Mac OS X on a PC?

[dicklacara]

Because you never bothered looking. Try Google before you make such a silly statement.
I started compiling a list quite a few years ago, and stopped in 2000. Maybe you can do a bit of searching and bring it up to date for me?
Peace/

Quite a compelling list.

I would add the following-- not necessarily invented by Apple, but first made available on a large scale.

1976-1981

Hires Craphics
Lores Color Graphics
ROM Mini-Assembler
ROM BASIC
5 1/2 Soft Sector Mini-Floppy Disks
Pascal Language System (ROM) Accessory Card

The above are Apple ][

Later

Quickdraw
Firewire
Rendezvous Zero Configuration Networking
Firewire 2
Bluetooth
iTunes
iPod
iTMS
iLife

are just a few!

 

[Artanmotion]

News Update: Sony PlayStaion features Mac OS and Applications!

Nice post. Then again that may be because I agree totally.

Apple-Software charges $129 for each OSX upgrade. If they also charged $60 for each "New" OSX (bundled), hardware profit for apple would be $0. Suddenly the economic argument of "Apple makes no money on software" becomes "Apple makes no money on hardware".

You mentioned maybe Apple-Hardware being able to make PCs - did you mean Apple-hardware like an iMac-x86, running Windows?

Thanks for the comments Greg.

No, I didn't mean Apple making Windows PCs, but making their own computer with x86(x64) chips running a derived OS X digital hub, mass market operating system. Positioned to appeal to a wider market, but not as direct competition to OS X. I can see that will not happen though, as I've now read about the Cell processor which sounds amazing. Have you read about them?

Apple need to attack the mainstream and license an OS and now they have the perfect opportunity with the IBM / Sony / Toshiba Cell chip. Steve jobs commented to Fortune magazine that 3 PC vendors had been nagging him to licence OS X. I wonder who they could be?
It wouldn't take much to get OS X to run on a Cell chip as the core is a stripped down version of that running in G5 computers, but to exploit the architecture, to optimise the OS and programs... there's a lot of potential.

Do you think these three companies would have any confidence in MicroSoft dashing out a Cell version of Windows?

Steve Jobs had the president of Sony on stage during his keynote speech in January. During which he stated it was the year of HD. The close relationship between the two, points to something... Here's something of a rumour from macosrumors.com.

"We've been hearing repeatedly on the grapevine that CELL won't be used in Macs, but will rather be the heart of an ultra-high-performance, low-cost HD media hub device. Apple has been listening to consumers who want a video iPod, but believes an even cheaper HD video device is possible that would run virtually any Dashboard application and implement computer-like functionality in a "game console" price range -- perhaps as low as $299 initially and $199 in its second generation...."

I believe they will also avoid the appearance of insurgency by keeping the functionality away from that of a full blown PC. They will be able to undermine MicroSoft without attacking the 'Office' using corporate and home PC sectors. This box may have a range of modular Apple software, including 'Pages' for word processing, and could be integrated into the next Sony PlayStation giving huge appeal, but they will steer clear of a full on battle with MicroSoft I believe... for the time being.

This could be the time we see Apple fly.

 

[bousozoku]

...
5 1/2 Soft Sector Mini-Floppy Disks
...

5 1/4--there were no 5 1/2 inch floppy disks.

 

[jaromski]

You have to be joking......
How many times do Apple lovers have to be told that Apple didnt invent the GUI.

I never said Apple invented the GUI. They did however figure out how to commercialize it way ahead of the competition.

Xerox PARC came up with several wonderful things like ethernet, mouse, the GUI, etc. But Xerox PARC failed to commercialize any of their best products outside of copiers. So I am still giving credit to Apple for figuring this out long ahead of the others. Even Xerox.

And lets not forget how Tiger plans on ripping off both Launchbar and Konfabulator.

Well this could very well be, however, in the very first release of Mac in 1984 they had the idea for these types of widgets that could be used at the same time as the application. This is way before the OS was multi-tasked, it was a single-tasking system with widgets. The Mac didn't get the capability to "switch" between apps until Andy Hertzfield wrote a program called "Switcher" for the Mac. So they can cry all the want at KDE but honestly whose GUI is KDE trying to emulate? (and poorly I might add) Hello Pot I'm Kettle.

If Apple could understand the Linux kernel heck they would probably rip that off too.

C'mon this is pure ********. Why on God's green earth would Apple use Linux when BSD is the better solution? Plus Linux has a whole eco-system of forked iterations swimming around the net. Which Linux are you referring to? The kernel? A specific distro? It just doesn't make any sense because then Apple would have to release _ALL_ improvements to the OS under the GPL. The BSD license is far superior in this regard. The BSD folks don't give a rat's ass if you make money or not using their software; they just don't want to get sued and you can't remove the license from any of the BSD code. Pretty lenient and suits Apple's purposes better. Not to mention that BSD has an impressive track record for security, far better than any Linux distro to date.

Cheers,

-jaromski

 

[jaromski]

I would not compare OS X's mach kernel to linux
The linux kernel is in every way superior to mach.

Obviously you don't understand design and engineering trade-offs and it makes you sound like just as much of a zealot as us Mac guys. A monolithic kernel does buy you really great performance as it is one big glob of code that can be loaded into a contiguous area of memory. Contiguous memory = higher probability of a cache hit vs. miss so you save trips to the system memory. Plus not having to send little messages back and forth also gives you better performance. However it is much easier to code a system that is separated into discreet modules and there is something to say for helping the developer out there. It is called leverage. Getting more done in a shorter time span.

But if it was such a slam dunk to go monolithic vs. message-based then you would see more OS's using this idea. But you don't. Linux feels like computing did in the 70's. There aren't any really great new ideas coming from Linux. Just a rehash of OS concepts figured out long ago. One thing that really irks me about Linux (I am really big fan of Debian) is the drivers. First, where are they? Second, why, in the kernel developers infinite wisdom, are they always breaking between releases? For example, I had a RAID card that worked flawlessy under 2.4.x but as soon as I bumped to the new 2.6.x series it broke. There isn't a timetable when this will work again, it is just oh tough **** write your own ****ing driver. Give me a break man. Oh yeah and if Linux truly were superior because of its monolithic design WTF did they decide to do loadable kernel modules? That doesn't sound monolithic to me. Gee those drivers aren't guaranteed to be in a contiguous memory space because they are seperate chunks of object code. That doesn't sound monolithic to me. That sounds like a concession. The lines are blurring my friend and your arguments irrelevant.

So to reiterate my position, saying Linux has a monolithic and therefore superior design is a smoke screen. You can compile the Linux kernel to be purely monolitchic (and not use loadable kernel modules) but then every time you add hardware you have to recompile your kernel. For most people, that want to actually accomplish some type of productive work, outside of recompiling and getting the config files just right, this is laughable.

I am not saying Linux doesn't have its place in the market. It definately does, but I don't see how one system is really superior (for all intended uses) than another. Trade-offs my friend, trade-offs.

-jaromski

 

[~loserman~]

Obviously you don't understand design and engineering trade-offs and it makes you sound like just as much of a zealot as us Mac guys. A monolithic kernel does buy you really great performance as it is one big glob of code that can be loaded into a contiguous area of memory. Contiguous memory = higher probability of a cache hit vs. miss so you save trips to the system memory. Plus not having to send little messages back and forth also gives you better performance. However it is much easier to code a system that is separated into discreet modules and there is something to say for helping the developer out there. It is called leverage. Getting more done in a shorter time span.

But if it was such a slam dunk to go monolithic vs. message-based then you would see more OS's using this idea. But you don't. Linux feels like computing did in the 70's. There aren't any really great new ideas coming from Linux. Just a rehash of OS concepts figured out long ago. One thing that really irks me about Linux (I am really big fan of Debian) is the drivers. First, where are they? Second, why, in the kernel developers infinite wisdom, are they always breaking between releases? For example, I had a RAID card that worked flawlessy under 2.4.x but as soon as I bumped to the new 2.6.x series it broke. There isn't a timetable when this will work again, it is just oh tough **** write your own ****ing driver. Give me a break man. Oh yeah and if Linux truly were superior because of its monolithic design WTF did they decide to do loadable kernel modules? That doesn't sound monolithic to me. Gee those drivers aren't guaranteed to be in a contiguous memory space because they are seperate chunks of object code. That doesn't sound monolithic to me. That sounds like a concession. The lines are blurring my friend and your arguments irrelevant.

So to reiterate my position, saying Linux has a monolithic and therefore superior design is a smoke screen. You can compile the Linux kernel to be purely monolitchic (and not use loadable kernel modules) but then every time you add hardware you have to recompile your kernel. For most people, that want to actually accomplish some type of productive work, outside of recompiling and getting the config files just right, this is laughable.

I am not saying Linux doesn't have its place in the market. It definately does, but I don't see how one system is really superior (for all intended uses) than another. Trade-offs my friend, trade-offs.

-jaromski

Obviously You dont understand what a piece of junk the mach kernel is......
Its scheduler is bunk...
Its memory manager is horrible....
It wont be 64 bit for who knows when....(and NO NO NO Tiger will not be a 64 bit kernel)Tiger's kernel will completly reside in 32 bit address space and will use a Library call that will allow it to access 64 bit memory... and that will only be for POSIX based programs.
And dont try to go down the device driver road.... because if there is any platform that barely supports any devices it would be OS X and mach.

 

[~loserman~]

C'mon this is pure ********. Why on God's green earth would Apple use Linux when BSD is the better solution? Plus Linux has a whole eco-system of forked iterations swimming around the net. Which Linux are you referring to? The kernel? A specific distro? It just doesn't make any sense because then Apple would have to release _ALL_ improvements to the OS under the GPL. The BSD license is far superior in this regard. The BSD folks don't give a rat's ass if you make money or not using their software; they just don't want to get sued and you can't remove the license from any of the BSD code. Pretty lenient and suits Apple's purposes better. Not to mention that BSD has an impressive track record for security, far better than any Linux distro to date.

Cheers,

-jaromski

I would agree 100% if OS X...... ACTUALLY USED BSD's KERNEL...
BUT they dont.... they used MACH instead.

 

[greenmeanie]

cool

they could put themselves back on the map if they do it

 

[~loserman~]

Obviously you don't understand design and engineering trade-offs and it makes you sound like just as much of a zealot as us Mac guys.

By the way... I guarantee I have and use several orders of magnitude more MAC's than anyone on this site has ever even seen.
That is why I'm no MAC zealot

 

[Rower_CPU]

Dude, if you spell it "MAC" you're something alright.

 

[bousozoku]

...
And dont try to go down the device driver road.... because if there is any platform that barely supports any devices it would be OS X and mach.

I'll remember that everytime I read some Linux user crying about the lack of proper video card drivers.

What good would supporting thousands of devices be, if you don't support any of them well?

I'm not sure how much you've ever used a Mac in the last 20 years but you should be able to read the name on the front of a lot of those, it's "Macintosh", not "MAC". <shakes head, hears rattle>

 

[dicklacara]

By the way... I guarantee I have and use several orders of magnitude more MAC's than anyone on this site has ever even seen.
That is why I'm no MAC zealot

Have to challenge that one... I owned some computer stores in Silicon Valley-- 1978-1989. We sold mainly Macs after their inrto in 1984... lotsa' Macs.

But, even more than that, Apple had this massive warehouse (Think it was a Sunnyvale address, but could have been Santa Clara or San Jose).

Visiting that warehouse was like going to a gigantic CostCo that only sold Macs... aisle after aisle of shelves full of Macs reaching op about 16 feet.

I would guess I've seen a couple hundred thousand Macs.

 

[cgratti]

Hate the idea. If people want to run OS X, then buy a Mac. If they want more security and stability, then Buy a Mac. If they want crashes and viruses, buy a Windows PC.

Don't sell us out Steve.

 

[~loserman~]

Dude, if you spell it "MAC" you're something alright.

Are you trying to insinuate something?

<shakes head, hears rattle>

Are you trying to insinuate something?


I find it typical of this site that 2 moderators in a row make snide remarks.
You guys should read your own posting rules.

 

[~loserman~]

Have to challenge that one... I owned some computer stores in Silicon Valley-- 1978-1989. We sold mainly Macs after their inrto in 1984... lotsa' Macs.

But, even more than that, Apple had this massive warehouse (Think it was a Sunnyvale address, but could have been Santa Clara or San Jose).

Visiting that warehouse was like going to a gigantic CostCo that only sold Macs... aisle after aisle of shelves full of Macs reaching op about 16 feet.

I would guess I've seen a couple hundred thousand Macs.

I guess you might have me on that one then.
But I DO have more Xserve G5's than anyone else.

 

[dicklacara]

I guess you might have me on that one then.
But I DO have more Xserve G5's than anyone else.

And you are going to go to Linux?

Which version?

YDL?

How do you like the Xserve hardware?

 

[~loserman~]

I'll remember that everytime I read some Linux user crying about the lack of proper video card drivers.

Well If all linux supported was a little over half a dozen video cards then there would be proper drivers for all of them.
But If what you need are workstation quality and or professional grade cards all of the top models are supported.
For example

All 3D LABS cards supported on Linux ... Zero for Macintosh
ATI FireGL line all supported on Linux.... Zero for Macintosh
Nvidia Quadro Line all supported on Linux... Zero for Macintosh

Now I'm not really dogging the Mac here especially as I type this on my PB
But the Mac has been behind in Video for several years

 

[bousozoku]

...
Are you trying to insinuate something?

I find it typical of this site that 2 moderators in a row make snide remarks.
You guys should read your own posting rules.

We should have a rule about making imprecise statements. That was an insinuation.

 

[~loserman~]

And you are going to go to Linux?

Which version?

YDL?

How do you like the Xserve hardware?

At first we had nightmares. Alot of instability, tons of kernel panics(20 to 30 a day).
Lately things have become stable.

We have written our own kernel scheduler and memory manager for OS X
and replaced the stock one. And that has both increased performance and caused the test results to be repeatable instead of being fast one run and dog slow the next.

As to the Linux question... testing isnt complete. We have tested YDL/YHPC
We are also testing Suse.
So far Linux has proved to be on average 15% faster.

Realistically If we go with Linux we will likely Roll or own distro.

There are some things we still like about OS X but it really isnt very mature YET.

 

[dicklacara]

There are some things we still like about OS X but it really isnt very mature YET.

Surprised to hear that, considering that Mach has been around for a while on thw Next box.

 

[~loserman~]

Surprised to hear that, considering that Mach has been around for a while on thw Next box.

The MACH kernel and Netinfo are my 2 biggest complaints against OS X.
Both are NEXT leftovers.

My 3rd biggest complaint is cant Apple ever decide on an implimentation of automount and actually stick with it. Instead of changing it in each version and half the updates.
We dont use it at all because it always causes problems.
4th Would be no command line utilities to create users or groups...I mean come on Apple OS X is suppose to be UNIX.

On the plus side Apple seems to be depricating more and more Netinfo functions in every new OS X release. Which IMO is a great thing.

 

[dmarkman]

hmm

By the way... I guarantee I have and use several orders of magnitude more MAC's than anyone on this site has ever even seen.
That is why I'm no MAC zealot

don't be so sure

 

[jaromski]

I would agree 100% if OS X...... ACTUALLY USED BSD's KERNEL...
BUT they dont.... they used MACH instead.

Well technically they use a hybrid of the mach 3.0 kernel and the freebsd system. Perhaps I was a tad sloppy in my description on the last part. But you still haven't answered my monolithic vs. message-based argument.

So let's not get off into the weeds on this one, as far as I'm concerned you didn't respond to my original rebuttal.

-jaromski

 

[jaromski]

.... because if there is any platform that barely supports any devices it would be OS X and mach.

Whenever you get to the "My dad can beat up your dad" shtick you know you've hit a bundle of nerves.

No you are right. How could I have been so daft? Of course Linux, oops sorry Stallman, I really meant GNU/Linux, is in _every_ way superior to OS/X. I mean you said so in your initial post. I was really just interested in making you defend your all/none arguments. The high concentration of them in your posts makes me wish I had life/world/everything figured out in such absolute terms. It would be most convenient.

But device driver support in Linux, in my experience, has been DRIVER PURGATORY. Here's a quick list of things that work 100% super-great, really well in Linux DriverLand:

- Firewire/IEEE1394
- Wireless NICs. the broadcom chipset works particularly well under Linux.
- Specialty RAID devices.

Oh wait, strike that...I meant Linux support is shoddy, on a good day. I have personally experienced great difficulty with all of those above device types in Linux. For instance not too long ago I tried getting my firewire/1394 host adapter working. So I duly checked the hardware compatibility list, yep on the list. Proceeded to build the kernel, yada yada, recognizes chipset on boot but then you have intermittent data read/write errors. This isn't fun. I plug it into the 15" PB and it works within seconds. No read/write errors. No fuss. There really is something to be said about that, and if you don't agree, well you suck.

How's that for a logical argument? I still have yet to find one in your replies.

Cheers mate,

-jaromski

 

[jaromski]

By the way... I guarantee I have and use several orders of magnitude more MAC's than anyone on this site has ever even seen.
That is why I'm no MAC zealot

"Waaah my daddy can beat up your daddy and I have many powerful armies of super-human-robots that will destroy you!"

Again, absurd remark. How can you verfiy this? Impossible. Are you just trolling us for fun at this point because it sures feelings like trolling to me.

-jaromski