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Ars Technica Interviews 970 Designers
11223 writes "John "Hannibal" Stokes has interviewed Pete Sandon, the PowerPC 970's main designer, and David Edelsohn, a compiler writer from IBM, and clarified several points about the 970 regarding group formation, vector issue queues and performance, and more. The interview is a very interesting read for anyone who has been following his earlier articles on the processor that Apple calls the G5."
SHUTUP
I've heard many good things about the McIntosh recently, and my family
o ads/cri tical/q321232/default.asp),
and I decided we needed to buy a new computer to replace our old
Windows machine. Having heard of its ease of use, we decided to go the
McIntosh route. We recently purchased an 800 mHz G4, with OSX. We
thought we were getting a good deal. But unfortunately things turned
out quite different.
Upon putting together the system we discovered that our mouse appeared
the be broken. Although it wasn't cracked or shattered, it only had
one button. When I spoke with our McIntosh dealer, we were told that
the upgrade to a real two-button mouse would require more money.
Apparently the mice with one button were only a "trial version" of the
hardware. I feel that this is a very deceptive practice on Apple's
part, and have written a letter to the Better Business Bureau to
protest this. I felt as though I'd bought a car but to make it go past
35mph we'd have to pay more money!
Rather than pay the exhorbitant sum of money for a real mouse, I went
to CompUSA and bought one out of my own pocket.
Strike one for McIntosh!
Secondly, one of the reasons that we went with McIntosh is because its
new OS was based on the Linux kernel. Since my company uses Linux
heavily (and its an OS I'm highly familiar with) I thought it would be
nice to be able to run my work applications at home. Imagine my shock
upon hearing that McIntosh was actually based on an incompatible fork
of Linux - a fork known as BSD. Since our computers at work ran Linux
- and not BSD - it was clear that I'd be unable to compile them on my
Apple! Strike two for McIntosh.
The final straw came last night. I received an email from a friend
alerting me to numerous holes in Microsoft's Internet Explorer. When I
went to MS' home page to download a patch
(http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downl
I was stunned to see this patch only applies to Windows machines!
Given the tiny user base of McIntosh, apparently software patches
aren't made frequently - if at all - for McIntosh. I refuse to use an
OS that is as ridden with holes as swiss cheese. Thus I'm going to be
returning my McIntosh and purchasing a Windows XP box.
I hope this message reaches someone at McIntosh headquarters. Maybe
their CEO, Steve Ballmer(?) will get this and fix their business
practices. Until such changes are made, however, I fear that McIntosh
will continue to be a bit player in the computer world.
Thank you for your time,
JT
1-800-759-0700
It coinciedes with Apple's release of G5 laptops. Of course the two button trackpad is interview worthy as well...
A dollar given to an islamic charity is a dollar's worth of ammunition given to your murderer.
Dear Apple:
I bought an Apple computer because of its native support for teledildonics. I bought a USB FUFME and MacOS immediately recognized it and installed drivers instantly! As a gay Catholic priest who often can't be at the altar all the time, you can understand how the ability to have sex with children whilst on the airplane with my Powerbook and wireless internet service is a lifesaver.
I just have a single question, will Apple be releasing a firewire version of the FUFME anytime soon?
With much gayness,
Father Michael "Arminass" Sims
mac is deader then an old cow who ate to much sheep!
Bekuz Linux faggotz R GHEY and pentium 4 and Windowz is 1ee7 and will kick your lame homo Linux faggot Apple ass.
Stick Men
how is this offtopic? it is true! windows uses recycled electrons to store data, the same electrons that have been god-knows-where before
lunix and bds do the same
are you denying that windows, lunix and bds use recycled electrons to store data?
According to Apple, the G5 is the fastest desktop computer in the world, as well as the first 64-bit desktop system. Something doesn't sit right with me, though. Aside from the nigh-universal ranting about skewed benchmarks that has been circulating recently, there's another aspect the Power Mac G5 not many have touched upon.
Mac OS X is a 32-bit operating system, and since the PowerPC 970 is a 64-bit chip, Mac OS X will effectively be running at 800, 900, and 1,000MHz in the new Power Macs. Not 1.6, 1.8, and 2.0GHz as Apple claims. Let's stick to the specs and stats and look a little deeper into this problem.
Mac OS 10.0 debuted in March 2001. By October 2001 it was superseded by Mac OS 10.1. which optimized the code in the operating system for G3 and G4 chips-- until this point, a lot of the components in the operating system still had optimizations for PowerPC 603 and 604 models.
Apple continued this trend with Jaguar, a.k.a. Mac OS 10.2, by deleting all source code pertaining to the 60x family. In doing so, they were finally able to push the system to its limits with Velocity Engine tweaks. Try installing Jaguar on a G2 system-- it just can't happen. Now, however, with the 970, Apple is in a different pickle.
One just can't scale an operating system to 64-bit mode on a whim. In two months we have the G5 systems shipping to consumers, with an operating system that will half the clock since it can't use half the bits of the chip it will run on! There will be a gap of four months between the 64-bit G5 ships and the 64-bit-friendly Panther, a.k.a. Mac OS 10.3, arrives.
Tell me, Mac users, what are we going to do in the meantime? This is worse than when Apple downgraded the speed on their Power Mac G4 systems while keeping the prices the same. Your new G5 system will run at half clock!
I wouldn't pay $3,000 for year 2000 performance. Apple better have something marvelous up their sleeve during what I like to call this four-month "bits drought" we're all facing. Otherwise, I'll be planting my foot firmly in their ass, and so should you.