Date: Tue, 07 Jun 2005 22:29:10 -0500 From: Duo <duo@digitalarcadia.net> To: David Kelly <dkelly@HiWAAY.net> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: apple moving to x86 Message-ID: <42A66606.2070206@digitalarcadia.net> In-Reply-To: <30399E44-07C0-4F3B-9B1C-9F4B2E020E9C@HiWAAY.net> References: <b41c755205060614186bb2a201@mail.gmail.com> <42A4FD3F.70407@pacific.net.sg> <c389a04d050607070752998e86@mail.gmail.com> <44y89mb1e0.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> <20050607175303.GA96525@Grumpy.DynDNS.org> <42A62D8D.2020100@digitalarcadia.net> <30399E44-07C0-4F3B-9B1C-9F4B2E020E9C@HiWAAY.net>
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David Kelly wrote: > > On Jun 7, 2005, at 6:28 PM, Duo wrote: > >> David Kelly wrote: >> >> >>> No, that is NOT Apple's plan. Apple's plan is to use Intel CPUs. It >>> has >>> nothing to do with "make the mac x86 compliant" or to use commodity PC >>> hardware. >>> >> Uhm, for the last several years, they have been using alot more >> "commodity" hardware, from AGP Video cards, etc. I cannot speak to x86 >> compliance, but, using commodity hardware, they most certainly have >> been >> doing. What do you call PCI/VGA? How about USB? USB wasnt even >> considered a commodity until it was slapped into an iMac. > > > Think possibly I didn't speak clearly enough. Apple is not *adding* > commodity-ness to their product line. Thinking about it I'd bet part > of the deal with Intel is a special crypto block or similar in the > CPU uniquely identifying it as an Apple Blessed CPU. Apple does this > very thing with disk drives. Originally Apple SCSI drivers would only > format and configure Apple-blessed drives. Currently the same thing > holds true for internal CD/DVD drives. But put the same non-Apple > drive on Firewire and MacOS is happy with it. > > The only AGP/PCI video cards I know of which work in a Mac are the > Apple-branded ATI's, but can't say I've been shopping lately. Cant speak too much to AGP, as my current macs are running as servers, and dont need the horsepower that AGP provides. But, I can say, I have a couple of really old PCI cards I use for my G4's, for VGA. Never had an issue. But, I do get what you are saying. Other than that, if there are issues with stock PC components, its typically driver related, not hardware spec related. Strictly speaking, also...I have never had an issue with any Hard Drives in an Apple machine since they went to IDE. Which was ages ago. Even their SCSI stuff was not that bad. Yes, the very early stuff was horrid, and very locked in. But, that was the way with many things. > Once Upon A Time I totally failed to convert a Matrox Millennium to > Mac service, even with Matrox software. Adaptec PCI SCSI cards > certainly can not be made to work in a Macintosh without major work, > one has to purchase the specific Macintosh version. PCI ethernet > cards often work on MacOS X due to those who "abandoned" BSD to work > for Apple on Darwin. Uhm, I dunno...if anything, I have never had any issues with PCI ethernet cards in any PCI mac. When I did, it was trying to get tulip based cards working with LinuxPPC. But, thats a different kettle of fish. Ahhh the days of toying with tulip.c > > Mouse, keyboard, and most USB devices work right out of the box on > Macintosh. > > It will be quite some time before one sees Apple software running on > commodity PC hardware. Well, if as has been surmised, the CPU will be standard intel stuff, I am not so sure. Apple has a tendency to tag motherboards, more than the CPU itself. Apple really never "blessed" a CPU, per se. It would "bless" the Boot ROM in older macs, and "bless" the ROM file in the NuWorld series of macs. When the full on switch to OF came about, such things werent really a bother anymore, as OF simply built the device tree, and passed it to the OS, similar to the way a BIOS does. I think, certainly, alot of this is academic, but, I would say, that...if we get Intel based CPU's, the push will be on in the various F/OSS communities to get OS X running on hardware not blessed by Apple. Apple's historical methodology of "blessing" its hardware has never been the CPU. It's always been something on the motherboard, so to speak. In the Gx line, the move to more industry accepted standards has been a big boost to apple, as things like VGA and USB are more generally accepted, and peripherials are easier to come by. I think this might be a trend that Apple has, over time, come to see more and more. So, *shrugs*, I really do not know. I am more than sure Apple will throw all sorts of wrenches into the works, in regard to running OSX on non sanctioned hardware, but, I guess my point is, if they are moving to x86 architecture, with a BSD backend...there may (and probably) be little or nothing that they can do to stop it. At its very core, (no pun) this is a change in architecture. A move from PPC to x86. Apple is not M$, they are not going to move the earth to keep their product completely unique the way they did circa 1988. They have shown a fairly steady move toward more industry standards, historically, the last ten years, than keeping it all "in house", so to speak. Their move to USB, instead of their horrid serial ports, the move to PCI from NuBus, etc. ADB was nice...but, it locked you into buying keyboards from mac vendors. > >> As someone who cut his teeth with Apple hardware, this is a glaring >> piece of misinformation. Sorry for the harsh tone, but, the days of >> "mac >> only" monitors, the Mac boot ROM, etc, have been long gone for >> awhile now. > > > Mac-only monitor? One only has to look back a little bit for the "17 > inch Apple Studio LCD". Has an Apple-only digital video interface. > Is damn cool. One cable has everything including power, USB, and a > couple of control switches which are apparently light sensors. Only > one plug at the end of the cable. Does a lot for cleaning up cable > clutter. Yeah, the DVI is nice. But, like Firewire, there are DVI cards for PC's. Unlike the old style Mac only monitors, which used the old Apple 9 (?) pin cable. > >> As for Apple's insistance they "wont allow" OS X to be run on anything >> other than sanctioned Mac hardware, id like to point to similar >> statements from the MPAA regarding DVD, etc. I give it two weeks from >> the retail release of OS X for intel, before we see a slashdot entry. > > > There are already those running PowerPC MacOS X on x86 hardware using > CPU interpreter/emulation. Thats not quite in the same ballpark...heck, its not even the same sport. Emulating PPC on x86 is fraught with all kinds of problems, in and of itself. One only has to look at the emulation out there to see that. The emulation being done is nowhere near any kind of speed that would be commercially or "production" acceptable. *snickers....cherryOS* > >> One thing, that I am insanely curious about, is, will this make endian >> issues in sourcecode not ported to PPC go away for the most part? >> Specifically in regard to networking (client/server)? > > > Is there a way to toggle a modern Intel CPU into big-endian mode? > Thats part of the big fuss with the G5 and VirtualPC, that unlike the > G4, the G5 can't be simply toggled back and forth between big and > little. Or maybe the G5 can't be toggled at all. Not sure. I do know, some of the Linux native server code I have worked with, as well as some of the bsd native code I have worked with, wont compile on OS X's backend. And, even if it did, the byte order would affect networking, from what I understand. -- Duo.
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