im sure you aren't bothered by it now, that is the general mentality at first...people say "oh im fine with this.." Then you look at the HD screen next to the current gen and you say "wow that's awful, i needs to get a new PB!!!!"steve_hill4 said:
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New iPods and Pro Machines?
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abc123 said:
You have that completely backwards. And it'll be even more backwards if they release a dual 970MP based PowerMac. The current PowerMacs are generally faster than any Intel/AMD machine bar some of the latest Dual Opterons. 970MPs will toast those.
Secondly, pro users need pro software and until there's Intel native versions of Adobe Creative Suite, Apple's Studio tools, Maya, Cinema4D, Quark, Microsoft Office even, an Intel PowerMac will be running PPC apps under Rosetta which emulates a G3.
All in all, I reckon any 970MP PowerMac would give Intel a run for it's money for the next 2 years at least.
PowerBooks are getting beaten by the top end Pentium-Ms and desktop replacement luggables but again, without software any Intel laptop isn't going to beat today's PPC PowerBook. Dual-Yonah based intel PowerBooks running Rosetta might be able to beat today's PowerBooks though so they'd be updated before PowerMacs.
Raidersmojo said:
Well, there's a couple of things rumoured.
I'd expect the next PowerBook to be 7448 based. It's a drop in replacement for the 7447A so that doesn't need any changes. It does optionally however support a different power scaling feature with a couple of otherwise unused pins so I'd guess that is causing some engineering delay.
The 7448 is officially clocked at 1.7Ghz. Remember though that the 7447A is officially clocked only at 1.5Ghz. 7448 has twice the L2 cache, supports out-of-order Altivec instructions and a 200Mhz FSB. There's perhaps some changes to the veclib software to support Altivec.
Freescale are also slightly delayed on releasing the 7448. Current schedule says 'October' in volume. Apple usually gets their chips first though.
Secondly, it was rumoured to use the Intrepid2 chipset. Intrepid is the chip that supports Firewire, ethernet, DDR RAM, AGP etc in the current PowerBook, eMac and Mini IIRC. Nobody really knows what Interpid2 is supposed to support but I'd guess DDR2 at least for lower power requirements, maybe PCI-E for some more recent graphics support, and a 200Mhz FSB.
Anyway, if they do, the new PowerBooks would run a lot cooler and longer.
raggedjimmi said:i constantly use my Amiga A600 for Flashback and Turrican
Nope. 7.16Mhz 68000
BRLawyer said:
Not officially.
The Amiga 4000 topped out at a 68040-25Mhz although you could buy addon boards that included 68060-50Mhz. For a while it was actually quicker to run Mac software under emulation with 'Shapeshifter' on an Amiga than an actuall Mac. I did that for a year or so.
For that matter you could buy addon boards with PowerPC CPUs on and numerous other companies went on to create almost entire new Amiga compatible PPC based computers up to G3 and G4 chips.
Genesi just announced a computer that runs dual 970MP chips and they've had 7448 based prototypes since February. They'll all run various clones of AmigaOS. Amiga isn't dead yet.
aegisdesign said:
A cousin of mine had an Amiga 500 back in the early 90s...great little machine for games, I must admit...we had lotsa fun back then..!
bentoon said:
Go with your first thought. It's going to be a long time before a Dual/dualcore PowerMac becomes 'obsolete'. The transition is going to take a couple of years and some more to sort out the kinks in both hardware and software. I'm not even thinking of switching to Intel before OSX 10.5 plus a couple of updates and Rev B hardware and I'm waiting on new versions of the software I need to use.
In the meantime, ride out the transition with 2-3 years of trouble free PowerPC usage then consider it again.
aegisdesign said:
In market terms yes, they are just wishful thinking and dead meat by now...hardcore fans might buy them, no one else...
But you've mentioned 68060 add-on boards for the Amiga...actually the same Moto processor was planned as an add-on for 60830/40 Macs, too...it was a 68060 66MHz that would supposedly spank some of the early PPCs in the first PMs, notably the 601 that powered the PM 6100...
But reality set in, and DayStar people discovered that the 060 had the same performance in identical clock settings as the 040, so they killed it...check it out here:
http://www.applefritter.com/node/399
BRLawyer said:
Oh, totally. There's been too many screw ups now. There's more chance of a BeOS revival.
[/QUOTE]BRLawyer said:
Interesting I wasn't really into Macs then as the OS sucked. The 040 never went past 40Mhz on the Amiga AFAIK. Apple somewhat hopefully called their 040s 50Mhz, 66Mhz and 80Mhz but back then Intel were calling their 33Mhz 486DX2 66Mhz so I guess Apple were just counter-FUDing. The Amiga companies never took that line.
I don't know why the 060 wasn't faster clock for clock on the Mac but it was on the Amiga. The Amiga wasn't saddled with MacOS though, and of course the 060 when released was 50Mhz anyway, faster than any 040.
That link seems to suggest that Daystar had worked out it's PPC board was emulating 68k code faster than an 060 ran natively anyway. Apple's 68k emulation was very good back then. On the Amiga the PPC boards that got released had some dreadful 68k emulation initially although it was a lot harder to emulate than a Mac demanded. 68k MacOS was simpler than AmigaOS. No preemptive multitasking or User/Supervisor modes and largely interrupt driven IIRC.
Raidersmojo said:
That is what I'm starting to think as well, something BIG is in order! Hopefully they will update the Powerbooks (especially the 12") to make their place fit better into the line again.
iPod mini, a.k.a. 5th generation iPod
I wouldn't be surprised one bit if the iPod mini was back, but with a color screen and a 40/80GB hard drive, all thanks to the new perpendicular technology from Hitachi.
So long, brick-sized iPod, you'll be missed.
I wouldn't be surprised one bit if the iPod mini was back, but with a color screen and a 40/80GB hard drive, all thanks to the new perpendicular technology from Hitachi.
So long, brick-sized iPod, you'll be missed.
Foocha said:
That is beautiful. Although it does bring up an interesting point in my mind -- while the layout of the screen and click wheel looks great, it's hard to imagine using the click wheel for very long without cramping your thumb. It looks a little bit awkward to use with the wheel so small and close to the bottom. So even though this is obviously just conceptual, it does make me wonder how the heck Apple would get around this issue in real life.
Wow.....
it just looks so...Apple....it's funny how Creative and Archos try the same thing, and they make this ugly, massive device with like 20 buttons all around it....
Foocha said:
it just looks so...Apple....it's funny how Creative and Archos try the same thing, and they make this ugly, massive device with like 20 buttons all around it....
powerbook911 said:
Yeah that really makes a lot of sense?
Why would apple make the nano a chrome iPod and not an aluminum iPod if they were going to switch the regular iPod to aluminum? More likely, they will offer a black iPod as they do with the nanos.
"The black nano has been so popular and in demand that we are pleased to present the choice of a black iPod and the classic white iPod."
That is what my bet is on at least.
I'm not saying I wouldn't want one, just that there are other areas where I would prefer apple to be upgrading first. If a brighter, higher res screen gets bundled in with say a new graphics card anyway, all the better, if it doesn't, it'll come in time.rockthecasbah said:im sure you aren't bothered by it now, that is the general mentality at first...people say "oh im fine with this.." Then you look at the HD screen next to the current gen and you say "wow that's awful, i needs to get a new PB!!!!"
aegisdesign said:
Yes, I think that's the most likely candidate for these rumored upgrades.
So can we expect an...ummm...11% increase at the top end? Making the 17-incher and high-end 15-inch models top out at about 1.89 GHz? The cache and bus would be the biggest improvements, no?
Squire