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Xbox 2 SDK Released On Mac G5?
Espectr0 writes "The Inquirer reports rumors, courtesy anonymous sources, that Microsoft has released the Xbox 2 SDK to select videogame developers, and they are using 'dual Apple Power Mac G5 systems running a custom Windows NT Kernel.' This ties up with earlier rumors which mention that the XBox 2 will be powered by the IBM chip, and ATI will be providing the video chip." The report also notes: "Interestingly, the SDK apparently also features an Apple logo on a side bar within the application."
Several years back, Microsoft wrote a version of Windows NT for PowerPC chips.
Here's a link.
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Let's see here:
For Nintendo:
SNES: Success, not backward compatible with NES.
N64: Success, not backward compatible with SNES or NES.
Gamecube: Success, not backward compatible with N64, SNES, or NES.
For Sega:
Genesis: Success, not backward compatible with SMS.
Saturn: Failure, because of lack of 3d. The Saturn was designed to be the ultimate 2d console, which it was. 3d was an afterthought, and never worked well.
For Sony:
Playstation: Success, not compatible with ANY other system, being their first.
So it looks to me like backwards compatibility is a nice feature, nothing more. Nintendo, being the oldest company, is the most shining example. NONE of their consoles have been compatible. They thought about it with the SNES, hence the use of the 65C816 (which has a compatibility mode for 6502 code) but didn't end up doing it. The rest of the consoles aren't even remotely compatible. None the less, each has been a success.
What makes a console succede? Two main things:
1) Having flashy graphics to attract people, and the marketing to let people know about them. You may not, but most people gravitate towards pretty graphics.
2) More importantly: Good games. This is REALLY what makes or breaks a console. If your system has the games people want to play, they'll buy it. If it doesn't they won't. This is also a positive feedback loop since the more good games you have the more you sell and the more consolse you sell the more developers that will want to release for your console.
That's why Sony succeded, despite being new to the market. They released the games people wanted to play, and had stunning graphics for the time. Combine that with good marketing, you've got a winner.
No, long ago AMD had a cross-IP licensing agreement with Intel, because AMD got a big start helping Intel supply x86 chips. There was a court case brought by Intel against ADM when AMD started making their own compatible chips, which AMD won, around '486 times, that enabled AMD to continue to use said IP up to a certain tech level, essentially in perpetuity. So, no, AMD does not have to pay licensing fees to Intel for some of the X86 stuff that they use in their chips.
Otherwise, there would be no point in AMD making chips.
Which is why AMD has a different set of X86 extensions to do mostly what MMX does compared to Intel, which was some of the first new tech on X86 chips that AMD could not duplicate (terms of the lawsuit judgement).
Intel tried to first kill AMD with MMX, but that did not really work as well as Intel wanted it to, as Microsoft kept their options open and also coded Windows 9x to use AMD's multimedia extensions as well.
At that time, while 99.5% compatibility between K5 and K6 chips with Intel-equivalents was there (which should have been good enough for everyone), there was quite an anti-AMD bias amongst those who bought computers in large quantities, because the occaisional problems with K5/K6-based computers at the time wasn't necessarily the CPU's fault, but crappy drivers and bad motherboards.
As it stands, how many companies (esp. Fortune 500) have tried to save a few thousand dollars on their big computer upgrade cycles by getting AMD-based instead of Intel-based computers for their Windows users? Not too many.
Yet somehow AMD has managed to find a niche in the computer market, and enough collective mindshare to survive to the point that now Intel is reacting to AMD's moves, not the other way around.
I know that the next x86-based computer I get/build will probably be AMD-64 based.
As much as I want one, I can't quite justify getting a new Macintosh. I don't do Photoshop, and too many of the things I do/like do not provide enough options for Macs.
Wouldn't XP be Windows NT 6.0? I though Win2k was 5.0
Windows 2K is NT 5.0 and Windows XP is NT 5.1. Server 2003 is NT 5.2. These are the official version strings from Microsoft.
There is very little under-the-hood change between Windows 2000 (NT 5.0) and Windows XP (NT 5.1) aside from GUI modifications. From an application's point of view (or even a power user who makes all of his settings via the registry) there is not much different between the two. A lot of little things have been refined and updated, yes, but nothing huge.
And really... Win2K (NT 5.0) isn't a whole lot more than NT 4.0 SP4/SP5 + modern version of Direct X + modern drivers + light GUI polish. When NT 4 first shipped it did not come with Internet Explorer... later versions included a standalone version of IE... and still later versions included the deeply-rooted IE that we know and hate today.
NT 3.x was pretty archaic *looking* (Windows 3.x GUI, ugh!!) but still had most of the guts that NT 4 later used....
Call it what you will, but NT was the best thing Microsoft has ever done. We could all be using a heavily patched version of Win95 running atop DOS 7. "Win98 Seventh Edition!"
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Actually, the new G5 tower has a completely different system architecture which uses HyperTransport technology co-designed with AMD. Each processor has it's own point to point bus to the system controller.
http://www.apple.com/powermac/architecture.html
I believe that only AMD Opteron systems have a similar architecture.
While both PCs and Macs support the PCI, USB and Firewire standards, the connections between the chips that implement these standards is quite different.