Darwin on Crusoe?

MacOS Rumors is running a blurb that Apple is exploring porting Darwin to other processors (including Transmeta's Crusoe processor) due to frustration with availability of high speed Motorola G4 processors. An interesting though, a Mac without a Motorola chip... Of course, it's just a rumor at this point... (update: I've got it confirmed from "anonymous sources" that this is true)

Comments

Why not just use the Crusoe as a G4?

[Frater 219]

Instead of "porting" Darwin to x86 and running it on a bog-standard Crusoe, why not talk the Crusoe into being a G4 instead of an x86? I was under the impression that the Crusoe's code-morphing software could be reworked to emulate other instruction sets besides x86 ...

Re:Why not just use the Crusoe as a G4?

[retep]

That's right. CISC chips depend on a small number of big instructions running relitivly slowly. RISC chips depend on lots of little instructions running super fast. The Crusoe can't translate RISC instructions efficiently because there are so many of them all at once. So RISC gets pretty bad performence compared to CISC.

This doesn't just apply to the Crusoe. Any emulator has the same problem.

Re:Why not just use the Crusoe as a G4?

[um... Lucas]

I would think that's what they're talking about, being that otherwise it could just be said that Apple's considering porting their software to run on x86 processors. That says nothing about all the support chips. Apple will never have their OS run on BX motherboards, as it would significantly detract from the users experience of "trouble-free hardware".

IF they could just modify the pinouts of the Crusoe to conform with their sockets... They'ed have a pretty cool setup.

They'ed also probably want to emulate a G3 rather than G4...Somehow I doubt that Crusoe could emulate AltiVec very well... Or maybe there is real magic to Crusoe.

Anyways, it'd be exciting to see Crusoe emulate ANYTHING but x86... Right now it just seems like it's a low power x86 processor. Not very exciting.

Re:correction on Open Firmware

[Anonymous Coward]

Open Firmware isn't unique to Apple. It's actually an IEEE standard for boot firmware. (The "Open" in its name really does mean something.) From what I remember, it's a standard created by Apple and Sun, evolved from Sun's earlier firmware (called OpenBoot). It's actually pretty cool. It has a Forth interpreter built in.

On Macintoshes, you can access it by holding down Command-Option-O-F while booting. On Suns, it's Stop-A. I believe someone actually wrote a Forth version of Breakout that could run on Apple's OF implementation. Pretty neat trick for a boot monitor, imho.

Some PCI devices even have Forth driver code in their ROMs.

Re:Apple Might (Not) Be Awakening

[Mononoke]

Apple Computer Corp. has such a history of screwups, bad decisions, bad marketing, etc. et. al. that I have written them off.

Translation: "I got scared during the dark days when Apple was 'beleagered,' so I ran and hid my head in the sand."

I just read this morning how they chose not to give or even sell (at street price) iMacs to freeiMac. The company FreeiMac would give away free iMac computers with the usual 3 years of Earthlink subscription plus accepting advertising.

Translation: "I read somewhere that Apple didn't want to supply tech support to thousands of users too dumb to know that there's no such thing as a free computer, and anyway, Apple already has an Earthlink deal going."

Talk about clueless! They have turned down another opportunity to increase the awareness and use of their computers. They already have an ever decreasing share of the market and decisions like this will only help seal their doom.

Translation: "What is this iMac thing everyone is talking about? Why have I never heard of it? I'm sure glad I sold all my Apple stock when they reached that high of 18."

Jobs is an insane, megalomanial leader of a corporation led by more fools. Not that Apple doesn't do good things -- the Macintosh is an incredible computer and I loved mine. But I bowed to economics and bought a less expensive PC (I prefer Linux or BeOS, thank you).

Translation: I've heard that Steve Jobs runs a tight ship, and forces his employees to work towards a common goal, and to be productive. It must suck to work where you have to earn your paycheck. Since I don't have a paycheck to worry about, I couldn't afford anything but this leftover PII doorstop, and whatever free OS I could find to run on it."

This possible move to the Crusoe processor may be the sign of intelligence: Emulating the G4 in a cheaper and less power-hungry processor == Less expensive G4 == Cheaper Macs == More consumers buying your expensive hardware.

Translation: "I don't know much about the G4, but I assume it uses electricity just as inefficiently as a Pentium. I wonder if I can get a free Crusoe. Too bad I flunked economics."

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MacOS Rumors: Not Very Credible

[MoNickels]

I don't know if the porting story is true, but Mac OS Rumors has a spotty record. Many of its leads often seem to be lifted from elsewhere, the rumor reliability is poor, and usually so late as to be useless, besides which its articles are so filled with bogus predictions using words such as "likely", "possibly", "predicted", and longs chains of if-then scenarios as to completely obliterate any authoritative source that might have passed a true lead on in the first place.

You will be issued one grain of salt apiece.