Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 21:19:20 -0500 From: David Kelly <dkelly@HiWAAY.net> To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: apple moving to x86 Message-ID: <30399E44-07C0-4F3B-9B1C-9F4B2E020E9C@HiWAAY.net> In-Reply-To: <42A62D8D.2020100@digitalarcadia.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>
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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. 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. 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. > 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. > 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. > 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. -- David Kelly N4HHE, dkelly@HiWAAY.net ======================================================================== Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.
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