apple(Mac pre os9) semi profitable to failure.

Apple Closed- "White Box/iMac"

• 
  Acquires Jobs and NextOS (core of 9)
  Closed OS
  Closed Hardware
  Controlled software development/standards enforced.
  No clones.
  Apple becomes Profitable.

The history may predict the future.

• 
  OS -closed architecture
  Open hardware standards = expanded audience.
  Closed "niche" processors with highly stable and tested OS.
  Software and third-party standards required for development.
  No clones, but offers "optimized" inhouse hardware.
  Apple becomes ultra-profitable just to survive.

 

[jnasato]

For the sake of the Apple experience remaining an *Apple* experience, I hope that OS X never runs on non-Apple computers...

But I imagine it's possible if Jobs is one day, "Ah'. why not?! Let's see what happens!"

 

[~loserman~]

For AAPL to move to OS X on x86, they would have to abandon the PPC architecture, all to capture the small part of the market that have existing hardware. From a business perspective, it is ridiculous.

- Kelson

Thats funny.....
Someone should tell Microsoft that...
Because they make more money selling shrink wrapped copies of Windows than Apple makes selling all of their products combined.

 

[adamjay]

awesome!!!
now i can run windows on my mac!!!!















kidding of course.

 

[adamjay]

really though, i wouldn't mind running a dual boot osx/xp system on either my mac or my pc. I have some audio plugins that are platform specific and it may make things easier to just use a platform specific plugin, render the results to disk, and reboot that machine into the other OS to continue working. rather than keeping the project files for that project on both machines simultaneously, and networking back and forth the platform specific changes. oddly enough, just rebooting into another OS would be less of a hastle, go figure.

 

[ASP272]

If OS X ever went to the x86 platform and into the business world, we would most definitely see the attack of the viruses/spyware, same as XP now. I have both machines at home and am almost terrified to use my XP machine on the web or for any sort of downloads. The virus/spyware problem is so ridiculous it makes me sick to think that Bill Gates is so rich. As long as Steve Jobs is around (I believe he's the one that killed the clones before) I don't think we have to worry. I hope.

 

[the Rebel]

You're partly right about native speed. A good deal of software currently on the Mac is ported from x86 code to PPC. Those ports (games especially) would run faster if the x86 code was retained. While a lot pro apps will have the G5 destroy x86 processors, for the average consumer programs running on MacOSX x86 would probably be faster than the OS on PowerPC.

It is not true that a "good deal of software" is being ported from x86 to PPC. Most Mac OS X apps in use today are NOT ported software.

The only genre where you have x86 apps being ported is with games.

The average consumer programs being used on OS X Macs today would run better on PPC Macs than x86 machines using a port of OS X. You have to remember that Apple has spent years optimizing OS X itself for the PPC; it would take a lot of development time and money for an x86 version of OS X to ever achieve that level of optimization. OS X still runs well on G3 iMacs from 1998, but that definitely does not mean that it will run well on a brand new bargain basement Dell Celeron computer. There is a lot of PPC/Altivec optimization in the average consumer's OS X software. Who is going to take the time to re-optimize those programs for an x86 version of OS X? I might also point out that optimizing for the Pentium 4 is not the exactly same as optimizing for Celeron or for Pentium M or for Athlon or for Athlon64 or for any of the other x86 processors. Other than games, most Windows software has virtually no CPU optimization at all. Mac OS X software is full of hardware optimization.

The average consumer's x86 computer uses crappy shared video memory technology. Those computers are not going to be able to take advantage of Quartz Extreme. You may not realize how much of a difference dedicated video RAM makes, but I guarantee you that the difference would be obvious with OS X.

It is simply absurd to suggest that OS X apps would run better on x86 than PPC. The most commonly used Mac apps are written by Apple. There would be absolutely no motivation for Apple to make their own apps run better on a different platform.

The idea that Apple might switch their hardware from PPC to x86 is insane. Likewise it is insane to think that a release of OS X for x86 would lead to Apple becoming a software only company.

Consumers can buy a Mac for $499 today that will run OS X better than your typical $999 x86 PC would run the current x86 version of OS X. The introduction of OS X for x86 would be to encourage x86 users to migrate to Apple's PPC hardware. The idea is that it would be a stepping stone to the current Mac platform; it is not about trying to move current Mac users to an inferior x86 OS X platform. It would be totally stupid for Apple to spend millions trying to make the x86 version of OS X as good as what is already available today on PPC Macs.

 

[the Rebel]

If OS X ever went to the x86 platform and into the business world, we would most definitely see the attack of the viruses/spyware, same as XP now. I have both machines at home and am almost terrified to use my XP machine on the web or for any sort of downloads. The virus/spyware problem is so ridiculous it makes me sick to think that Bill Gates is so rich.

Please do not spread this myth that Macs do not have viruses because of small marketshare. It is not true. It is just simply easier to write viruses for the Windows platform.

There are a lot of Windows and Linux people out there who HATE Macs for some reason or another. They would love to write viruses for the Mac. Many have tried. Many are still trying. Maybe some day they will succeed, but do not believe for a second that Macs do not have viruses because no one has tried.

 

[firestarter]

Longhorn vs Tiger...

Take a good hard look at Longhorn, windows XP SP2 patch and other Microsoft products. Anyone guess why Microsoft is taking SO long these days to come up with software?

Every change Microsoft makes has to be tested against tens of thousands of different hardware combinations. Get it wrong (and they do) and MS get bad headlines plastered all over the net. The longer Windows lasts, and the more old systems MS supports, the worse this testing nightmare will get for them and the longer it will take them to release software. Longhorn is years late - and still nowhere to be seen.

Compare this with Apple. They control the hardware, and specifically drop support for machines after a number of years. They can turn around tests really quicky, and this is reflected in the number of OS fix seeds we see, and the rapid solving of Tiger problems.

Do you really think that Apple can afford to take on the PC hardware nightmare??? Especially now that IBM's processors are finally speed-competative, and have some interesting designs for the next few years.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Take a good hard look at Longhorn, windows XP SP2 patch and other Microsoft products. Anyone guess why Microsoft is taking SO long these days to come up with software?

Every change Microsoft makes has to be tested against tens of thousands of different hardware combinations. Get it wrong (and they do) and MS get bad headlines plastered all over the net. The longer Windows lasts, and the more old systems MS supports, the worse this testing nightmare will get for them and the longer it will take them to release software. Longhorn is years late - and still nowhere to be seen.

Compare this with Apple. They control the hardware, and specifically drop support for machines after a number of years. They can turn around tests really quicky, and this is reflected in the number of OS fix seeds we see, and the rapid solving of Tiger problems.

Do you really think that Apple can afford to take on the PC hardware nightmare??? Especially now that IBM's processors are finally speed-competative, and have some interesting designs for the next few years.

I agree 100%. Apple's unique position gives them an advantage Microsoft can't match in that respect. If Apple took on the x86 beast and won, they'd be as bogged down as Microsoft releasing the x86 versions of Mac OS X. Hopefully it wouldn't affect PPC development, though...so it may not be as bad as you might think. Still, I don't believe Apple's at all willing to pursue this path if it doesn't have to.

 

[dotdotdot]

Take a good hard look at Longhorn, windows XP SP2 patch and other Microsoft products. Anyone guess why Microsoft is taking SO long these days to come up with software?

Every change Microsoft makes has to be tested against tens of thousands of different hardware combinations. Get it wrong (and they do) and MS get bad headlines plastered all over the net. The longer Windows lasts, and the more old systems MS supports, the worse this testing nightmare will get for them and the longer it will take them to release software. Longhorn is years late - and still nowhere to be seen.

Compare this with Apple. They control the hardware, and specifically drop support for machines after a number of years. They can turn around tests really quicky, and this is reflected in the number of OS fix seeds we see, and the rapid solving of Tiger problems.

Do you really think that Apple can afford to take on the PC hardware nightmare??? Especially now that IBM's processors are finally speed-competative, and have some interesting designs for the next few years.

Just to add: They don't just test it on one hardware, they test it on ALL the variations as well... like for example an HP w/ intel processor and an HP w/ AMD processor, AND they test it with random parts for custom built machines.

Apple tests their hardware with their own machines and know that it all works together. They hardly need to test for compatibility of the machine but for functions of the OS.

 

[BenRoethig]

There are a lot of Windows and Linux people out there who HATE Macs for some reason or another.

1. Problems from the system 7 days which have turned into myths about the current OS. The funny part is that OSX and the old Mac OS aren't even the same operating sytem.

2. Hardware. Apple's designs are unconventional and sparse on the options. I can understand this. For a basic computer you can't beat the Mini, and there are a lot of uses for the iMac, but for a main general purpose computer I still prefer a MicroATX case. Apple could remedy this by putting a single G5 module inside a MDD El-Capitan case with a brushed metal makeover, but this is Apple we're talking about.

 

[Kelson]

Your base assumption is wrong

Thats funny.....
Someone should tell Microsoft that...
Because they make more money selling shrink wrapped copies of Windows than Apple makes selling all of their products combined.

You make the assumption that Apple would capture a significant enough share of the 'shrink wrapped' market.

Apple would lose a huge portion of their HW market, which has decent margins for the business they are in. They would then have to compete with Windows and Linux for x86 application support. Getting an app to run is more than ISA, but also the OS API's, etc.

What motivation would anyone have for OS X on x86 when they are at the store? No apps to run on it. The costs of migration are significant enough that major vendors like Adobe would likely throw in the towel. While a significant portion of their user base is on the Mac, if they really wanted to play hardball and drop support support for the Mac, their customers would migrate away from Mac before migrating away from Photoshop.

- Kelson

 

[~loserman~]

You make the assumption that Apple would capture a significant enough share of the 'shrink wrapped' market.

Apple would lose a huge portion of their HW market, which has decent margins for the business they are in. They would then have to compete with Windows and Linux for x86 application support. Getting an app to run is more than ISA, but also the OS API's, etc.

What motivation would anyone have for OS X on x86 when they are at the store? No apps to run on it. The costs of migration are significant enough that major vendors like Adobe would likely throw in the towel. While a significant portion of their user base is on the Mac, if they really wanted to play hardball and drop support support for the Mac, their customers would migrate away from Mac before migrating away from Photoshop.

- Kelson

While I dont really disagree I would like to further clarify a couple things.
As you said...
No apps would run on it. One could easily contend that you cant find apps in the store for OS X on PPC today.
But I do believe that IF their was a Port of OS X to X86 that this would actually help that problem.
Also Apple could already have all the Apps they sell for the Mac already ported to X86 at the same time they released an OS X X86 port.
That would give them some added leverage.

Porting software to an OS on a different hardware problem isnt very difficult. But porting it to a different operating system on different hardware is. In the first case all the API's are the same in the second everything is different.

Now I do agree it would be a risk to release OS X on X86 but I also believe that the Wintel world is fairly fed up with Windows right now and the risks may very well outweigh the negatives.

Lastly... the margins on software are orders of magnitude over the margins on hardware.
Given a choice almost any company would prefer to sell software instead of hardware. The basic problem has been how do you compete with a monopoly? You do It when the monopoly has a completely dissatisfied user base, which is where the Wintel world for the most part is right now.

 

[~loserman~]

If OS X ever went to the x86 platform and into the business world, we would most definitely see the attack of the viruses/spyware, same as XP now. I have both machines at home and am almost terrified to use my XP machine on the web or for any sort of downloads. The virus/spyware problem is so ridiculous it makes me sick to think that Bill Gates is so rich. As long as Steve Jobs is around (I believe he's the one that killed the clones before) I don't think we have to worry. I hope.

While there isn't any doubt as market share increases so will the attacks against OS X....
But
I don't believe that OS X will suffer as badly as Windows has even IF Apple had a much larger market share. Simply because there are fundamental design flaws in Windows that allow these exploits. Namely an integrated IE and a poorly conceived scripting language that is completely hole ridden.

 

[Nemesis]

I Second That!

This technology sounds interesting. But I would rather see Apple use it the other way around than being suggested here. Apple could use this to build "Virtual PC" into the operating system, allowing x86 apps to be run on PPC hardware. It would allow users to run specific x86 apps that aren't available on PPC natively, or even x86 games. Maybe they could integrate some sort of classic-like mode into the system that runs windows within OS-X.

Yes! That would be awesome. And then we have everything we need. VirtualPC application is a disaster -- this is MUCH better solution. With built-in support for executing Windows apps on PPC processors, Mac becomes PERFECT computing platform, light years ahead of everything else. And there's no issue of speed here -- the real issue is comfortable use of Windows only applications we might need sometimes.

 

[MagnusDredd]

Applications on MacOS X are just a recompile away.. (and sorting out endian problems..)

MacOSX still supports "fat" binaries. Remember these days of the 68k/PPC transition? When you had "fat" Apps which would run on either architecture natively?

This was possible with Nextstep, where you had one binary for four Hardware Platforms (m68k, x86, HPPA and Sparc)

And "lipo" (greek or latin word for "fat") is still there....

The [U]lipo[/U] command creates or operates on "fat" (multi-architecture) files.

You can even choose the build-architecture in XCode. i386 isn't mentioned yet, but could only be a mouseclick away..

And by the way, who uses Intel EtherExpress 100 nics in a Mac? Why are there drivers for this card, which is commonly used on commodity Intel Hardware?

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple already has a Panther Build running on Intel...

Actually OSX does not support "FAT" binaries the way Classic did. Each application folder has the ability to contain multiple binaries. As I stated above, the amount of code that must be in the binary is actually very small. A Cocoa application (or what people think of a Cocoa app) is simply a folder containing application resources and some resources. 90% of the app is text files, graphics, video, sound whatever. The menu contents are contained in text files, the dialogs are contained in text files, the icons and images in the app are graphic files are located in the "application.app" folder as individual files. This is completely unlike a "FAT" binary.

If you right click on Apple's "Address Book" or command click on it, a contextual menu will pop up. Choose "Show package contents". In the folders contained in the "Resources" folder, there are lots of text (XML files) and graphics files that make up most of the app. These files will be the same no matter what CPU the OS is on. This approach is actually far better than the FAT binary approach. It is definitely far more extensible, since you could add support for a new platform at any time. This is far harder with a FAT binary.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Actually OSX does not support "FAT" binaries the way Classic did. Each application folder has the ability to contain multiple binaries. As I stated above, the amount of code that must be in the binary is actually very small. A Cocoa application (or what people think of a Cocoa app) is simply a folder containing application resources and some resources. 90% of the app is text files, graphics, video, sound whatever. The menu contents are contained in text files, the dialogs are contained in text files, the icons and images in the app are graphic files are located in the "application.app" folder as individual files. This is completely unlike a "FAT" binary.

If you right click on Apple's "Address Book" or command click on it, a contextual menu will pop up. Choose "Show package contents". In the folders contained in the "Resources" folder, there are lots of text (XML files) and graphics files that make up most of the app. These files will be the same no matter what CPU the OS is on. This approach is actually far better than the FAT binary approach. It is definitely far more extensible, since you could add support for a new platform at any time. This is far harder with a FAT binary.

I'll add that what Mac OS X supports isn't FAT binaries, but rather FAT application packages (same resources, one binary for each supported platform).

 

[MagnusDredd]

Since im going to be pedantic here.
A real UNIX would be any OS derived from System V from Bell Labs then sold to Univel then sold to Novell then sold to SCO.

BSD was a seperately derived "UNIX" developed at Berkley, alot of lawsuits surrounded this OS... but have long been settled.

Apple doent have to worry about the phrasology of calling OS X as being based on UNIX.

YES Lets get it straight once and for all.

OS X IS NOT BSD 4.4 UNIX.

In the "UNIX" world the kernel IS the OS. All the other stuff is basically just that... other stuff.
OS X .....DOES NOT... and I repeat DOES NOT... use BSD's kernel.
They use a hodgepodge kernel "BASED ON" BSD and MACH with IO KIT thrown in and they call their hodgepodge kernel DARWIN.

I take greatest exception to this....
Linux is fastly becoming the number one "UNIX" type OS PERIOD.
Almost ALL major vendors are replacing their UNIX's with Linux.
For example
IBM and SGI are converting everything to LINUX
and SUN will follow soon.(as Soon as they see their recent opensourcing of Solaris doesnt help)

from: http://www.tribug.org/bsd.html

When Thompson returned to BTL, a graduate student named Bill Joy began to continue development on the Sixth Edition system. In late 1977, he began to prepare a tape consisting of a Unix pascal compiler and a text editor named ex. This tape, in standard tp format and costing $50, was called the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD).

That's Thompson, as in Ken Thompson. If you don't know who he is, you have a lot of reading to do.

also:

4.4BSD was released in June of 1993, and included support for the Intel i386 architecture as well as a new Mach-based virtual memory subsystem. It was intended to be released as two versions: an encumbered version which included Bell Labs source and required a UNIX software license to obtain, and an unencumbered version called 4.4BSD Lite...

The key to something being called UNIX is whether is is "derived" from System V sources (meaning code). BSD very clearly meets this requirement. Furthermore it is generally accepted that as long as it is derived from System V sources, parts may be rewritten. Linux was not derived from UNIX sources in any way. It is a UNIX clone. Having been an attempt to pertially recreate MINIX.

The only part of Linux that is actually Linux, is the kernel. The userland applications are generally GNU add-ons. The GNU utilities were developed separately. The BSD userland, on the other hand was developed as part of the development of BSD.

also:

BSD, on the other hand, is a complete system with not only its own kernel but also its own libraries, utilities, documentation, and so forth. Many people consider the "kernel-only" approach to be better, but it simply would not work in BSD's case. Integration of the utilities and libraries with the kernel allows BSD derivatives to evolve more naturally and fully than if split across multiple organizations.

This is the same way in which Sun, IBM, and HP have replaced userland things in their own versions of UNIX. Solaris is more than just a kernel. It does not use the same kernel as AIX or HP-UX. Actually it should be noted that AIX uses a microkernel and BSD and SunOS (which is a BSD variant) use a monolithic kernel. Here's a nice pdf from Sun: http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/presskits/networkcomputing04q4/history_of_solaris.pdf about Solaris history. Notably Bill Joy was a founder of BSD and later Sun. No one is arguing that SunOS was not UNIX. It would be difficult to argue that something that is derived from something other than UNIX can be UNIX. Also see: http://www.sun.com/980922/gage/ Apparently Bill Joy considers BSD a version of UNIX.

So it should be established that BSD is indeed a version of UNIX if you use the derivation definition. Linux is not. It should also be apparent that UNIX is actually not just a specific kernel, otherwise IBM, Sun, HP, and (formerly) Compaq could not all have had versions of UNIX since they used different kernels. UNIX is indeed a full OS implementation tools and all. Solaris is far more than a kernel. Simply implementing a kernel, without awk, ls, sed, grep, vi, etc is not UNIX.

Now with all of that out of the way... NextStep when created was a mach kernel (not UNIX) and the 4.3 BSD userland (UNIX). OS-X is basically a new version of NeXTStep with more crap thrown on top. So the true answer to the question (using the derivation method) as to whether OSX is UNIX is: partially.

However if you use the Open Group Definition: (which is whoever pays them lots of money and passes the certification process) Only AIX, True64, Solaris, UnixWare, HP-UX, z/OS, OS390, NCR UNIX, IRIX, and UX/4800 are indeed UNIX. Which means that DG-UX, OSF1, MINUX, Ultrix, Xenix, and NeXTStep/OSX are not UNIX.

BSD and System V have in the past intertwined so much as to make it hard to figure out exactly what came from where. Linux developers on the other hand make no claims as to UNIX heritage. It's openly admitted to be a clone. It has nothing derived from System V or BSD sources.

This: http://www.levenez.com/unix/ can be very enlightening.

 

[GFLPraxis]

I have an emulation question:

Anyone know how efficient the best x86 emulators for PowerPC are? I remember reading on the Internet that the reason it took so long for PearPC to appear is because emulating x86 on PPC is considerably easier than PPC on x86 due to architectural differences (PPC has more non-rename registers than x86, for example).

Using the latest builds, PPC claims 1/10th to 1/40th the speed of your processor, depending on your hardware.

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Using the latest builds, PPC claims 1/10th to 1/40th the speed of your processor, depending on your hardware.

Are you referring to PearPC by PPC? You misinterpreted my post - that's a PPC emulator for x86, according to my definition. I meant programs like Bochs and Microsoft's Virtual PC for Mac.