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...deserve great software. I hope it's not been locked down too tightly so that we'll be able to replace the firmware.

What do we know about the Zune? Well, the first generation at least is apparently a rebadged Toshiba Gigabeat media player.
The rumors are that it runs Windows Mobile on a 400MHz DSP processor. This isn't strictly true because Windows Mobile doesn't run on DSP's - it only runs on ARM / XScale CPU's. However the Zune is likely to be similar to its close cousin the Gigabeat S. This uses the Freescale i.MX31 CPU. This is a 533MHz ARM11. It's not a huge leap of the imagination to think they'll use the same cpu or at least very close. If MS chose Toshiba as a partner for this its more than likely its because of their existing working product is a good starting point.

Given that, it's at least plausible you'll be able to run linux on the CPU. The only problem is hinted at in the FCC pics with the yellow sticker on the PCB stating "Fuse Blown". If you look at the it appears to have an eFuse on board making it as much a pain to re-flash as the Xbox. We'll see what happens I guess...

~Pev

Who really cares about laptops in pro segment? Which laptop including creatures by Alienware was suitable for workstation class data manipulation?

G4 had a problem and Apple could not dare to order better models because people couldn't afford them.

CPU is there if you want:
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview. jsp?code=DRPPCDUALCORE

G5 (ppc970) is lower end model of Power5 processor arch. If we are speaking about workstations having huge power, there if you can afford:
http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/intellistation/power /285/index.html

Don't make fun of yourself comparing it to your precious "Dell Workstations". First learn what CATIA V5 is.

Two clicks away from freescale.com homepage, instead of your nice ad-loaded page, and with quite a bit more info.

Does anyone have any non-fluff stuff about wha power consumption, max transfer and the like is?

35 ns cycle time for read or write (about 28.57 MHz), read modes 50 ma to 80 ma max, write modes 105 ma to 155 ma max, 9 ma to 12 ma max for stanndby (no pins changing state) and 18 ma to 28 ma with pins flying but no selection enabled for the chip. This is with a 4 mbit chip organized as either 8- or 16-bit. Couldn't find a spec for "the like", you'll have to be more specific. :-)

Those specs were abstracted from the PDF data sheet easily found at on this page.

Here's the datasheet link: http://www.freescale.com/files/microcontrollers/do c/data_sheet/MR2A16A.pdf

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summ ary.jsp?code=MR2A16A&srch=1

"The MR2A16A is a 4,194,304-bit magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM) device organized as 262,144 words of 16 bits"

Not ready for PC time yet.

We've been hearing vaporware mram chip stories for almost a decade now... When is it going to be on the market for people to purchase and use?

Now, apparently. That's what this story is about. Here's a link to the actual chip's spec sheet. Here's a link to the chip's page on Freescale, where you can order it for $25/chip in 1000 unit quantities.

It's not in any consumer products yet, no, but it is available to purchase, which means it isn't vaporware.

We've been hearing vaporware mram chip stories for almost a decade now... When is it going to be on the market for people to purchase and use?

Now, apparently. That's what this story is about. Here's a link to the actual chip's spec sheet. Here's a link to the chip's page on Freescale, where you can order it for $25/chip in 1000 unit quantities.

It's not in any consumer products yet, no, but it is available to purchase, which means it isn't vaporware.

Information about the product from the Freescale Press Release

Yes, imploded, as far as application development for the Mac (and Windows, which never really caught on anway) goes. Most people in the Mac dev community assumed (esp. after the departure of Dow and dev-support-extrordinaire "MW Ron" Liechty) that Freescale was only interested in CodeWarrior's dev tools for embedded devices. Proving their intuition correct, CodeWarrrior for Macintosh development was killed, per their recent press release:

As of May 1, 2006, Freescale's Developer Technology Organization (Formerly Metrowerks) will no longer sell CodeWarrior Development Studio for Mac OS v10. The organization will support the product on CodeWarrior Forums until December 31, 2006.

Car engines run on things like this:

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summ ary.jsp?code=MPC5554

and this:

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summ ary.jsp?code=MPC5567

Windows hasn't run on a PowerPC in a long time, and it has never run on a Book E machine like these (let alone that it probably can't even fit in the on-chip flash with sufficient room left for the ECU code). Factor in that Windows is a little endian OS and that these are big endian machines (yes, PPC is endian neutral but these micros are designed for big endian code as they're upgrades to the big endian MPC5xx and MC683xx families), and you can pretty much be certain that Windows isn't going to be turning an engine any time soon.

Car engines run on things like this:

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summ ary.jsp?code=MPC5554

and this:

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summ ary.jsp?code=MPC5567

Windows hasn't run on a PowerPC in a long time, and it has never run on a Book E machine like these (let alone that it probably can't even fit in the on-chip flash with sufficient room left for the ECU code). Factor in that Windows is a little endian OS and that these are big endian machines (yes, PPC is endian neutral but these micros are designed for big endian code as they're upgrades to the big endian MPC5xx and MC683xx families), and you can pretty much be certain that Windows isn't going to be turning an engine any time soon.

And of course, no modern anti-apple troll should be complete without reference to Apple's 'betrayel' of PA semi

Don't forget MPC8641D.

Why not just buy a 3-axis accelerometer demo board and development kit and actually do something innovative with it instead?

e.g. http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summ ary.jsp?code=MMA7260Q&nodeId=01126911184209&tid=ts fp

An account manager for Freescale told me that there i.MX31 http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/data_shee t/MCIMX31.pdf development boards are depleted because Apple had ordered 20 at once. So they must be wanting to use it for something :-)

Willy

One of the worst things about the Intel switch is that we will never see a laptop (or desktop) that runs MacOS X with one of those.

A good slim laptop with 10 hours battery life may have been possible.

They can't use that name, freescale (motorola) already has it, and killed the line
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/taxonomy. jsp?nodeId=0162468rH3YTLCvL2v

if you knew this, then fwoosh went the joke over my head

That, and the impossibility of getting a G5 into a laptop.

Well, duh, G5 is meant to be a 64-bit workstation processor, not a laptop one. Do you see the new MacBook Pro using a Xeon? No, it uses a laptop processor based on Intel Centrino (Core Duo). Which I suppose is roughly comparable (power/performance) to the Freescale MPC8641D dual-core processor, with the exception that the MPC8641 has a pretty nice set of peripherals integrated. This should make it much more appealing for designing laptops than the Intel Core Duo, which needs external memory, PCIe and ethernet controllers, hogging lots of valuable pcb space, not to mention the power consumed by the external chips.

As a sidenote Apple also put the new Intel Core Duo into iMac. So instead of putting a desktop processor into PowerBook (or MacBook Pro as they now call it) they put a laptop processor into iMac.

From a technical standpoint they made a switch to an inferior architecture, but as others have also said the decision to switch to Intel was made for business, not technical, reasons. From a business point-of-view their move was a smart one because Intel will be able (and willing) to deliver processors for Apple much better that IBM (or Freescale).

Apple probably lost a billion dollars or more every quarter since the G5 came out, because of supply restrictions. It's a fine CPU, but we just couldn't get enough of them.

'nuff said.

"this marks one of the first times that Intel released a processor with known bugs"

Every chip Intel has ever shipped has had errata. This isn't unique to Intel, of course -- every chip ever shipped has had errata. The only news here is that apparently people have found a lot of bugs in this specific chip fairly quickly. But Mac users are a demanding bunch...

http://www.amd.com/epd/desiging/tsdocs/2.erratashe /index.html lists AMD's errata sheets.
http://www.rcollins.org/Errata/ErrataSeries.html documents some Intel errata from the late 90's.
http://mysearch.intel.com/corporate/default.aspx?c ulture=en-US&q=errata&searchsubmit.x=12&searchsubm it.y=8 searching for Errata on Intel's site returns 6,520 hits (most for errors in documentation). This is to their credit -- everyone makes mistakes, and documenting them benefits everyone.
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/search/MainSERP.js p?QueryText=errata&RELEVANCE=false&showAllCategori es=false&srch=1&assetLocked=false&pageSize=5&Selec tedAsset=Product+Pages& and FreeScale has a ton of errata documentation as well.

You get the idea.

Not sure I understand the point of this new article... all chips have errata. This is like reporting that the sun set again or that slashdotters have no love life.

For eample...

The MPC7410 family of chips (aka G4) from Freescale (formally part of Motorola) has 21 errata currently listed: MPC7410CE.pdf

The MPC7447 family of chips (aka G4) from Freescale has 36 errata currently listed: MPC7457CE.pdf

The PPC 970FX (aka G5) from IBM has 24 errata currently listed: 970fx_errata_dd3.x_v1.6.pdf

Not sure I understand the point of this new article... all chips have errata. This is like reporting that the sun set again or that slashdotters have no love life.

For eample...

The MPC7410 family of chips (aka G4) from Freescale (formally part of Motorola) has 21 errata currently listed: MPC7410CE.pdf

The MPC7447 family of chips (aka G4) from Freescale has 36 errata currently listed: MPC7457CE.pdf

The PPC 970FX (aka G5) from IBM has 24 errata currently listed: 970fx_errata_dd3.x_v1.6.pdf

The specifications of the MCP7447AEC (which is used by the latest PowerBooks, last updated in August of 2005) indicate the chip is rated only for 1.42GHz (with massive power consumption, might I add). Wow. Once you start looking, you start finding new ways that the G4 sucks to everything else out there.

Two points. First, the clock speed on the bus in PowerBooks remains remarkably low. 167MHz as far as I know (not taking DDR into account, which manufacturers claim makes it 333MHz). Huge bottleneck here with most x86 systems doubling that. As it has always been, bus speed is more important than your CPU clock. Second, we've seen no serious improvements to the G4, just (slightly) better fabrication processes which allow for higher multipliers. What makes this suck even more is Apple has resorted to overclocking the G4s in PowerBooks. Freescale states: “[The MPC7447A is] [d]esigned as pin-compatible replacements for Freescale’s MPC7447 products, these new processors have been shown to reach speeds of 1.5 GHz.” Funny considering I saw a recent source (can’t find the link) that said G4s are maxed out at 1.4GHz. Not that these minor gains mean much for most interactive tasks, of course, but it just goes to show how Apple’s long-in-the-tooth G4 platform is becoming hacked and stretched.

Well, maybe not 2Ghz overnight, but there's life in the G4 yet: dual core...

I'd rather have one of these powering a mac-mini than a celeron-m. Such is life...

For those who don't get what the big deal is, it's an ethernet MAC AND PHY attached to a 16bit Microcontroller WITH 8kb ram and 64kb flash. I.E. hook up power and an RJ45 connector.

"Dream?" Fantasize is more like it. If "recompiling" was all it takes, there would be no differences between what is available under OS X from anything else. Recompiling of C or C++ code (so long as it doesn't need to interact with Quartz/Aqua) targeting PPC has been available since Day One for OS X.

While it is one thing to run faceless software that can connect to the BSD guts of OS X, once it needs to talk to the user it will have to interact with the Cocoa (Objective C) GUI layer, or be retricted to running from the Terminal window or X11 or maybe use a Java presentation layer -- none of which are completely satisfactory (assuming there is a significant amount of user interaction).

However, I note that SBCL is supported on both PowerPC and Intel hardware, under OS X and PPC in particular (but NOT OS X on X86), as well as most *nix flavors on X86 platforms. Windozers apparently need not apply. If you want to run SBCL on a Mac, you'd better be securing one of the last PPC Macs, as there seems to be no X86 port in progress. Sadly, the SBCL port is (apparently) *not* an Xcode implementation, as they would be able to produce a universal binary that would run under both X86 and PPC platforms by merely clicking the appropriate checkbox at build time.

I guess you fall into that camp of believers in Intel performance. I hope it comes out that way, but a lot of the PPC bigots (and I am one such) are wary of the ginormous power draws of the Intel desktop line, and are suspicious that the reduced power notebook lines give up horsepower to achieve their low power goals (which may or may not be acceptable, depending on how one uses a notebook).

Anybody got some benchmarks showing Intel notebooks vs comparable Intel desktops -- or better yet, Intel notebooks vs PowerPC notebooks, both running Linux (to remove any cloud of differing OS efficiencies that might be raised)? Such testing would make me a lot less queasy about the coming move, and guide me in whether to latch onto one of the last PPC models or wait to venture down the Intel path.

However, I do grasp onto the ray of hope that comes from the shrinking chip geometries. As they move from the 90 micron to the 65 micron production technologies, there is hope that both performance and power consumption can be improved, such that despite the (IMHO) superior RISC architecture of the PPC and the much beefier onboard vector units, the Intel design may well prove to provide greater throughput at less power. IBM seems to be (for whatever reason) 3-5 years behind Intel in implementing smaller production geometries, which do raise the stakes considerably for a chip manufacturer. But the power draws I've seen published/previewed/leaked for the coming Intel Yonah and Merom lines do not give me and comfort when compared to things like the Freescale dual core MPC8641D chip (10W at 1.4 GHz) (which inexplicably is not in the cards for Mac portable use).

Prices are another area of concern, as Intel's cpu pricing is quite a bit more (several hundred $$$) than comparable PPC chips, at least in modest quantities. Supposedly the legendary monopolistic all-your-business discount will make this less of a concern.

In any event, Mac performance/pricing had apparently little or nothing to do with the move to Intel, which was apparently based on driving the iPods into video realms that were not otherwise possible without dedicated video hardware in the iPods (although the current video iPods seem to be doing quite nicely using the Broadcom chips for H.264 manipulation).

Me too on that grain of crystalline substance thing. Time will tell, just have to wait and see what develops.

Time to bust out the holy wars.

I like the 68000 because it has so many registers but I think all in all in the 80386 is the better CPU.

For reference, consider:

http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/reports_p resentations/MC680X0OPTAPP.txt

http://www.df.lth.se/~john_e/gems/gem0028.html

http://linux.cis.monroeccc.edu/~paulrsm/doc/trick6 8k.htm

http://www.csua.berkeley.edu/~muchandr/m68k

Right off the wheel, we notice that the 68000 did not support 32 bit multiplecation at all. Doesn't sound too much like a 32 bit chip to me. Compare that to Intels quirky IMUL, which I believe puts the result into EAX, EDX to get a real 64 bit result.

Integer math was faster clock for clock on the 386. Compare things like 68K register addition to Intel register addition. There's no comparison.

Compare

http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article2 14.asp#ADC

to

http://www.df.lth.se/~john_e/gems/gem0028.html

Whenever you did any 32 bit pointer math on a 68k, you paid a huge, huge performance penalty. It was always more efficient to do things in 16 bit PC relative addressing.

The 68K had no concept of isolated memory or tasks. So systems like the Amiga and the Macintosh would run without any isolation between processes. I was an Amiga fan boy and I used to get that GURU meditation error so much that it was not even comical.

The tragedy of the 386 architecture was actually Microsoft and not Intel. DOS and Windows did not use even the 386 chip to its fullest capability for memory management. MS users would have to wait until Sept 1995, almost 10 years after the 386, for a true 32 bit operating system.

I think you're confused. Motorola no longer makes CPUs; Freescale does.

What about freescale latest processors?

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview. jsp?nodeId=0162468rH3bTdG7249

The interesting bit is that the storage is pure hardware; there is no PCI bus or general purpose CPU between disk and LAN slowing things down.

FYI: These modules uses Freescale's Zigbee chips according to Freescale's press release.

Do you really think that's true, or are you speculating ? Have you ever had a mini apart, or run ThermographX on a mini ? They actually are able to cool themselves pretty darn well, though the fans run hard enough to make some actual noise when they do get warm, it's hard to make them really do it.

I suspect there's plenty of ability for the mini to take a little more heat ( though not G5 amounts of heat ). Here is the chart of G4-class processors from Freescale; the 7447 is ( I think ) the one in the mini. I'm not exactly sure why the clock speeds are 1.25GHz and 1.47GHz when the Freescale site says 1.33GHz and 1.67GHz, but I suspect that's the difference between Freescale marketing and a stable system, not a difference imposed by the mini design. Or it could be that the chips that can run at higher clockspeeds reliably are going into PowerBooks which probably more importantly for the Apple to Intel decision are locked down to the maximum 1.67GHz speed. Maybe Apple doesn't want it's consumer-grade Mac mini to catch up to it's pro-grade PowerBook in performance. Or maybe those 1.67GHz G4s don't come cheap, easy and plentiful. I'm going to guess it's a combination of these three factors, but I have no way of knowing. I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with the design of the mini, though- it's more likely it's marketing position relative to the PowerBook and, possibly to a lesser extent, yields of stable chips.

the dual core one?

G5s cannot go into laptops ...
... IBM's announcement of the low power G5 eliminates this as a viable rant...

G4 development stalled ...
... check out Freescale's e600 line of single-core/dual-core G4s -- G4 development doesn't seem to be stalled to me, in fact, it looks to be possibly better tha IBM's notebook-capable G5 ...

A Steve Jobs control issue meltdown is hardly a conspiracy theory, it's more of an established pattern of behavior (I know, that's not what the referenced article was about, but it seems to be the most rational explanation for the switch).

Any good conspiracy theory has got to include Microsoft, as they have such a marvelous track record of success through conspiring to take away the oxygen of everyone else in the room. If you want a conspiracy theory, how about Microsoft soaking up IBM's fab capacity or engineering resource, leaving Apple to twist in the wind? That's lame too, but still better than your "better theory".

"When better conspiracy theories are needed, they will be found on Slashdot".

"Certainly. The Cell processor line could've been used in the iPod as well."
I don't think so. The Cell is a power hungry little sucker. It is currently not well suited to any portable device.
Here are some freescale devices that might fight in an ipod like device http://www.freescale.com/files/shared/doc/selector _guide/SG2145.pdf
Sadly all based on the ARM core. Ever getting the feeling that ARM is becoming the embedded x86?

What happened to the Freescale MPC8641D Dual Core Processor http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/fact_shee t/MPC8641DFACT.pdf? It was announced last November but is not shipping. Is the chip the same design? Is the IBM chip any different?

Not only are these new Freescale chips not G5s, but, well, Apple has played the Freescale/Motorola game before, haven't they? If you're right, then Freescale has had even longer than IBM to come up with a powerhouse laptop chip, and they haven't done it either. The simple fact is, neither company has the desire to spend a lot of R&D money making the laptop chips Apple needs to stay competitive without larger sales volume anticpated for said chip.

Unless you know something about planned Freescale chips that Steve Jobs and I don't- in which case, could you please provide links? Just talking about tasty new chips without providing a link ( or sample chip package, mmm ) is just annoying.

So I did what you made me do, I went and googled. You know what I found? A roadmap with unfullfilled promises from Freescale. The e600 is not scaling in processor speed like they'd promised ( they wanted "beyond 2GHz", and the best they can promise is ">1.5GHz" ), leaving Apple's powerbooks looking at not much more than the current 1.67GHz. Of the products on their roadmap, only one actually shows up on their current PowerPC page. The 64-bit e700 is what Apple actually wants, but it's still vaporware, apparently. The dual-core e600 is pretty cool, and if Freescale can get quantities delivered to Apple in the next year, they might sell a few dual-core PowerPC PowerBooks before Intel models come out. But here's the kicker : Apple wants to be selling them now, and even when they come out, they're not looking to be much faster in clock speed than what's in a PowerBook right now. Meanwhile, what's a common Intel laptop? Pentium M laptops at 2GHz and up are all over the place. Yea, I know, it's not all about clock speed... but it is all about being able to deliver on promises, and in quantity.

Not only are these new Freescale chips not G5s, but, well, Apple has played the Freescale/Motorola game before, haven't they? If you're right, then Freescale has had even longer than IBM to come up with a powerhouse laptop chip, and they haven't done it either. The simple fact is, neither company has the desire to spend a lot of R&D money making the laptop chips Apple needs to stay competitive without larger sales volume anticpated for said chip.

Unless you know something about planned Freescale chips that Steve Jobs and I don't- in which case, could you please provide links? Just talking about tasty new chips without providing a link ( or sample chip package, mmm ) is just annoying.

So I did what you made me do, I went and googled. You know what I found? A roadmap with unfullfilled promises from Freescale. The e600 is not scaling in processor speed like they'd promised ( they wanted "beyond 2GHz", and the best they can promise is ">1.5GHz" ), leaving Apple's powerbooks looking at not much more than the current 1.67GHz. Of the products on their roadmap, only one actually shows up on their current PowerPC page. The 64-bit e700 is what Apple actually wants, but it's still vaporware, apparently. The dual-core e600 is pretty cool, and if Freescale can get quantities delivered to Apple in the next year, they might sell a few dual-core PowerPC PowerBooks before Intel models come out. But here's the kicker : Apple wants to be selling them now, and even when they come out, they're not looking to be much faster in clock speed than what's in a PowerBook right now. Meanwhile, what's a common Intel laptop? Pentium M laptops at 2GHz and up are all over the place. Yea, I know, it's not all about clock speed... but it is all about being able to deliver on promises, and in quantity.

No, another heartbreaker was no G5 PowerBook, and not only that, but no POSSIBILITY of a G5 PowerBook.

That's not a heartbreak. Not unless you have unreasonable expectations... I never expected a G5 Powerbook. I can not conceive of the confusion of mind that would lead anyone to expect a G5 Powerbook.

Dual core Pentium Ms are on the roadmap. Dual Core G4s aren't.

The hell you say. Do you know something about Freescale you're not telling us?

Beyond that Steve knows a lot more about which chips have legs than you or I

I don't think Steve's pulling this decision out of a hat. I just don't believe for a minute that he's told us why he made it. Nothing he said on stage Monday justifies it, and I can't believe he's as naive about Intel's track record or the fantasy of a G5 laptop as he seemed.

So what's your money on? IBM's promising 3.2 GHz cores for Microsoft and Sony, now, and if they're not going to deliver those that's huge news. He's not going to have any intel-based Macs for the public until next June, and he hasn't actually committed to any schedule for Intel-based Powerbooks, so even if the e600 has a huge slip it's still a better bet.

No, Steve's holding something back. If that's some dark secret about IBM then you better get your wagers on the Xbox360 missing the Christmas shopping season down now.

The 680x0 was not a growable architecture; the PPC architecture was (and still is).

actually... motorola^Wfreescale dusted off the 68k dead horse, stripped down the opcode set, implemented it in a synthesizable RISC core, and out popped coldfire. for embedded work it's still nice to beat on, but unfortunately gcc support is still all over the place, although the situation has been improving recently.

Here's a start. Following links from there will get you more details, including the 64-bit and the 2GHz+ claims.

No, Motorola spun off their PPC business to FreeScale http://www.freescale.com/ who produce the G4 chips used in PowerBooks, eMac, iBooks.

They also have a roadmap for faster G4 processors.

Exactly. Bottom line is that open architecture is superior to closed architecture. x86 is actually a shitty architecture when you get right down to it, but at least it is open.

Err... The x86 chip architecture is NOT open. If you want to produce a clone of the chip, you have to license the technology from Intel. For example, AMD has a license which allows it to produce microprocessors that are compatible with the Intel x86 CPUs.

PPC chips are at least as "open" as Intel's:

Apple, IBM, and Motorola collaborated in creating the PowerPC architecture. Apple was buying all its PowerPC parts from Motorola until they started having yield problems that prevented them from producing the high-performance parts that Apple required. freescale semiconductor/a?, Motorola's former chip division, was spun off from Motorola and is currently selling PowerPC processors for embedded applications.

130W design power consumption, impressive number, right?

On the other hand, Free scale e600 dual core has a power budget of 15W.

If I am the designer of next hybrid car, I go after the second one.

That would be some serious sour grapes, considering that the semiconductor division of Motorola has been spun off as an entirely different unit, called Freescale. That would be a little bit like punishing Lucent because AT&T Wireless agreed to merge with Cingular.

Next CPU from freescale with dual core version

Teenage girl with Dragonball beats robot ARM any day!

A little Googleing gives us a) the Freescale (nee Motorola) AltiVec Libraries (Login required), which includes (among others) strlen and b) this code fragment and c) a more general description.

IIs there something about multicore technology which caused IBM/Motorola to decide it was not worth the bother of putting in a box and selling?

In a word yes. There wasn't a buyer. Until Apple discovered that hell must freeze over before it can get a G5 into a laptop.

Check out the new Dual Core G4's with nice bus attachments.

Inversely, is there something about multicore technology that makes Intel think we'd actually start caring about the P4 again once it's included?

Yes. It's this brick wall we're starting to butt up against in relation to processor speed and heat dissipation. If you can't keep making things faster you're going to have to parallelize and get a boost by doing things across more processors.