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People have been saying this, virtually word for word, for the past 10 years.

go to MacKido's Hardware section and look in the Processor section for this exact information.

Info on Merced is also here.

I added this a few posts up but it's worth repeating. For a good rundown of specs and performance between the K7 and G4 with a few references to the Pentiums check out www.MacKiDo.com/Hardware/K7.html.

For a good comparison of these chips check out David Every's page on the Athlon chip specs.

You can see some other ones here. They're a bit more positive, and detailed.

Some of your points are well taken (modal menus are a horrible idea). Others (like resizing only from one corner) are quibbles. Note that some of us consider "your" (making a gross overgeneralization) brand of fragmented, inconsistent, willy-nilly "open" user interface to be the worst combination of attributes ever expressed on a bitmap display.

Different strokes...

Just a tadbit to tack on to that is that Linux has pretty good support (or will have) when altivec comes out. gcc will support altivec in the future, you can add support for it today, by getting the patch from motorola.

What does Altivec do? Well, as described by David McEvery, it is MMX implemented correctly. Basically its a set of additional instructions to the standard PowerPC RISC proccessor, adding support for better proccessing of graphical and related stuff. Sounds like MMX? Well it is, in a sense, basically what it has larger and faster processing of things, and implements cache correctly.

Here's how David Every explains it:

So this pirating Apple's market goes on for a few years, and in comes Steve Jobs, who, after retaking control of HIS company, realizes that the licencees (especially Power) are just killing Apple. They are getting to use Apple's R&D and competitive advantages, and giving little back. The volume isn't high enough that the licensees are paying for what they are taking.

However, Apple has a major new release coming out, OS 8, and the cloners want it -- and the licensing agreement only applied to System 7 and variants. So now Apple has some leverage in the negotiations, Steve starts talking about the terms. He wants to raise the licensing fees, because A) Apple is literally losing money on each motherboard they ship to the licensees, and B) Apple needs to make money, badly. The licensees, (with the exception of Umax, who wasn't stupid, and Daystar, who had such a small niche market anyways, and was about to get out of the business altogether, as it was a money pit for them), start telling Apple that Apple has to drop the OS licence prices, and a lot of other demands, and this is with them about to start making CHRP - based Macs, which will cut Apple out of the hardware licenses completely, and leave them only the software licenses for revenue from this. At this point the writing is on the wall for Jobs, and the licencees. It's dead, the question is just how it is going to happen. All this is happening right into MacWorld Boston of that year, 1997. So far, Apple is trying to be, from their point of view, fairly reasonable, and Power is negotiating a way to end the program in a way that won't drive them out of business.

Which was happening anyways. Only after Power went belly-up did the details on just how badly that company was being run come out. That company had been doomed long before the end of the Mac licenses. But everyone likes to 'forget' that fact, and just blame Apple for it.

Then comes the epic fit. The day before MacWorld opens, Power has a press conference, and basically tries to get the User community riled up by saying, "See how big bad Apple is screwing you? They won't let us build G3 Macs, and they won't let us build laptops, and they just suck. So all of you go tell them they suck until we get our way" Needless to say, this blows up in Power's face, and Steve goes back into the negotiations, and basically dictates terms of surrender to Stephen Kahng, the CEO of Power. Power accepts, the program is shut down, and 'the baby has been knifed'.

Apple didn't steal ideas from Xerox if that's what you're implying. What's up with that story.. it's so played out it qualifies as an urban legend. For the real story read the article from About.com:
http://macos.a bout.com/library/weekly/mcurrent.htm?pid=2801&cob= home
or these articles:
http://www.mackido.com/Interface/ui_ horn1.html
http://www.mackido.com/Interface/ui_ raskin.html

Apple didn't steal ideas from Xerox if that's what you're implying. What's up with that story.. it's so played out it qualifies as an urban legend. For the real story read the article from About.com:
http://macos.a bout.com/library/weekly/mcurrent.htm?pid=2801&cob= home
or these articles:
http://www.mackido.com/Interface/ui_ horn1.html
http://www.mackido.com/Interface/ui_ raskin.html

It was fun to watch, although the only educational value was the fact that they stole it all from Xerox.

Well, not really. Not at all.

Apple hired some Xerox people like Jef Raskin and Bruce Horn. In fact, Jobs gave Xerox some Apple stock, a lot, in fact, for the exact purpose of bringing in Apple programmers to inspire them to go in new directions. From what I understand, Xerox was AWARE of what Jobs was doing. They just didn't care.

Additionally, the PARC stuff didn't have folders, or files being represented as icons. The original Xerox stuff had far more in common with X11 than Mac UI. Xerox turned left, Apple turned right, then Xerox started to veer a bit towards the right.

Meanwhile, in Windows95 Microsoft blantantly copied things like the Trash, Folders (even started called them that instead of directories), and the Apple menu. Even worse, Win95 borrows _heavily_ from NeXT, so Bill screwed Jobs over twice.

In my mind, there is a clear difference between Jobs striking a deal with Xerox to get the Apple developers in there and get inspired, and Microsoft just taking without asking.

BTW: There is a good article on this.

Scott
------
Scott Stevenson

Here's a link to a decent article explaining the Apple/Xerox relationship...

http://www.mackido.com/Interface/u i_history.html

People also so conveniently forget that Apple PAID Xerox licensining fees to use the ideas that they came up with -- unlike Microsoft.

Pirates also glosses over the facts that (a) Douglas Englebart invented the mouse at Stanford Research Institute in 1965, (b) the idea of a GUI was conceived by Mac team member Jef Raskin while writing his 1967 thesis, "Quick-Draw Graphics System", and (c) the Macintosh team was already working on a GUI against Jobs' wishes prior to the PARC visit. The PARC tour merely served to open Jobs' eyes to the potential of the GUI and lead him to give his blessing to giving the Mac and Lisa a GUI.

Most of the GUI elements associated with a windowing environment, pull-down menus, drag and drop file manipulation, a desktop metaphor with icons representing objects (instead of actions), windows which could be moved or resized using only the mouse, all were developed at Apple. For more info on the history of GUI development at Apple, take a look at these letters which appeared on the Semper.Fi mailing list a few years ago from some of the key players:

• Letter from Bruce Horn on origins of Mac GUI
• Response from Jef Raskin
• Response from Bruce to Raskin's Letter

People also so conveniently forget that Apple PAID Xerox licensining fees to use the ideas that they came up with -- unlike Microsoft.

Pirates also glosses over the facts that (a) Douglas Englebart invented the mouse at Stanford Research Institute in 1965, (b) the idea of a GUI was conceived by Mac team member Jef Raskin while writing his 1967 thesis, "Quick-Draw Graphics System", and (c) the Macintosh team was already working on a GUI against Jobs' wishes prior to the PARC visit. The PARC tour merely served to open Jobs' eyes to the potential of the GUI and lead him to give his blessing to giving the Mac and Lisa a GUI.

Most of the GUI elements associated with a windowing environment, pull-down menus, drag and drop file manipulation, a desktop metaphor with icons representing objects (instead of actions), windows which could be moved or resized using only the mouse, all were developed at Apple. For more info on the history of GUI development at Apple, take a look at these letters which appeared on the Semper.Fi mailing list a few years ago from some of the key players:

• Letter from Bruce Horn on origins of Mac GUI
• Response from Jef Raskin
• Response from Bruce to Raskin's Letter

People also so conveniently forget that Apple PAID Xerox licensining fees to use the ideas that they came up with -- unlike Microsoft.

Pirates also glosses over the facts that (a) Douglas Englebart invented the mouse at Stanford Research Institute in 1965, (b) the idea of a GUI was conceived by Mac team member Jef Raskin while writing his 1967 thesis, "Quick-Draw Graphics System", and (c) the Macintosh team was already working on a GUI against Jobs' wishes prior to the PARC visit. The PARC tour merely served to open Jobs' eyes to the potential of the GUI and lead him to give his blessing to giving the Mac and Lisa a GUI.

Most of the GUI elements associated with a windowing environment, pull-down menus, drag and drop file manipulation, a desktop metaphor with icons representing objects (instead of actions), windows which could be moved or resized using only the mouse, all were developed at Apple. For more info on the history of GUI development at Apple, take a look at these letters which appeared on the Semper.Fi mailing list a few years ago from some of the key players:

• Letter from Bruce Horn on origins of Mac GUI
• Response from Jef Raskin
• Response from Bruce to Raskin's Letter

I guess you could call anything based on more than two standards (DPS and PDF) 'bastardization,' but if it works, that's what matters.

J.

On the other hand, you code Altived in C/C++, which is much easier than assembly, to say the least. And the Altivec unit is its own seperate processor, and doesn't share any registers. the Altivec processor is also much beefier, like 128 bit 200Mhz, etc., etc., etc. More info ( 1, 2, and 3) at the greatest of insight sites, MacKiDo.

The one and (thankfully) only,

LafinJack

On the other hand, you code Altived in C/C++, which is much easier than assembly, to say the least. And the Altivec unit is its own seperate processor, and doesn't share any registers. the Altivec processor is also much beefier, like 128 bit 200Mhz, etc., etc., etc. More info ( 1, 2, and 3) at the greatest of insight sites, MacKiDo.

The one and (thankfully) only,

LafinJack

On the other hand, you code Altived in C/C++, which is much easier than assembly, to say the least. And the Altivec unit is its own seperate processor, and doesn't share any registers. the Altivec processor is also much beefier, like 128 bit 200Mhz, etc., etc., etc. More info ( 1, 2, and 3) at the greatest of insight sites, MacKiDo.

The one and (thankfully) only,

LafinJack

On the other hand, you code Altived in C/C++, which is much easier than assembly, to say the least. And the Altivec unit is its own seperate processor, and doesn't share any registers. the Altivec processor is also much beefier, like 128 bit 200Mhz, etc., etc., etc. More info ( 1, 2, and 3) at the greatest of insight sites, MacKiDo.

The one and (thankfully) only,

LafinJack

Interestingly enough, there's a good article on mac "clones" over at MacKido, here. According to it, Power Computing was in quite a bit of finicial trouble before Apple ended clones, and, you must remember that Apple more or less bought them out after ending the licensing. Besides, Power Computing was, more or less, the only clone maker really tearing into Apple's market that was deystroyed. Umax is still doing fine, MacTell was alright last time I checked, Motorola didn't even notice. The only other "casuality" was DayStar, who was producing high quality products for a very small niche (people who needed quad CPU machines with 9 PCI cards). DayStar was also in a bit of hot water before it entered the Clone market.

Anyway, Apple has recently released an Open Source OS that can be ported to any platform. So build yourself a box and port Darwin to it.

In addition, Apple's most recent Macs (iMacs, B&W G3s, and the new PBs) are using software ROMs. That's the only proprietary part of a Mac that's overly difficult to reverse engineer.

There never were any clones, only licencees. Now there can be real clones.

Interestingly enough, there's a good article on mac "clones" over at MacKido, here. According to it, Power Computing was in quite a bit of finicial trouble before Apple ended clones, and, you must remember that Apple more or less bought them out after ending the licensing. Besides, Power Computing was, more or less, the only clone maker really tearing into Apple's market that was deystroyed. Umax is still doing fine, MacTell was alright last time I checked, Motorola didn't even notice. The only other "casuality" was DayStar, who was producing high quality products for a very small niche (people who needed quad CPU machines with 9 PCI cards). DayStar was also in a bit of hot water before it entered the Clone market.

Anyway, Apple has recently released an Open Source OS that can be ported to any platform. So build yourself a box and port Darwin to it.

In addition, Apple's most recent Macs (iMacs, B&W G3s, and the new PBs) are using software ROMs. That's the only proprietary part of a Mac that's overly difficult to reverse engineer.

There never were any clones, only licencees. Now there can be real clones.

Seems to me Apple mostly killed OpenDoc and Taligent. MCA was a bad idea - a closed architecture with steep licensing, hoping to derail a cloning market that brought us unprecedented advances - and we managed not to fall for it. And they still sell and support OS/2. At worst, IBM fails to dump big money into long shots.

Check out http://www.MacKiDo.com/Hardware/USB20.html for some good background

MacKido did a bit on the history of the GUI, and includes perspectives from Jef Raskins and Bruce Horn, both of whom did time at Xerox and Apple in the early days.

Letter from Bruce Horn.

Reply from Jef Raskins.

Reply to Raskins from Bruce Horn.

(Yes, MacKido can get over-zealous about the Mac, but there is some great stuff here.)

Apple did come up with a lot on their own - for example, Apple significantly extended the menu thing, created the finder, and much more. Xerox did a lot too, and even had some click and drag stuff.

MacKido did a bit on the history of the GUI, and includes perspectives from Jef Raskins and Bruce Horn, both of whom did time at Xerox and Apple in the early days.

Letter from Bruce Horn.

Reply from Jef Raskins.

Reply to Raskins from Bruce Horn.

(Yes, MacKido can get over-zealous about the Mac, but there is some great stuff here.)

Apple did come up with a lot on their own - for example, Apple significantly extended the menu thing, created the finder, and much more. Xerox did a lot too, and even had some click and drag stuff.

MacKido did a bit on the history of the GUI, and includes perspectives from Jef Raskins and Bruce Horn, both of whom did time at Xerox and Apple in the early days.

Letter from Bruce Horn.

Reply from Jef Raskins.

Reply to Raskins from Bruce Horn.

(Yes, MacKido can get over-zealous about the Mac, but there is some great stuff here.)

Apple did come up with a lot on their own - for example, Apple significantly extended the menu thing, created the finder, and much more. Xerox did a lot too, and even had some click and drag stuff.

MacKido did a bit on the history of the GUI, and includes perspectives from Jef Raskins and Bruce Horn, both of whom did time at Xerox and Apple in the early days.

Letter from Bruce Horn.

Reply from Jef Raskins.

Reply to Raskins from Bruce Horn.

(Yes, MacKido can get over-zealous about the Mac, but there is some great stuff here.)

Apple did come up with a lot on their own - for example, Apple significantly extended the menu thing, created the finder, and much more. Xerox did a lot too, and even had some click and drag stuff.

The Mac needed the Evangelist because there was no organized way of fighting all the FUD and bad press for the Mac.[1]
Linux is supported by the FSF and Open Source movement. It is also blessed with a mentality that if you think something should be done, then round up a couple of people and do it. (Just look at some of the rebuttals here on /.) With the Mac, people are less likely to do so because they think (rightly so) that it's Apple's job to advertise for the Mac. Unfortunately, advertizing only does so much. The largest problem that the Macintosh has had is industry prejudices and bias. These require a lot more than good Ads to be overcome.[2] One of the ways Apple was trying to fight back was with the Evangelist. It isn't the only way to fight back though, personally I prefer MacKiDo's style (Actually, it's an interesting place to learn about some of the stunts that Intel and Micro$oft have pulled in the past[2]) Now Apple feels that it dosen't need people to evangalize the Macintosh for them anymore, which I think is a Good Thing(TM) because it's a sign that they're going to get up and start slugging it out for themselves. Given Apple's past preformances, it'll at the very least make for some cool ads ;-)

[1]If you think the stuff about Linux is bad now, just wait till things get really warmed up.

[2] Think about this: we all know that Linux is a superior OS for a server, yet lots of IT shops use NT. Why?

[3] remember "know thy enemy..."

I'm tired of the Mac GUI bashing. Do you realize they actually spent time trying to make the GUI intuitive for a first time user? Do you realize Win 95/98s GUI is horrible in comparisn yet they're targeting the same audience. Perhaps it isn't the best for hardcore programmers, but those people seem to prefer CLUIs over GUIs... but then some Linux advocates praise the next big GUI that runs on X is sooo much better and will be so perfect for Joe Average who never touched a computer in his/her life.

If you want to read the differences of some of the more well known GUIs, check out http://www.mackido.com/Interface/. Although I detect a bit of biasness in some parts of his presentation, most of it is accurate.

And if you actually wanted to promote whatever side you were on, it takes more than irony. Irony is often used by people on one side of a debate who can not logically defend their side.

The usual reason for the "vapor ware" problem is the media getting a bit of leaked info and blowing it up. Then if they don't deliver they blow it up even more. Another reason is people like to know what route Company X is taking, and Company X needs to know what it's customers and developers think about it. Kind of how evolution works. Some new mutation arises and doesn't survive. Another arises and does. You can usually think the media for making you believe that it's 100% guaranteed that whatever Company X is still working on or thinking about is definitely going to happen, then leading you to become more infuriated once it isn't by blowing it out of proportion.

But the PowerPC architecture was a great leap forward when the 601 came out in 1992, such that a 68k emulator had to be coded into the system software. That was "G1". :o>

J.

It's funny someone mentioned that MacKiDo article. I was just musing on the definition of "real stability" after hosing X Windows on my Linux box while improperly (I guess) updating kdelibs in order to get Korganizer running.

Anyway, I've always read Carmack's take on the Mac with interest. Since I know nothing about gaming (vanilla Angband is still my game of choice), I'm curious about how much credence to give his opinions. Should Apple drop everything and do what he says? Is he a lone crank? Or somewhere in the middle? I'm curious to hear what knowledgeable people think.

But they fixed that, remember? Hahahahhah.