Really switching to Intel!!??

[advocate]

No emulation for the last transition

Apple successfully navigated a switch in the 1990s from Motorola's 680x0 line of processors to the Power line jointly made by Motorola and IBM. That switch also required software to be revamped to take advantage of the new processors' performance, but emulation software permitted older programs to run on the new machines.

Emulation? No, the transition tool used was FatBinary, where you could put code resources for both processors in the same resource fork. Doesn't anyone remember that transition any more?

http://software.mc.duke.edu/Mac/index.html:

With the introduction of the PowerMacintosh series, software can now come in 3 (three) flavors: 680x0, FatBinary, & Native. 680x0 is for the older Macs. This software will run in emulation mode on the PowerMacintoshes. FatBinary contains code for both platforms. Native (ppc) software will run only on Power Macintoshes.

 

[ERayFree]

Hahaha

Hahaha!!

Squirm fanboys, squirm!

I don't really care either way, but it amuses me too see you sycophants cry when your beloved master betrays you. (time after time after time...)

But that aside.... what does it really matter? It's not like x86 chips are noticably slower. If anything, Macs will be cheaper and will probably end up getting more software written for them unless Apple does something stupid to try to keep OS X from running on regular computers that the rest of the world already has.

You guys should be bitching that Apple chose Intel over AMD... I'm sure they have their reasons ($$$$).

I'd even buy a Mac if it was the "Cadillac" of computers that could still run Windows & Solaris x86.

Just imagine! You might be able to buy cheap, kick ass video cards! You might be able to play more games! (if not, then just dual boot into Windows). And you'll still get your OS X which is the main reason to buy a Mac anyway, right?

 

[nagromme]

I have a VERY bad feeling about this.

A was thinking an Intel PowerPC might be a nice addition to the family. And then I saw the Keynote date... and the rumors about this starting in mid 2006.

On Monday, Steve Jobs will announce that in a year, Intel-based Macs will start to arrive.

Now exactly what date is one year from the keynote?

6 / 6 / 06

I don't have a good feeling about this at all.

 

[Mr Maui]

Hahaha!!

Squirm fanboys, squirm!

I don't really care either way, but it amuses me too see you sycophants cry when your beloved master betrays you. (time after time after time...)

But that aside.... what does it really matter? It's not like x86 chips are noticably slower. If anything, Macs will be cheaper and will probably end up getting more software written for them unless Apple does something stupid to try to keep OS X from running on regular computers that the rest of the world already has.

You guys should be bitching that Apple chose Intel over AMD... I'm sure they have their reasons ($$$$).

I'd even buy a Mac if it was the "Cadillac" of computers that could still run Windows & Solaris x86.

Just imagine! You might be able to buy cheap, kick ass video cards! You might be able to play more games! (if not, then just dual boot into Windows). And you'll still get your OS X which is the main reason to buy a Mac anyway, right?

Uh oh, someone let the Windows-boy out of his white coat. Quick back to the padded room with him!!

 

[~Shard~]

A was thinking an Intel PowerPC might be a nice addition to the family. And then I saw the Keynote date... and the rumors about this starting in mid 2006.

On Monday, Steve Jobs will announce that in a year, Intel-based Macs will start to arrive.

Now exactly what date is one year from the keynote?

6 / 6 / 06

I don't have a good feeling about this at all.

Heh heh - good one nagromme, leave it to you to always figure out these cool little quirks like this...

 

[yvovandoorn]

I saw it

I have to disagree, though - your machine won't stop doing what you bought it to do if Apple announces it's going in a different direction. At some point you might not be able to upgrade the software any more, but still, everything you can do today you should be able to do next Tuesday.

Oh I know but the fact that I finally switched to a platform / company to be away from Intel and Microsoft and then to have it come and haunt me once again. Sure my current machine will do everything it wants to next Tuesday however Macs are made for longevity (spelling?) and 2 years is what I use for a computer. I spent $1799 on a machine thinking it will last me 3-4 years. Hell people still run the original iMac G3s and they are 6 years old. However this just upsets me. Intel wont create a PPC chipset as they don't even have rights to the chipset (apple could sell this to them) and they have no prior experience producing this chipset. AMD does (in some degree), so it seems unlikely that Apple will enlist Intel to make a PPC chipset.

I think I should just wait till Monday, but this news terrifies me. I love using the Mac and the PPC platform... **throws tantrum** I just don't want Intel!!

 

[Mr Maui]

A was thinking an Intel PowerPC might be a nice addition to the family. And then I saw the Keynote date... and the rumors about this starting in mid 2006.

On Monday, Steve Jobs will announce that in a year, Intel-based Macs will start to arrive.

Now exactly what date is one year from the keynote?

6 / 6 / 06

I don't have a good feeling about this at all.

Great, lets throw Satan into the mix at this late hour ... (at least it's late here)

 

[MacTruck]

A was thinking an Intel PowerPC might be a nice addition to the family. And then I saw the Keynote date... and the rumors about this starting in mid 2006.

On Monday, Steve Jobs will announce that in a year, Intel-based Macs will start to arrive.

Now exactly what date is one year from the keynote?

6 / 6 / 06

I don't have a good feeling about this at all.

Yo Damien stop scaring us, we are terrified enough as it is.

 

[admanimal]

In anycase.. I want to go on record and say that if Apple switches over to Intel, the platform I ran away from then I will put my Mac on ebay on Tuesday. No offense, but I am not about to have this Mac be useless 2-3 years from now if they are switching to a different processor.

Um, is your current Mac suddenly going to stop working if Apple builds a computer with an Intel CPU?

 

[nagromme]

Emulation? No, the transition tool used was FatBinary, where you could put code resources for both processors in the same resource fork. Doesn't anyone remember that transition any more?

Actually, there WAS emulation. You could run old 680x0 apps that were NOT fat binaries: the old binary WOULD run, because Apple used the PPC to emulate the 680x0 as needed.

In fact, parts of Apple's own system were still entirely 680x0 native and running in emulation for some time.

Fat Binaries were a SECOND aspect of the transition--one that allowed an app to combine both an old versions and a PPC app in a single file for convenience.

That allowed someone who did not own PPC to run the app, while still letting the "real" optimized version run natively on PPC so those folks could have the speed.

So emulation and fat binaries were both used, for different reasons.

 

[Sedulous]

A was thinking an Intel PowerPC might be a nice addition to the family. And then I saw the Keynote date... and the rumors about this starting in mid 2006.

On Monday, Steve Jobs will announce that in a year, Intel-based Macs will start to arrive.

Now exactly what date is one year from the keynote?

6 / 6 / 06

I don't have a good feeling about this at all.

Eeeegaaads! The number of the beast! Will Iron Maiden be the guest entertainers for that event?

 

[yvovandoorn]

Uh, okay...have fun on Windows or Linux.

People won't abandon ship - they didn't last time, did they? OSX was in beta for years - did that stop people from buying macs knowing their OS was going to be outdated. The transition from OS9 to OSX was a much greater transition than this.

For the end user, they won't even know if an IBM or Intel is under the hood. They'll just have to think about if the new piece of software they want works on 10.5 only or 10.5 and earlier, the same way they have to do right now with 10.4 and everything before it.

All this talk about "I don't want my money in a platform that won't exist 2 years from now" doesn't make a bit of sense - did we not jump from a g4 to g5? g3 to g4? Moto to IBM? OS9 to OSX? And what about the terrifying USB leap? There isn't a single change here for the end user that's any different than a standard processor or OS upgrade. Apple will make it seamless.

Your Mac will not explode the day Intel Macs come out.

I know it wont explode however comparing an OS upgrade to a hardware upgrade is comparing apples to oranges. With an OS upgrade you can expect the hardware that was produced in the last 2 years to atleast function and work properly as you should assume that the developers were developing on similiar hardware. However when changing platforms, it can be compared to a gender change on a human. You can have a male undergo a sex change look like a female but he will never function like a female. Meaning that you can emulate programs from the PPC to Intel but they will never function the same.

The jump from g3 to g4, g4 to g5 were PPC jumps. Again not comparable to PPC to x86. There are MAJOR differences between the two opposed to G3 vs G4 vs G5 were the fundamentels were similiar.

 

[~Shard~]

Eeeegaaads! The number of the beast! Will Iron Maiden be the guest entertainers for that event?

Nah, just Bill Gates...

 

[MacTruck]

Eeeegaaads! The number of the beast! Will Iron Maiden be the guest entertainers for that event?

More like Little Nicky.

 

[SiliconAddict]

Emulation? No, the transition tool used was FatBinary, where you could put code resources for both processors in the same resource fork. Doesn't anyone remember that transition any more?

http://software.mc.duke.edu/Mac/index.html:

Look at the date\times on the article:

Published: June 3, 2005, 5:08 PM PDT
Last modified: June 3, 2005, 5:11 PM PDT

Bet money they put that thing together in RECORD time to get it out before the weekend. verified accurate articles have never been news.com's strong point (if they have any. As I said on arstechnica C|Net sure knows how to post their articles. Its like a nuke detonated just over a city. They knew right when to post it to generate the most buzz.

Anyone want to take bets whether or not macrumors "LOW" bandwidth server is going to crash into a quivering pile of goo come Monday?

 

[admanimal]

A was thinking an Intel PowerPC might be a nice addition to the family. And then I saw the Keynote date... and the rumors about this starting in mid 2006.

On Monday, Steve Jobs will announce that in a year, Intel-based Macs will start to arrive.

Now exactly what date is one year from the keynote?

6 / 6 / 06

I don't have a good feeling about this at all.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say I think it's more likely that we'll see an IBM-made 6-core 6GHz G6 Mac released on 6/6/06 than any kind of Mac with an Intel CPU. I could be mistaken.

 

[Mr Maui]

As fun as this thread has been, I'm heading off to rest. Need my strength to fight the beast. Besides, this thread will probably be 40 pages long by morning. After all. What else has there been prior to WWDC.

 

[fabsgwu]

Just imagine! You might be able to buy cheap, kick ass video cards! You might be able to play more games! (if not, then just dual boot into Windows). And you'll still get your OS X which is the main reason to buy a Mac anyway, right?

I switched to Mac for OS X, and because Apple has control over the quality and of the hardware. It would be great to have more choices, but I don't want to see Apple reduced to the lowest common denominator.

If there is a switch I think Steve will make sure Apple continues to innovate, and continues making the total user experience superior to Windows. That will necessarily mean a higher degree of control over WHAT the Mac OS is running on (unless there's a shift in that thinking going on too)...

 

[yvovandoorn]

Um, is your current Mac suddenly going to stop working if Apple builds a computer with an Intel CPU?

No but I bought into the platform, not just the computer. My plan was to have all my computers on the PPC platform by the end of 06. Hell I just finished convincing my bro the other day to get an iBook. With one the reasons I used was that it was PPC cpu and not a x86 which needs a NX bit to not have buffer overflows created by software on the system.

 

[admanimal]

However when changing platforms, it can be compared to a gender change on a human. You can have a male undergo a sex change look like a female but he will never function like a female. Meaning that you can emulate programs from the PPC to Intel but they will never function the same.

And the award for weirdest analogy ever goes to....

 

[Mr Maui]

I switched to Mac for OS X, and because Apple has control over the quality and of the hardware. It would be great to have more choices, but I don't want to see Apple reduced to the lowest common denominator...

Windows??

 

[~Shard~]

They knew right when to post it to generate the most buzz.

Well, if it's one thing they know how to do well it's that!

Anyone want to take bets whether or not macrumors "LOW" bandwidth server is going to crash into a quivering pile of goo come Monday?

I think Arn might have something to say about that...

 

[yvovandoorn]

And the award for weirdest analogy ever goes to....

I know, I know. I smiled when I was typing it up but I had to drive my point home and why not compare computers to humans.

 

[codycartoon]

now seems like a perfect time to either buy ridiculous amounts of apple stock or sell ridiculous amounts of apple stock.

I will sit and watch with my 50 shares.

-cody

 

[dontmatter]

whew. What a rumor. Would macs become virus ridden on account of it?

I think, mostly, this would be a good move for apple-if they're on the same hardware, they don't have to worry about falling behind or IBM sucking, (or intel sucking, for that matter, because if they do, then computers will just suck). Intel seems to have some good devolepments up it's sleeves, too, that would at the very least give IBM a run for their money.

So, they get rid of a risk, and so gain control. They can make good software, they can make nice designs. That would be all to matter.

The problem side of it, though, is that it sucks for the whole market. The fight of the wintel monopoly would be given forefit on all but the windows side of it. And everybody knows it take competition for any sort of advancment.

well, what can you do.

I hope magically, if this does happen (and i don't think I hope for that), that x86 software will work on the new systems, and x86 viruses will not.