oh chill out kids, there are g3's running Tiger out there, granted it's through some hacks, but let's not act like the g5 is gonna die tomorrow.
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When will OS X not run on a G5?
- Thread starter Caitlyn
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Actually your talking a lot of sense, any way i don't know why you are all taking time guesses the G5 will be supported for as long as it is capable of running the softwareRacerX said:Actually the G5 has a better chance of out living some of the early Intel processors because it is not only faster, it is 64 bit. If you bought a MacBook and a G5 at the same time, odds favor the G5 over the MacBook.
Really, people should be asking how long Apple will continue to support 32 bit processors. My bet is that people with G4, Core Solo or Core Duo processors are more at risk than any one with a G5.
Makes you wonder about people who replaced their iMac G5 with one of the new Intel based (32 bit) versions. May not have been the upgrade they were thinking it was.
It's not like Apple would phase old CPU's out in each OS revision. It's more about the capabilities of each CPU and hardware requirements of each OS.
Take G3 for example; it has been good enough for OSX until now, and the only reason why they might drop G3 support from Leopard is if the OS requires SIMD-capable CPU, which G3 is not. Then again, the G4 is generally G3 plus SIMD, so in this regard they have no reason to drop the G4.
When would they drop the G4 then? Well, I don't even know. Leopard is touted to have some kind of 32bit/64bit hybrid system that allows 64bit (hardware dependent) but does not require 64bit CPU to function. The 64 bitness was my bet in when the G4 would be phased out, but it seems that's not the case. If 64bit CPU is not required and the G4 is SIMD-capable, then what is the feature that makes the G4 seem lacking? I think it will be supported just as long as the PPC architechture itself is supported.
And I bet it will be supported "forever" if Steve decides. It gives him negotiating power if nothing else is gained. I think he would want to include even more architechtures once people have fully converted their software projects into Xcode development environment. Once most software is compiled with Apple tools, then it will be a piece of cake to add support to more hardware platforms. Talk about universal binaries
So...
I'm close to preparing myself into eating my shorts if the G5 support is dropped before 2012. If it is, then there has been a major OS revolution, which I cannot foresee in that time frame. Without anything that major, I doubt OS requirements change enough to make Quad G5 sluggish. Tiger runs "fine" with G3/350MHz which is +6yr old, and back then it was not the fastest Mac money can buy. I don't think that the next six years will see the same kind of growth in basic hardware requirements that has been the case in the last six years.
Take G3 for example; it has been good enough for OSX until now, and the only reason why they might drop G3 support from Leopard is if the OS requires SIMD-capable CPU, which G3 is not. Then again, the G4 is generally G3 plus SIMD, so in this regard they have no reason to drop the G4.
When would they drop the G4 then? Well, I don't even know. Leopard is touted to have some kind of 32bit/64bit hybrid system that allows 64bit (hardware dependent) but does not require 64bit CPU to function. The 64 bitness was my bet in when the G4 would be phased out, but it seems that's not the case. If 64bit CPU is not required and the G4 is SIMD-capable, then what is the feature that makes the G4 seem lacking? I think it will be supported just as long as the PPC architechture itself is supported.
And I bet it will be supported "forever" if Steve decides. It gives him negotiating power if nothing else is gained. I think he would want to include even more architechtures once people have fully converted their software projects into Xcode development environment. Once most software is compiled with Apple tools, then it will be a piece of cake to add support to more hardware platforms. Talk about universal binaries
So...
I'm close to preparing myself into eating my shorts if the G5 support is dropped before 2012. If it is, then there has been a major OS revolution, which I cannot foresee in that time frame. Without anything that major, I doubt OS requirements change enough to make Quad G5 sluggish. Tiger runs "fine" with G3/350MHz which is +6yr old, and back then it was not the fastest Mac money can buy. I don't think that the next six years will see the same kind of growth in basic hardware requirements that has been the case in the last six years.
dornoforpyros said:
Why hacks? my ibook G3 600MHz runs Tiger ok, no hacks or anything... could do with more RAM (max'd out at 640MB) but it's still fine for the light use as a second machine that it gets.
But otherwise I agree. I think (and hope!) that the G5 will run new versions of OS X for a good 5 years+. I just don't see any reason that it would be technically difficult, after all Apple have gone on about how easy it is to make Universal Binaries, which in turn means developers have more potential customers and Apple is doing them a service by supporting the older machines with the newer OS releases.
Release of the first Power Macintosh computers... March 14, 1994.Josias said:
Release of the first Mac OS to not run on 68k hardware (Mac OS 8.5)... October 17, 1998.
4 years, 7 months
It should be noted that the first version of AppleWorks to not run on 68k hardware was AppleWorks 6 (released in early 2000... almost 6 years after the first Power Macintoshes).
RacerX said:Makes you wonder about people who replaced their iMac G5 with one of the new Intel based (32 bit) versions. May not have been the upgrade they were thinking it was.
Gaining near-silent fans made it an upgrade for me