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First Look at Apple's Intel Developer Macs
xyankee writes "Think Secret is reporting that developers have started taking receipt of Apple's Intel-based Mac kits. Along with some specs and photos, the site reports that Windows XP installs without a hitch on the systems and that casually trying to install Mac OS X for Intel on a Dell doesn't work... yet..."
A first look at Apple's Intel Mac (with photos)
By Ryan Katz, Senior Editor
June 22, 2005 - Apple's Intel-based Mac development kits have started trickling into developer's hands, Think Secret has learned.
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The Apple Development Platform ADP2,1, as the systems are officially designated, features 3.6GHz Pentium 4 processors with 2MB of L2 cache operating on an 800MHz bus with 1GB of RAM.
The Intel systems run Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger identically on the surface as ordinary Macs, with the exception of a modified Processor System Preference (from Apple's CHUD tools) that allows the user to toggle Hyper-Threading on or off. Apple System Profiler includes a new line under Hardware listing CPU Features; for the 3.6GHz Pentium 4 this comprises a rather lengthy list of technical acronyms: FPU, VME, DE, PSE, TSC, MSR, PAE, MCE, CX8, APIC, SEP, MTRR, PGE, MCA, CMOV, PAT, PSE36, CLFSH, DS, SCPI, MMX, FXSR, SSE, SEE2, SS, HTT, TM, SSE3, MON, DSCPL, EST, TM2, CX16, and TPR.
Apple's System Profiler reports the graphics card as an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 800. Inside the Intel Mac, DVI support for the video card is provided by a Silicon Image Orion ADD2-N Dual Pad x16. Oddly, neither Silicon Image's Web site nor Google turns up much information on the latter card, the latter yielding a single link to a recent Dell support forum posting.
The motherboard on the system is unmarked except for the word Barracuda. The system's internals are housed inside a case similar to Apple's Power Mac G5 systems but with a different configuration of fans.
Running Windows; Mac OS X on other PCs
Along with running Mac OS X, Windows XP installs without hitch on the Intel-based Mac, just as it would on any other PC, and booted without issue when installed on an NTFS-formatted partition. The only misbehavior sources encountered involved the video card. Initially, Windows refused to budge from an 800x600 setting on a 23-inch Cinema Display. Some prodding managed to get the screen to 1600x1200, but sources were unable to get Windows to take advantage of the entire screen.
Apple alluded to developers at its recent Worldwide Developer Conference that Windows should be able to run on Apple's Intel Macs.
As for installing Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware, attempts to boot from the included Mac OS X for Intel disc resulted in an error message on both a Dell and off-brand PC. The message states that the hardware configuration is not supported by Darwin x86.
Sources have indicated that Apple will employ an EDID chip on the motherboard of Intel-based Macs that Mac OS X will look for and must handshake with first in order to boot. Such an approach, similar to hardware dongles, could theoretically be defeated, although it's unknown what level of sophistication Apple will employ.
Also uncertain is whether the Intel-based development kits seeded to developers already feature the EDID chip or whether the installation disc contains a less sophisticated installation check that simply seeks out one particular hardware configuration--the one given to developers--and will not install on other configurations.
I worked one over at WWDC for 2 hours... our stuff doesn't need six or 9 months to port, as we mostly have Java or Cocoa Obj-C code. However, we do need it for a short period of time for testing. It would be nice to be able to ARD into a Macintel for testing, but $999 for a 1.5 year lease is a bit steep when we won't be able to effectively use the box for very long.
Looks like the server is groaning already, so here:
6 intelmac.html
http://www.thinksecret.com.nyud.net:8090/news/050
This is utterly and completely wrong.
SCSI may be SCSI but a Tekram SCSI controller is not an Adaptec SCSI controller, so you need driver for each. WiFi may be WiFi (not, depending on which version you are thinking of), but Broadcom continually makes minor tweaks to their chips that require new versions of drivers. PCI - heh, clearly you've never read the internals of an operating system with all of its tweaks for different PCI bridge chipsets, and lets not forget PCI-X and PCI-E. And don't forget audio, a domain in which there are still at least a a half-dozen chipset makers and at least twice that many board makers with widely different products.
Intel's chips for 2006 should all have the 'Vanderpool' work in them, which improves hardware support for virtualization. This will make programs like VMWare, VirtualPC and Xen much faster.
This article, which is an opinion piece, brings up some insightful benefits of Apple reinvigorating the "Red Box" project to allow full compatibility between OS X and Windows apps.
Seems to fit with this whole Intel dev edition story.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
How hard were you thinking?? Or maybe you haven't been paying attention? Apple has said, and its been repeated time and again, that these aren't production machines. There's no guarantee whatsoever that the "real" Intel-powered Macs will look anything like this. That could mean no BIOS, no segmented memory, no A20 gate, and so on. These are just preview machines to give developers a head start while Apple finishes the real Intel-powered Macs. If they were going to use off-the-shelf components in the real thing, and they already have a functional PPC emulator, why would they wait a year to release new hardware?
Fact is, neither you nor I have any idea what the real thing will look like, and neither you nor I have any idea whether Apple has given up building good hardware. I've got my money on my take, though. ;)
It is "based" on BSD... at least the user space environment is. The kernel, however, is vastly different from the BSD's (it is actually a Mach kernel at heart) and thus the BSD drivers require heavy modification... it is almost easier just to rewrite them honestly. At least that was my experience with the one driver I've written for OSX.
http://appleintelfaq.com/
What did Apple announce at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 6, 2005?
Apple announced that it is transitioning from PowerPC processors provided by IBM and Freescale (formerly Motorola) to x86 architecture processors from Intel. The first Intel-based Macs will ship before mid-2006, and the transition will be complete by the end of 2007.
Where can I find out more official information about this announcement?
Apple press release
Intel press release
WWDC keynote address (Transcript)
Why did Apple make this change?
The following scenario likely contributed to this decision:
IBM has been unable to meet its performance commitments for the PowerPC 970 family (G5) processors. In mid-2003, IBM promised 3 GHz G5s to Apple by mid-2004. As of mid-2005, 3 GHz G5s are still not available, over two years after the initial announcement, and over one year after the promised delivery.[1]
Meanwhile, Microsoft has announced that IBM will make 3.2 GHz triple-core G5 derivatives available to Microsoft for Xbox 360.[2] IBM is also concentrating efforts on chips for Nintendo Revolution and Sony PlayStation 3.[3, 3.1] With IBM concentrating on expensive high-end server class processors and the console and embedded markets, and with Apple at less than 2%[4] of IBM's PowerPC business, it was clear IBM's priorities were focused elsewhere.
Apple is also less than 3%[4] of Freescale's PowerPC business, with Freescale focusing on embedded, communications, and automotive markets. The priorities of IBM and Freescale do not coincide with performance and other needs of the traditional desktop and portable computing marketplace.
What has Apple done to prepare for this transition?
Apple has been publicly maintaining the core OS of Mac OS X, Darwin, for both PowerPC and x86 platforms since the release of Mac OS X. Internally, Apple has been secretly maintaining Mac OS X in its entirety and all Apple applications for both PowerPC and x86 for over 5 years, since before Mac OS X's public release.[5] Mac OS X's predecessors also ran on x86.
Apple has made available Xcode 2.1, which adds the capability of creating PowerPC/x86 universal binaries. Xcode 2.1 can be used on either PowerPC or x86 systems to create universal binaries. Application developers already using Xcode in most cases need only recompile their application with an additional checkbox adding x86 architecture support.
Apple has also licensed[6] QuickTransit from Transitive Corporation for Rosetta, a realtime binary translation system to support PowerPC binaries seamlessly on x86 hardware. The current performance of Rosetta
No. As has been pointed out repeatedly, these systems are NOT representative of what Apple will be shipping in a year. These systems exist only to help developers transition their existing applications over to the Intel architecture.
When new Intel-based Macintoshes ship next year, they'll presumably be based on whatever processors & GPUs meet Apple's needs for the product they're in. You probably wouldn't want to use the processor from the current development system in a laptop or a Mac mini, for example.
If you want to play the guessing game, take a look at the announced roadmap for Intel's processors, starting at a point about one year from now.
-Mark
There is a way to use menus without a mouse:
System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts > Keyboard Navigation > Move focus to the menu bar.
You can change the short cut key to any key or combination you like.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
Actually, the Xenon processor in the Xbox 360 is not a G5 derivative at all, though it shares some pedigree in common with the G5. Each Xenon core most closely resembles the PPE from the Cell processor. The similarity between the G5 and the Xenon core is that they both support the PowerPC instruction set and they both are 64-bit capable. That's about it. The Xenon cores support SMT, whereas the G5 does not. The Xenon cores also lack out-of-order execution logic, which the G5 possesses. You can find out more about Xenon at ArsTechnica.
This is false. The PowerPC can't emulate the 680x0 instruction set on its own; the early PowerMacs were shipped with a sophisticated piece of emulation software which allowed "context switching" between running PowerPC native code and 680x0 code. (You may have heard the term CFM, or Code Fragment Manager.) This facility was necessary because many Mac toolbox routines had not been rewritten in PowerPC-native code, and many libraries and other pieces of the OS were similarly only available in 680x0 code. In fact, some toolbox routines were supplied in both PowerPC versions and 680x0 versions, because there were cases where emulated 680x0 code needed to call upon a toolbox routine, and the context switch from emulation to native PowerPC and back again was worse than just running the toolbox routine under emulation.
Anyway, bottom line, the PowerPC never had built-in 680x0 emulation. The design win with PowerPC was that it could be made with the same bus that the 680x0 processors used, allowing Apple to retain much of its existing hardware designs. It should be noted that before the PowerPC was decided upon, some folks wanted Apple to go with the Motorola 88000 series of chips -- these were Motorola's first stab at RISC, and had the virtue of being pin-compatible with the 68000 series. I've seen some Omron workstations that used 88000 processors, but I don't think they ever got a lot of traction in the general market. At least one history of the Mac that I've read indicated that the 88000 was seriously considered within Apple before PowerPC was decided upon.
Not all G3-based systems are unsupported in Tiger. I believe G3-based iBooks are still supported, for example. Of course, "supported" doesn't mean you get all the eye candy, but that's true for some lower-end G4 systems as well.