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The Macintosh TV was a road apple. It only had one expansion slot that had the TV capture card in it. It was slow for its time. You couldn't even watch TV in a window; it had to be full screen. There was no way to record video.

If they had made it more capable, they might have sold more. But it was cheaper to buy a faster Mac and put a cheap TV next to it, than to buy the Macintosh TV. I know; I was there.

I was there, too. I had a consulting client who had one for a few years, and actually ran his Architectural consulting business on it, plus published the first edition of his heavily-illustrated Stagecraft book on it, too.

I agree that the Apple TV was too weak, but it was at least an attempt at a good idea. And having only one free slot on a computer that was a "consumer"-intended product, especially a Mac, was hardly an impediment to most. Since that was a 68k All-In-One Mac, I believe it would have been a PDS slot, and other than the cool Apple //e Card, and I believe an Ethernet card, I don't believe much was available for that slot.

Oh wait... I guess we're both wrong. According to this, the AppleTV had NO expansion slots.

Mmmm... Ok, but you are exaggerating in this statement:

My MacPro, four Xeon cores and 20GB of RAM, with six drive bays,
doesn't have a MacOS upgrade path beyond 10.6.8,

Of all Mac Pro models only the earliest four don't run OS X 10.10 Yosemite. But all four of them can be upgraded to 10.7.5, as you can verify by clicking on their links in that page.

I find it odd that an owner of such a machine wouldn't know that.

So what you are saying is that we should buy expensive smartphones

iPods weren't cheap.

disable all cellular connections, remove updates from a device connected to the internet, effectively dim the screen as dark as possible, and then stick in the largest SD card we can find and then we can match the performance of a cheap iPod for a cool $700? Sign me up!

Nice straw man. You don't need to do any of that. The point is that if you don't install tons of background apps and don't watch youtube all day, you should be able to listen to music for a very long time. Many Smartphone users actively avoid updates because of the problems they sometimes cause.

In all seriousness though if there is a suggestion for matching a device's functionality which involves so heavily gimping a smartphone then it really is a great scenario where having a separate device would be ideal

The point I was making is that if 90% of people's needs can be met with one device, the remaining niche probably won't justify holding on to an entirely separate product line. And it's not as if there's anything the iPod does that modern gadgets absolutely can't.

not to mention that I don't like a scenario which potentially leaves me stuck because either my phone doesn't work because I've been using it for non-stop music listening.

I would really recommend an external power bank. I've completely stopped worrying about battery issues since I got one. They can hold an incredible amount of charge so you can run even the most demanding tasks all day. You can charge your "phone functionality" as well as your "music functionality". Not to mention practically everything else (like my camera battery) as they're universal. They weigh hardly any more than an iPod and are much much cheaper.

I'll also happily challenge the fact that a smartphone can match the iPod's battery performance.

Fine. I haven't got an iPhone, so I can't test it myself. I was able to find this which claims 40 hours of music playback. The last generation of iPod apparently could play for 36 hours. But I think it should be pointed out that the most popular models most people remember had far less than that.

Most of the battery saving features involve switching the CPU into an ultra low power state, something that can't be done while playing music.

My battery monitor app suggests that by far the most power is consumed by the screen and radio adapters. This seemed to apply to my old iPod nano too, which was rated as lasting for 12 hours, which it would do so long as you didn't touch anything. But change the song now and then or browse through your collection for a few minutes and you'll be lucky to get half that.

Or I just didn't pay attention to Apple in the '90s and was too lazy to look it up. As a 2000 grad, I'd say I lived through the 90's. I also tend to get my history right when it related to something I actually care about. That being said:

1) You're thinking of Windows 95, which didn't see USB support until OSR2.1.Windows 98 did, in fact, ship with USB support.
2) USB 1.0 debuted in 1995, USB 1.1 in 1998. The iMac G3 did drop legacy ports as you claim, but is that a pair of Firewire ports I see? Yes, because Firewire was Apple's darling at the time and not a legacy port
3) I won't argue this, as it's factually correct as far as I am aware; however: the first 2 iPod models did not support USB at all, and the 3 after it only supported sync, no charging via USB for them.
4) Yes, you do.

Yes, to an extent. While there is significant overlap, one carrier's phone may not support all of the frequencies, or even technology, of another.

The easiest example of this is the different versions of the iPhone, explained here. Note the LTE bands.

LTE is only used for data, not voice. Also, each carrier uses different frequencies for LTE, so that has been a source of carrier-locking. The iPhone does this as well.

For more info: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/iphone/iphone-faq/differences-between-iphone-5-models.html

While there may be limited fallback, it's not very useful when switching carriers.

Tried Mac in 2013 for 6 months, not an awesome experience. Never freed up large amounts of memory unless i did it manually, adobe products temp files took up 130gb and not intuitive to find and delete, little things like single clicking on a long file name to see the whole file from the desk top or even finder was impossible. That was important to me since my photo file names are usually pretty long(Latename - date - sequence). It didnt work for the way that "I" work so it wasnt an option. Plus, bought the MBP maxed out for 2500, couldnt sell if for more than 1300. Complete waste of money and time for me.

If you didn't like it, you didn't like it, and that's fine... you should certainly work using whatever tools you feel most comfortable with. But your specific points I don't get.

Why are you trying to micromanage memory usage? This isn't the 90's. The OS will free up memory when it is needed. Any memory that is just sitting around "free" is memory wasted. The best way to check if you're running into memory constraints is to check if the OS is using swap at all (Mavericks has a nice memory pressure graph too, though in 2013 you probably did not have Mavericks).

Adobe software sucks, but it should be cleaning up its own temp files except in rare circumstances. I've never had orphaned temp files in the decade+ I've been using Photoshop and Indesign. Still, if they're a problem, you only need to learn where they're stored once.

The easiest way to view long filenames is in list mode. If you're looking through a bunch of files with long filenames, it's stupid to do it in grid mode, where you're obviously constrained by the grid. The desktop itself is grid-mode-only, but the desktop folder can be viewed in a Finder window like any other folder. And if you must - hover your mouse over a truncated filename and the full thing will pop up as a tooltip (if you're navigating through the files with the keyboard, hitting enter or return will show the whole thing).

And your resale value - obviously this varies from place to place but a Mac about a year old should sell for at least 2/3 its original value - $2k or maybe even $2.2k would have been more than reasonable for a 6 month old Mac. 1/2 the original value is more common for a 2+ year old laptop. I have a number of friends who do the sell-and-upgrade cycle every year or two and it works quite well for them (though I personally don't find it worth the trouble). If you live somewhere where the local resale value is low, just use eBay. Based on the price, I assume this was your Mac, and now at >1 year old they're going for $1800.

The original ipod was described thusly

The original iPod features a 5 GB hard drive (10 GB option available after March 21, 2002) capable of holding 1000 songs in 160-Kbps MP3 format (or 2000 on the 10 GB drive), a high output amplifier (60-mW), a FireWire port, and a standard 3.5-mm headphone jack in an ultrasleek "iBook white" and stainless steel case with a 2-inch white backlit LCD display. Battery life is an estimated 10 hours

4 minutes per song. Which may be a the long side.
when hawking a large hard drive, it may be wiser to describe it in terms of "hours of high definition video", because compared to video, audio, even lossless audio, seems a bit of an afterthought.

My macbook pro was $2200 in mid-2007, not quite "low end."

But what about the other possibility I laid out? After all, I said if it wasn't a low-end machine, it must be the other option, and I'd certainly agree with you that yours was not a low-end machine. Let's re-read what I said:

If you're still running 10.6 for some reason, your computer is either a low-end one from at least 7 years ago, or you've made an intentional choice to remain on 10.6 for some reason

Clearly your machine was not a low-end one, but given that all of the MacBook Pro models released in the mid-2007 update (e.g. what I believe is your machine, based on the price you provided) are still fully supported and capable of running Mavericks, I can only assume that if you're still on 10.6, you're there by choice. The last time Apple sold a MacBook Pro that was incapable of upgrading to 10.7 or beyond was October 2006, when they discontinued the first-gen MacBook Pros that used Core Duo chips (yours uses a Core 2 Duo, in contrast).

So, again, I'd still suggest you're on 10.6 by choice, particularly so since the update to Mavericks is free for you, and last time I checked, free means free, regardless of if you live near the WSJ HQ or not. ;)

P.S. I may have it wrong, however, if you purchased your machine right before the mid-2007 updates. Even if you did, however, you'd still be able to upgrade to 10.7 and receive security updates via it, so that wouldn't disprove the assertion I made in my previous comment.

Apple hasn't sold a 32-bit Mac since they discontinued the last Core Duo model back in August 2007. Considering we're now in 2014, I think they're justified in leaving anyone still using a 7 year old Mac Mini behind.

That is to say, the Mac he was demonstrating was different from the Mac Apple was selling: it had 512K of RAM. The only Mac available for purchase at launch had 128K and was not capable of running the MacInTalk speech synthesis software.

True, true. But the the 128K Mac was upgradable to 512K (albeit by an authorized reseller, not by the end user), and Macs that already came with 512 KB of RAM were introduced later that year.

That is to say, the Mac he was demonstrating was different from the Mac Apple was selling: it had 512K of RAM. The only Mac available for purchase at launch had 128K and was not capable of running the MacInTalk speech synthesis software.

True, true. But the the 128K Mac was upgradable to 512K (albeit by an authorized reseller, not by the end user), and Macs that already came with 512 KB of RAM were introduced later that year.

IIRC up until a year or so ago, Apple was still selling Macbooks and even higher-end Macbook Pros with Core 2 Duo chips even though Sandy Bridge i{3,5,7} chips were spreading en masse

If by "or so" you mean two thousand and ten, then yes.

IIRC up until a year or so ago, Apple was still selling Macbooks and even higher-end Macbook Pros with Core 2 Duo chips even though Sandy Bridge i{3,5,7} chips were spreading en masse

If by "or so" you mean two thousand and ten, then yes.

Unless your job is to edit widescreen movies, a widescreen display has no place on a business laptop.

What's so bad about being able to view two pages side by side? There was a time when 1152x870 was a "two-page" display.

As far as I'm concerned, a hardware router...

There is no such thing. A device that moves data from one location to another, using some policies to examine and transform it, is not just a "hardware" device.

That's completely immaterial. A hardware router is distinguished from a software router by whether it is or is not a general-purpose computer. Hardware routers range from that little D-Link all the way up to Cisco boxes. In the most extreme designs, the hardware provides a dedicated I/O processor that performs the actual routing functions, allowing it to route data considerably faster than a general-purpose computer can.

A hardware router is distinguished from a software router by the fact that a software router is capable of executing general-purpose instructions. In theory, you can make a hardware router that is only ever able to execute routing functions, and I think many routers do have portions of TCP/IP hard-wired into the silicon, but I'm not aware of routers where that's the only thing they do. In practice, the highest-level hardware routing that I know is the MAC caching in unmanaged switches.

Home routers are especially bad. Only a few of them use hardware for the routing, and all of them have general-purpose processor cores. The 802.11n router that I got for $50 this year has 128MB of RAM, 32MB of storage, and a 680MHz MIPS 24K processor. Except for the storage and floating point, that's far more computing power than I had in my desktop 15 years ago. I could install X Window libraries and run graphical programs from my router. If I wanted to, I could even attach USB storage and display adapter, and use it as my desktop.

The crazy thing is, even though you are right that these are low specs by modern standards, these are still basically laptop-level specs. Hell, it would beat a 2006 MacBook *Pro*:

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook_pro_1.67.html

The convergence between phones and computers is nigh. The Ubuntu Edge concept was ahead of its time, but soon enough smartphones will have enough computing power to fill 95% of people's needs. When that happens, who would want to buy a huge, noisy desktop box rather than just plug a screen+keyboard into the phone that you carry with you all the time anyway?

Same thing for laptops. How long will it take before the majority of "laptops" are actually empty shells into which you can just plug your phone?

I've heard that a co-worker of mine upgraded his MBP's SSD and RAM.

This website, http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook-air/macbook-air-faq/macbook-air-mid-2012-how-to-replace-upgrade-ssd-storage.html, seems to imply that the only thing you need is a funky screwdriver.

Back in the 90s, when computers cost $5,000-$10,000 in today's dollars, it made sense to keep upgrading them. Now the top-of-the-line computers are cheap enough that it's easier to just buy one that you can afford to replace every 4 years or so.

The mac 128k and 512k had proprietary de-9 ports for mouse, printer and modem and iirc, an Rj-11 port for the keyboard. The mac plus introduced the mini-din 8 ports for the modem/printer, which had the advantage of being small enough that the designers could squeeze in a db25 for SCSI though that miniature connection ended up being the cause of much SCSI voodoo. The proper connection for SCSI is huge.

At some point, apple started using the RS422 standard for serial. The printer port was rather fast (230kbs) and could be used for LocalTalk, a crude network interface.
The. Mac SE and later macs used a miniDIN4 for the Apple Desktop bus, usually used for daisychaining a mouse to the keyboard, but other things such as joysticks (if you could find one) or dongles could be attached. Kind of like a slower, less exasperating version of SCSI. (I recall programming a gameSprocket driver for my. macAlly Joystick) Don't recall the exact details, but each device had an device id along the same lines as a USB manufacturer id/device Id.

FWIW - have you tried to upgrade a Mac Pro's graphics card in the past? There are unfortunately very very few options even with the standard connector. I'd bet the situation remains about the same with this newer design.

- However, their plants in Shanghai are still assembling retinas with the LG screen (see thread for confirmation of this) - why, I don't know; maybe they have supplies to use up.

Not true. At least not anymore, unless CTO configurations are an exception. My new work box was manufactured in Shanghai in February (in week 8 according to this page), and it seems to have Samsung's panel.

You may be able to get it, but no security patches will go in. My mac is a B&W G3 upgraded to a G4/600 and it hasn't been patched by Apple in at least 6 years (when X.4 support ended). I have manually patched quite a bit of it, but usually I run Yellow Dog Linux on it.

The Apple Power Macintosh G3 450 (Blue & White) was discontinued in 1999. That was 14 years ago and even if Apple discontinued support 6 years ago that leaves 7 years the Mac was supported.

On the other hand in December 1997 I bought a brand new PC with MS Windows NT 4.0 Workstation. In 2000 MS stopped updating NT4 for it. Last I checked, maybe 2 years ago MS still provided the downloads that were available for it but stopped updating the system. I realize now I was a fool in getting it as it's a DEC Alpha based PC. I believed all the hype about it being able to run all the software that ran in NT4, but of all the programs I bought for it I was only able to install Borland C++ Power Builder. What I thought was weird though is that I downloaded and was able to install freeware and shareware on it. For the price I could have bought a PPC Mac and ran the Mac OS, MS Windows, and Linux.

Oh, and I still have the DEC Alpha. When it ran programs it was fast. And it's setup to dual-boot Redhat 7 Linux.

Falcon

Actually, this seems to show that the brightest Mac display is 400 cd/m^2 (NITs. Yeah, I got the pun). Daylight readable displays usually start at around 1000 cd/m^2.

That's not what's happening here. Proview is in bankruptcy... and was seeking a windfall to save the company. Apple was generous to even go to court with them. Had Apple waited another year, maybe Proview would be no more, and Apple could have used the name in the Chinese market without dispute. Here, FWIW, is their product. The Proview iPAD is not a tablet computer but a 800x600px 15" CRT-based 256Mhz AIO Linux desktop w/ 32MB RAM and a 16GB HDD... maybe its just me but I think it looks all too familiar. At any rate, I don't think Apple's iPad was competing with it nor putting their sales at risk. Hopefully this sheckle Apple has thrown to Proview allows them to restructure and stay in business.

What application is being used? Something that cripples itself with emulation? See this: http://www.everymac.com/ultimate-mac-comparison-chart/?compare=all-g3-g4-g5-intel-macs&highlight=0&prod1=PowerMacG5014 - I couldn't find any i7 Macs (even the laptops and minis) that weren't at least 3 times faster than the PPC Quad Core 2.5GHz (which is really two CPUs with two cores each).

I was 14 years old in 1994
I had a Macintosh LC 475 back then. It had a 25 Mhz Motorola 68040 CPU and had come pre-installed with Microsoft Virtual PC for the Mac which emulated x86 architecture on the Motorola 68040.
A magazine called PCQuest ( It was a geek-focussed magazine then; it's a CIO-focussed magazine now ) came out with Slackware on the CD. ( I cannot remember the version)
I managed to installed Linux as a VM on my Mac 18 years ago using this. ( That's a link to my blog post with more details as to how I did it )
Of course I did not know what Virtualization was. I did not have an internet connection even!
It took me a year to get X running - just by reading the man pages and configuring modelines and hsync and vsync values
My proudest moment was when I wrote my own man page using nroff ( IIRC ) and it showed me bold fonts in a terminal. I did not know even know what a terminal was, except that Jeff Goldblum destroyed the Aliens by uploading a computer virus through it ( Movie: Independence Day ) I am nostalgic

Jobs most certainly did make that specific claim:

When we look at Intel, they've got great performance, yes, but they've got something else that's very important to us. Just as important as performance, is power consumption. And the way we look at it is performance per watt. For one watt of power how much performance do you get? And when we look at the future road maps projected out in mid-2006 and beyond, what we see is the PowerPC gives us sort of 15 units of performance per watt, but the Intel road map in the future gives us 70, and so this tells us what we have to do.

IBM had a roadmap as well as Intel, but Jobs claimed that Intel's roadmap was for better performance per watt. I never saw either roadmap. That's why I want to know how the two chip lines actually performed per watt since. Which would show whether a decision based on it was actually the right one. And if not, suggest that perhaps (if Jobs expected otherwise) that there was a different reason than the one Jobs claimed.

I believe I recall reading that Apple was distraught over IBM not being able to provide a viable mobile version of the G5 in a reasonable time frame. But I don't think there was any singular reason for the switch, it was based on several large factors with the aforementioned being a large one no doubt.

Jobs most certainly did make that specific claim:

When we look at Intel, they've got great performance, yes, but they've got something else that's very important to us. Just as important as performance, is power consumption. And the way we look at it is performance per watt. For one watt of power how much performance do you get? And when we look at the future road maps projected out in mid-2006 and beyond, what we see is the PowerPC gives us sort of 15 units of performance per watt, but the Intel road map in the future gives us 70, and so this tells us what we have to do.

IBM had a roadmap as well as Intel, but Jobs claimed that Intel's roadmap was for better performance per watt. I never saw either roadmap. That's why I want to know how the two chip lines actually performed per watt since. Which would show whether a decision based on it was actually the right one. And if not, suggest that perhaps (if Jobs expected otherwise) that there was a different reason than the one Jobs claimed.

There's never been a Mac III though, since that number was deemed bad luck after the ill-fated Apple III.

God, I love the Internet.

Way back when, I was considering buying my first computer (an Amstrad), for word-processing, I came across the Sharp 1410 'dedicated word processor'. I can't find a picture online, but it was an electric typewriter, with a 10(?) line LED screen, and some embedded software applications; a word processor, spreadsheet. You could save to 3.5" floppies. Thinking back, I still think that was a good choice for a student. Brother seems to be the only firm making typewriters now, and the dedicated word processor appears to have disappeared as an option.

My first computer ended up being an iMac 350.

Troll; liar; HAND.

http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/stats/powermac_g4_867_qs.html Introduction Date: January 28, 2002

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MAC_OS_X_SNGL#overview System Requirements * Mac computer with an Intel processor

The clones didn't expand the Mac market because they cannibalized Apple's sales rather than adding new customers.

Revisionist BS, fixed, as the entire purpose of the clone program was to "expand the Mac market". But the cloners weren't "expanding the Mac market", they were selling to Apple's existing customers.

The clone maker's designs had to be approved by Apple.

Because they didn't did want shitty products bearing the Mac name.

PowerComputing showed at trade shows several models in development that would have taken the Mac to new markets--but they could not get permission from Apple to sell them.

G3 systems, which was right when the cloning program was killed off. But stop pretending that Apple didn't allow innovation - Daystar had a quad processing 604e system, something never produced by Apple.

Indeed. Stealthy it is not, nor new: http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/messagepad/stats/newton_mp_100.html

Really?

Can we agree that a 10 year old mac would be one released around Q4 1999?

If this page is accurate, the iMac G3/400 was released on October 4 1999. Which would meet the minimum specs for OS X 10.4, albeit only just. Had you pushed the boat out and bought a PowerMac, you'd have a processor with a similar raw clock speed only it'd be a G4 rather than a G3.

Now, according to mozilla.org, Firefox 3.5 requires OS X 10.4.

Of course, this is taking things to an extreme because few people would consider a 10-year old computer to offer a great deal of useful life, but to claim that PCs have a 2.5x longer support life is just downright lying.

Does 1152 * 870 count as landscape?

"Here's my point: OLPC can actually CONTRACT with Apple. How do they MAKE "Linux" (whatever THAT is!) perform ON SCHEDULE, TO SPEC, *OR ELSE*?"

That's hard to do when you accept Apple's offer is to do it for free. How can you exactly force Apple to do something for free? If you have a ton of money, you can hire them, but how do you justify them doing that instead of fostering open-source development that you can own in the end? Would OLPC own the ARM port of OSX? Of course not.

First off, learn to use the 'quote' tag, fucktard. It was really challenging trying to sort your ramblings out when they were intertwined with my erudite arguments.

HTML-bashing aside, however, the above shows the conceit of the "F/OSS community" (whatever THAT is!). Here's why: As other people have pointed out, it would be a huge feather in Apple's cap (and a potential significant marketshare-gainer) to be chosen by the OLPC project to provide the OS and included applications-suite. So, even if there weren't the economic "punishments" that come with non-performance on a contract, Apple would not enjoy the bad press associated with not delivering on that most-humanitarian of promises.

Linux already runs on ARM.

So does a version of OS X.

As do a lot of Linux applications.

As do certain KEY OS X applications.

On ARM, on MIPS, on POWER/PowerPC, SPARC and others.

And for OS X, on PowerPC, on x86, and on ARM. Will we be getting to your point soon?

Most of the time, all you need is to recompile the program.

Ya know, it funny; but you seem to be about the only person here that seems to think that. Read this article, if you don't believe me.

This is, you know, the beauty of real Unix-like OSs.

Funny, I seem to remember something about OS X being a CERTIFIED UNIX. Can ANY Linux (whatever THAT is!) distro claim as much? I'd REALLY enjoy you getting to the POINT...

I bet you can find a dozen other companies more experienced in ARM processors than Apple. They just started it the other year.

Of course not. Afterall, Apple has no longstanding ARM experience.

Fucktard.

Linux

Whatever THAT is!

is running on ARM architectures (from the very simple embedded ones to netbook-class OMAP ones) since like ever.

And yet you provide not ONE single example... Hmmm...

No. But why would you hire Apple when you could just pick one and cultivate it to the stage you want? You can hire Apple just as much you can hire Canonical or Red Hat. If you can pay, you can have some very talented people.

Ok, but you have just "hired" someone who then is responsible for, for WHAT, exactly?

This is why I keep annoyingly saying "Whatever THAT is!" whenever the term "Linux" is used. What exactly IS a "Linux"? It is NOT a simple question. But it SURE ain't JUST the Linux Kernel. But when it comes to LEGAL LIABILITY (which is what matters to organizations such as the OLPC project), WHO CAN BE MADE RESPONSIBLE?

And you mention Red Hat. How is THAT a COST-SAVINGS??? Let me tell you something; when Linux (whatever THAT is!) isn't FREE (as in beer), it loses it's most attractive feature both to the OLPC project, and to a large extent, to most thinking beings. Because who in their right mind wants to mess with the torture that Linu

"Here's my point: OLPC can actually CONTRACT with Apple. How do they MAKE "Linux" (whatever THAT is!) perform ON SCHEDULE, TO SPEC, *OR ELSE*?"

That's hard to do when you accept Apple's offer is to do it for free. How can you exactly force Apple to do something for free? If you have a ton of money, you can hire them, but how do you justify them doing that instead of fostering open-source development that you can own in the end? Would OLPC own the ARM port of OSX? Of course not.

First off, learn to use the 'quote' tag, fucktard. It was really challenging trying to sort your ramblings out when they were intertwined with my erudite arguments.

HTML-bashing aside, however, the above shows the conceit of the "F/OSS community" (whatever THAT is!). Here's why: As other people have pointed out, it would be a huge feather in Apple's cap (and a potential significant marketshare-gainer) to be chosen by the OLPC project to provide the OS and included applications-suite. So, even if there weren't the economic "punishments" that come with non-performance on a contract, Apple would not enjoy the bad press associated with not delivering on that most-humanitarian of promises.

Linux already runs on ARM.

So does a version of OS X.

As do a lot of Linux applications.

As do certain KEY OS X applications.

On ARM, on MIPS, on POWER/PowerPC, SPARC and others.

And for OS X, on PowerPC, on x86, and on ARM. Will we be getting to your point soon?

Most of the time, all you need is to recompile the program.

Ya know, it funny; but you seem to be about the only person here that seems to think that. Read this article, if you don't believe me.

This is, you know, the beauty of real Unix-like OSs.

Funny, I seem to remember something about OS X being a CERTIFIED UNIX. Can ANY Linux (whatever THAT is!) distro claim as much? I'd REALLY enjoy you getting to the POINT...

I bet you can find a dozen other companies more experienced in ARM processors than Apple. They just started it the other year.

Of course not. Afterall, Apple has no longstanding ARM experience.

Fucktard.

Linux

Whatever THAT is!

is running on ARM architectures (from the very simple embedded ones to netbook-class OMAP ones) since like ever.

And yet you provide not ONE single example... Hmmm...

No. But why would you hire Apple when you could just pick one and cultivate it to the stage you want? You can hire Apple just as much you can hire Canonical or Red Hat. If you can pay, you can have some very talented people.

Ok, but you have just "hired" someone who then is responsible for, for WHAT, exactly?

This is why I keep annoyingly saying "Whatever THAT is!" whenever the term "Linux" is used. What exactly IS a "Linux"? It is NOT a simple question. But it SURE ain't JUST the Linux Kernel. But when it comes to LEGAL LIABILITY (which is what matters to organizations such as the OLPC project), WHO CAN BE MADE RESPONSIBLE?

And you mention Red Hat. How is THAT a COST-SAVINGS??? Let me tell you something; when Linux (whatever THAT is!) isn't FREE (as in beer), it loses it's most attractive feature both to the OLPC project, and to a large extent, to most thinking beings. Because who in their right mind wants to mess with the torture that Linu

Yes, Apple has a LOT of ARM experience...

Like nearly more than anyone else on the planet.

Including bringing that technology to an educational-market-targeted micro-laptop.

And considering Apple was one of the driving forces behind modern ARM development in the first place, and all...

No, it makes no sense whatsoever for Apple and OS X to be considered for an ARM-based OLPC. No sense at all...~

Yes, Apple has a LOT of ARM experience...

Like nearly more than anyone else on the planet.

Including bringing that technology to an educational-market-targeted micro-laptop.

And considering Apple was one of the driving forces behind modern ARM development in the first place, and all...

No, it makes no sense whatsoever for Apple and OS X to be considered for an ARM-based OLPC. No sense at all...~

8 hours is for using your laptop as a picture frame. If you actually want to do anything with it the time is much less.

the 867mhz single processor powermac g5 came out in 01 right along with the top of the line dual 800mhz it was 733mhz 867mhz and dual 800 http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/stats/powermac_g4_867_qs.html (everymac.com)

Apple did actually license clones at one point, but only for a brief period of time...

The Motorola StarMax computers in the mid-90s. I used a couple of them at work. They weren't bad computers, just ugly. Like fugly ugly. The deal died when Apple refused to continue the partnership.

There's an interesting interview with Dale Blankenship of Motorola just before the partnership ended, where he makes some comments about the future of Apple-clone partnerships. Remember, Apple was in the crapper, with Steve jobs gone, Windows 95 on the rise and OS 9 looking old and tired.

One of the reasons that the Mac-compatible vendors are so important is that it improves the perception of the Mac OS as stable and having long-term support. Part of what has happened to Apple is self-fulfilling prophecies; i.e., "As a user, I'm afraid they might not be successful, so I won't buy their machines", which makes them unsuccessful. User confidence is critical, and I think the other vendors (and Motorola, in particular) help restore that.

In contrast to this previous legitimate partnership, Psystar smells like a venture capital scam, or the Phantom console all over again.

And anyway, I was on about getting the hardware to work with modern software, which Apple simply restricts you from doing, even when it's technically possible.

Yes, proprietary software, again --

and proprietary hardware.

1. Not perfect, but they can be converted
2. Do you try to do this much? I don't, so it wouldn't be a problem for me
3. Browsing is complex and not designed for a device like this. They are giving you a reference, not a crippled browser
4. OK, but it has CDMA access, which works fine when you aren't near a WiFi access point, or even if you are near one.
5. But it looks better than an equivelent LCD

Wrong.. That newton was 480x320. The screen was physically smaller. It didn't have nearly as much contrast. The battery life isn't the same (the Kindle is measured in page turns, it will hold a page image practically forever). Newtons were great (I had one), but don't kid yourself. They aren't equivalent.

The Kindle is interesting. The keyboard is ugly. The screen refresh time still seems like a problem for me (although I know it is a problem with all E-Ink stuff now). I think the Sony device looks much better. Still, these are quire an advance. My brother has one of those RocketReaders (or whatever) from ~2000 that is thicker than my MacBook Pro, heavy, ugly, and has a LCD screen about as nice as the Newton.

It *IS* a trivilaity, MS could change it in a heartbeat, hell even third parties have done it