Re: Re: jbouklas
Originally posted by PCUser
Well, I don't know how NeXT did it, but the only thing I could think of would be to make it so the system libraries handled every call...
Such as basic calls to add, divide, subtract, access memory, etc. The whole works. You'd have to recreate the entire Assembly language in the system libraries (no small feat).
You'd also have to write your own compiler, linker, assembler so that it compiles your code to call the system libraries for everything.
That would be a lot of time to do. And, I imagine, it would a slower then if you wrote it the standard way. It'd basically add another layer to everything. Right now, when I write a simple C++ app and compile it, it talks directly to the chip to make calls to add two numbers... if I was to recreate a system-independent system library to do the same thing, my app would get compiled to call the system library to talk to the chip to add two numbers.
I must say, when it comes to using one's own hind quarters as an information resource, you are more skilled than most.
🙂
Fat binaries work because they are nothing more complex than several different binaries joined together into one executable. There's no translating going on - each section of the binary executes native code respective to the processor on which it is being run. Any fat binary will run on any system for which a part of it has been compiled, and of course the binary will use up at least twice as much disk space as a thin binary depending on how many targets it has been compiled for. Fat binaries are no great technological feat.
As for porting to Intel: I cannot imagine any way Apple could do this successfully. Even assuming their machines remained proprietary, with a boot ROM for example, I wonder how long it would take for some bored 16 year-old kid from Hong Kong to work around that and get OS X running on all Intel machines, legal or not. Probably about three weeks.
Why would Apple WANT to take the huge step of moving to Intel, anyway? Sure 1GHz < 2.4GHz. But Apple is doing quite well and making money. Where is their incentive to switch?
I can think of one company that parallels Apple in a way: SGI. In 1997, they were doing quite well, but the MIPS R10000 was starting to fall behind Intel in terms of megahertz. Nevermind that the R10K was superior to the Pentium II in virtually every way; it was at 225MHz and Intel was at 300MHz, and that hurt SGI's sales. So SGI decided to spin off MIPS, embrace Linux, embrace Intel, and port everything on over. They helped port Linux to Itanium, and were in the process of porting IRIX as well. In the meantime, they sold
proprietary x86 boxes running Linux and NT. SGI's x86 boxes completely flopped. They still sell Itanium servers running Linux, but those aren't selling either. In short, when they bowed to pressure and abandoned the great IRIX/MIPS platform, they shot themselves in the heart. SGI is now a mere shadow of its former self; it has re-embraced IRIX/MIPS, but even they know that it's too late. They would likely no longer be in business today if not for their classified sales to the U.S. Government.
Everybody who wants their next Power *MACINTOSH* to include a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 with a 15,000 RPM CPU fan sucking up god knows how many watts of power and re-establishing a tired and miserable legacy architecture that should have been dead ten if not fifteen years ago, raise your hand.
Everybody who wants to essentially kick EVERY SINGLE current Mac owner in the nuts by declaring the PowerPC a "legacy architecture" as Old World Macs are now, and by abandoning approximately 90% of the current Mac-using population (because face it - this is what would have to happen if OS X were to be ported to Intel), raise your hand.
Everybody who wants to alienate current major players on the Mac scene such as Adobe, Macromedia, Microsoft, etc., who make the software that makes the Mac a viable platform, by forcing them to again update the software they've just spent so much effort getting to run on OS X, raise your hand.
Everybody who wants to see all the hard work and investment Apple has put into the PowerPC architecture over the past decade thrown by the wayside in favor of a temporary and short-sighted solution to a problem that frankly is not so enormous anyway, raise your hand.
In short, everybody who wants to see the Mac platform die a slow and agonizing death, raise your hand.
Please - can the Intel talk already.
Alex
