Apple Sale Rumors

Mac Linux by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 05:46 · Score: 0

Maybe one of those companies will make it easier for a Mac version of Linux?

Re:Mac Linux by gavinhall · 1999-07-07 19:41 · Score: 1

Posted by lamer_is_my_middle_name:

Whaddayamean?
There's already linux for the Mac, both for mk86 and PPC
Re:Mac Linux by Arkham · 1999-06-15 20:21 · Score: 1

Duh.... maybe you should actually think before you post.
LinuxPPC - CHRP, PREP, and Powermac Linux, now at R5
Yellow Dog Linux: for Power Macintosh, G3, and iMac
MkLinux: Linux for PowerMacintosh on a Mach3 kernel
I guess some /.'ers are as ignorant of Linux as they are of Macs.

--
- Vincit qui patitur.

Disney buy Apple? by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 05:46 · Score: 0

Geez, I always thought it was a Micky Mouse computer, but this is too literal.

Re:Disney buy Apple? by dharlequin · 1999-06-12 10:22 · Score: 1

Better Disney than MicroShaft.
Even, though Disney would instill a ton of "mouse" qualities upon my favorite computer, the fact that Disney has oodles of money is the silverlining in the cloud. At least that's what I'm telling myself.
(sigh)

Just what the world needs.. by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 05:46 · Score: 0

..Another MicroMcDisneySoft.

Apple by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 05:48 · Score: 0

Having just gone through a situation with this here PowerMac, I can only hope that if another company DOES buy Apple that they would bring Mac's back into the forefront. Even the Mac 'experts' don't seem to know as much as I did... That's sad...

Gates already bought 'em last year. by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 06:31 · Score: 0

Saved 'em from bankruptcy by buying shares (while getting IE on the Mac desktop)

Re:Gates already bought 'em last year. by MushMouth · 1999-06-12 07:02 · Score: 1

bankruptcy? You have no idea what you are talking about! Apple still had over a Billion dollars of completely liquid assets (cash), without debt, at their worst point. Microsoft bought 150 million dollars worth of non-voting Apple stock, all in all that was chump. That 150 mil was part of a larger settlement (I think it was in the order of 600 million) that Microsoft HAD to pay Apple for stealing the Quicktime code. Apple would still be alive for years to come loosing money every quarter if they wanted to. They were never really in trouble, just in the case of public preception.
Re:Gates already bought 'em last year. by Cyberonyx · 1999-06-14 04:50 · Score: 1

Apple still had over a Billion
dollars of completely liquid assets (cash), without debt, at their worst point.

People fail to realize this point. With all of the doom and gloom published about apple, the one thing that no one ever heard was that they were broke or on the verge of bankruptcy because that never was the case. They were never in the situation that Chrysler was in. There are those who suggest that M$ is propping apple up simple b/c they investd $150M. Give me a break.

Re:Got to happen by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 07:06 · Score: 0

> My young kids can hardly switch on their Windows 95 computer without running into problems with the ATI video card driver or other typical Win95 lockups and crashes.

Ever use MacOS? Same thing. Crashes. Hangs. Stupid applications crashing the machine. I have to use Windows 95 and MacOS on occasion, and they both suck.

The real question is, does Apple have the resolve to actually move over to OSX in the next few years? They will have to endure making their entire software base obsolete, and hope that people will write software for the new OS.
If they can't make it through the transition, they will be just as dead as Micro$hit will inevitably become.

Re:Got to happen by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 07:38 · Score: 0

Apple has defied gravity for long enough. Let
it descend into the grave once and for all.

$3-4 billion? by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 07:50 · Score: 0

Apple's current market capitalization is $6.6 billion. Annual sales $6.2 billion, after-tax income $500 million. A hostile takeover would take much more than $3-4 billion.

FUD by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 08:19 · Score: 0

Seems like someone is trying to spread FUD around here. Apple should do something about it..

Re: Bankruptcy - Feh! by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 08:21 · Score: 0

You have no idea what you are talking about! Apple still had over a Billion dollars of completely liquid assets (cash)...

Actually its over $3 Billion, and its techincally in the column "cash and cash equilivants" which as far as we care is the same thing.

These rumors come every year. Steve is gunning to make Apple bigger, but he likes to think that Apple is like Volvo or Sony. He has way way way too big of an ego to sell out.

-the original Anonymous Coward

Re:Got to happen by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 08:32 · Score: 0

The real question is, does Apple have the resolve to actually move over to OSX in the next few years?

er... Haven't they already? Correct me if I'm wrong, but OS X Server was released a while ago, and all MacOS Rumors ever talks about is how OS 8.6, 8.7, etc. are making the transition to OS X easier.

They will have to endure making their entire software base obsolete, and hope that people will write software for the new OS. If they can't make it through the transition, they will be just as dead as Micro$hit will inevitably become.

"They will have to endure making their entire hardware base obsolete (by migrating to a RISC architecture)". Sound familiar? You have to admit, if anyone can pull off a massive migration like this, Apple's got the track record. And as far as writing for the new OS, I haven't heard anything but praise for it. Not from reviewers, from my friends who've used it.

Re:Get rid of it by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 08:54 · Score: 0

the original poster does have a point - the Mac os does have a learning curve, despite Apple hype. The difference between Mac & Windows is that once you do learn the Mac interface, it is consistant & makes sense.

ps: use Macsbug - it's part of the os, and it'll give you a fair bit of info on your crash.

And the OS has become quite a bit more stable in the past year. we'll see what comes of OS X

Meet the new rumor, same as the old rumor. by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 09:49 · Score: 0

If you follow
http://www.pelagius.com/AppleRecon/
you would have seen these rumors for a long time.

One reason why it hasn't happened: When Disney's chairman was stepping down and the new one was selected, Jobs wasn't chosen.

So, like the killing of Newton, any sale was posponed until the proper stroking of Steve Jobs ego can be done.

Remember: Its not about money. Jobs owns one share and is paid $1 (or $5 or some such) as iCEO. He has a real job as a cartoon maker at Pixar. The deal that would make it happen:
Disney buys Pixar/Apple and makes Jobs El Jefe. THAT kinda deal would stoke his ego.

Re:Meet the new rumor, same as the old rumor. by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 13:33 · Score: 0

Can you imagine the kind of stuff a Disney/Pixar/Apple merger would bring? That'd be COOL ;-) Especially with Jobs at the helm, in all his psycho goodness. It's all rubbish though...

ANNOUNCEMENT: Linux Users Purchase Apple Computer by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 10:49 · Score: 0

June 12, 1999.
Apple Computer held a surprise press conference today announcing that the company would be
bought by thousands of users of the Linux operating system. This move was apparently due to the
hatred of Macintosh hardware and software felt by many elitest Linux users.
The capital needed to purchase Apple Computer was apparently generated by a Distributed.net-like
connection of Linux users' bank accounts. Unused capital was put towards the purchase of enough
Apple stock to control the company.
While many industry insiders were left scratching their heads at the motives of this takeover, Linux
users felt that this was the best way to rid the planet of one of the two inferior mainstream
operating systems.
A similar project is now being coordinated to purchase an unspecified Redmond-based software
company. The leaders of this project optimistically expect completion of this project (and world
domination) by 2002.

Does Jobs own any Stock? by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 10:59 · Score: 0

This doesn't make any sense. As I recall it Steve Jobs sold all his stock in Apple about a month prior to the infamous Microsoft investment. I believe he owns all of one share of Apple Stock.

The key question is, what would be in it for Steve? I think Apple is to much of a Ego trip for him to consider letting it be sold.

I've got to admit that I thought he was going to kill Apple, but he's done a great job of turning it around.

My 8500/180 is still plenty fast, but I don't think I'll be able to resist a G4 Mac once they're released!

Re:Does Jobs own any Stock? by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 11:55 · Score: 0

This doesn't make any sense. As I recall it Steve Jobs sold all his stock in Apple about a month prior to the infamous Microsoft investment. I believe he owns all of one share of Apple Stock.

I was just going to post this exact observation. Unlike what Crabb boasts, this rumor doesn't absolutely pass the BS test. Crabb, I'm sure, has heard the rumor before, but now he likes what he hears and is putting a spin on it _because_ Apple is successful. He's pro Apple and to him this is his way of saying the rumor is a "good idea" for Apple to implement--kind of a backward approach. To me, this is one strike against the legitmacy of the story.

The other thing that makes Crabb's new spin on an old rumor less like to be a reality is that his so-called trusted, highly reliable sources state that this was the master plan of Steve Jobs from the start. *That* is BS.

If Jobs was planning to build up Apple to sell it, he would not have sold his stock as the stock price would have increased as the company went into the black. Even if Apple had not become successful, the mere rumor of a sale typically causes a rise in the stock and he would have profited from that.

The thing is, Steve wasn't thinking of, didn't know, and/or wasn't sure he could turn Apple around (hence he sold his stock), just as he
was not sure, didn't think about, or was not sure MS would have invested in Apple. If he had believed in either case, do you think he would have sold his stock? No. So strike two against Crabb's spin--Job's probably wasn't thinking about this.

Crabb is, however, right in that this "passes the BS test." It is a *feasible* scenario. What *might* be true is now that Apple is in the black, Steve's plans may have changed from helping Apple maintain its brand-name to advancing it. iow, this might be a later idea and any case, it is an interesting and somewhat of an inviting one.

But potential means squat in computers--reality counts. This just falls into those rumors years back that Sun was going to buy Apple. I'm still waiting on that one.

Re:mmx vs. altivec by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 11:32 · Score: 0

Nope. I just glanced over Apple's site, found quite a few expo talks and white papers. AltiVec, like MMX, 3DNow!, and SSE, is an instruction set extension and needs to be programmed/optimized for.

And? You know, just because Intel sucked at getting the tools for mmx out sufficiently doesn't mean any new instruction set extension is going to have the same problems. Intel blew the mmx out the door, then scrambled like mad to help companies who wanted to use it program for it.

Not to mention, Apple and Alvitec are a little more poised to have an impact, given Apple's traditional market strengths. Unlike mmx which was sort of thrown in, Alvitec was designed with a lot more thought and Apple has been looking at the pluses and minues of Alvitec for quite a while. They decided to support it and since they do control when a chip and OS is released (read G4 and MacOS X), they can plan to have their tools ready when the hardware is released.

That way, Alvitec is less prone to fizzle like mmx has.

Re:Yes, It's all true by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 12:18 · Score: 0

I'd like to announce that I'm not buying Apple Computer.

Me neither, but I would like an iBug.

This gets moderated as "Funny" and scores a 1? by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 12:26 · Score: 0

First of all, it's an old gag -- so it's not that funny. Secondly, it's a powerful computer. This strikes me as "Flamebait" more than "Funny".

MS won the look and feel lawsuit long ago by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 12:47 · Score: 0

The reason M$ entered the deal was to settle once and for all the "look and feel" lawsuit...

Sorry, try again. Microsoft won the "look and feel" lawsuit. It was settled in their favor years ago. They didn't owe Apple squat.

Re:MS won the look and feel lawsuit long ago by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 23:36 · Score: 0

You are correct about the look and feel lawsuit. That was settled long ago. The $150 million resolved the legal dispute over Microsoft pilfering code from QuickTime.
Re:MS won the look and feel lawsuit long ago by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 14:04 · Score: 0

M$ won the lawsuit involving Windows 3.1. There were several allegations of patent infringement in 95 as well as with Quicktime. The agreement pretty much was a lawsuit buyout called "Patent Sharing" for the press because both sides knew that it would cost more to duke it out in court.

Re:Get rid of it by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 13:20 · Score: 0

Hey, maybe I SHOULD have my head examined. I bought 2! Besides, I must be hallucinating too since it looks to me that that "crappy disk subsystem" seems to do what it's supposed to just fine (although not as fast as I'd like sometimes - but who doesn't think that from time to time?). Could it possibly be? It is!! I'm multitasking without crashing the system!! How can this be?!? Maybe it's all just part of my crazy delusion?

Of course, if you'd actually used a Mac in the last 3 years, you'd know what you're talking about. Now, there's a really crazy idea, yes?

Oh, and so I'm not completely off topic: I think Apple's selling out would be a seriously bad idea. Parnerships are fine, but I have to think that Disney, Viacom, and the rest are just clueless enough to kill it off once and for all.

Re:...and Apple's a software company. Right? by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 13:38 · Score: 0

You know, Sun actually put forth a proposal to buy Apple for $23 a share a few years back, but Gil Amelio (then a member of the board) wouldn't have it, because Apple was trading at $28 and there is no way anyone could take such an insane dive as to sell for less than they are worth...

Re:Disney and Apple by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 14:52 · Score: 0

I happened have downloaded Squeak about a day before reading your post. What a kick in the pants! I have been screwing around with this system all day (pausing only long enough to read Slashdot) This reminds me of the feeling I got when I first used a Newton, clunky, many problems, but still, there is love in there. It has many of the hackerishly customizable things that I love about linux, and I have found often when I want to do something the knowledge applies orthogonally, I wonder how it would be to use a system like this day to day . . . .

Platform flaming is for small children by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 15:25 · Score: 0

I'm continuously suprised at the immaturity shown by many otherwise intelligent people. I simply do not understand why more folks haven't adopted the philosophy of "use the tool which best suits the problem". If someone asks me to design graphics for a web site, or layout a buisness card, I'm heading straight for that G3 Mac with Quark/Illustrator/Photoshop. At the office with all those pesky penny-pinching executive types, windows is sometimes the only option... sometimes you just gotta bite the bullet and go with it. And of course, when I've got that free time at 3:26 am, writing c or java code, email, or crusing the web, I'll be just as happy as a clam with my linux box.

Platform Flaming = Platform Ignorance

my 2 pennies

--d

It's ok.... by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 16:44 · Score: 0

Hang in there man, it's nothing to get a stroke over.... As mac users we take some cr@p from other people attached to other platforms, and we give it out too sometimes. All of us are jerks some day over some issue, usually out of inattention and ignorance. Today was that guys day, so long as we don't start killing each other all can be forgiven.

Re:It's ok.... by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 07:53 · Score: 0

I have had the pleasure of dealing with many mac users, and they boast the love for their os just as any linux or nt user. I agree totally with you. We are all nerds and we love wut we use to death, no matter wut anyone says. WE all have been a little annoying when it comes to the love of our os/machine. It's a little igornant to not see the strong points of all os's and to exploit those respectively for your own needs.

Re:Got to happen by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 18:17 · Score: 0

That's because Carbon isn't much of a new API, just a rehash of the old Toolbox that's about as bizzare and painful as Win32. The *right* way to program for Mac OS X is still up in the air, though I'm betting they'll revert to form by killing the more useful technology (ObjC), and try to push platform-specific Java (thus missing the point of taking on the JVM's limitations).

Re:Get rid of it by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 18:34 · Score: 0

There hardware works pretty well, the monopoly is the only real problem with it - you have to buy a system with primo low-volume components from one vendor (who doesn't have to behave competitively, because they don't even wantprice-sensitive customers), they'll probably drop you RSN (there are a lot of two-year-old Macs that OS X Server doesn't support), and the costs for upgrades and replacements are ludicrous and you can't get them at the screwdriver shop down the street.

That, and their congenital inability to write an OS that even tries to be robust in the face of buggy apps, in an industry where bugs are rampant. Good thing they bought one, hope they don't eviscerate it.

Re:That's it... by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 18:55 · Score: 0

"Nobody gives a damn what you think!" buried in hundreds of words of ranting is a nicely ironic proof of just how much you *do*. If you don't want to know tens of thousands of geeks think you're running crap, I'm afraid your only options are to stop listening or stop running crap. We certainly aren't going to pretend MacOS is good software just to make you happy as you prop up a monopoly.

Good Reason Why It's Not True by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 20:36 · Score: 0

Michael Eisner is no fool. Disney is an entertainment company, not an advanced computer technology company.Disney has a hard enough time churning out consistent high quality product for ABC (you know, the formerly number one network?). They simply don't have the management expertise, talent depth nor inclination to compete in esoteric hardware and software.
Who's going to run a Disney Apple, anyway? Steve Jobs? He's already a billionaire and while he may be Mikey's pal, he probably wouldn't like to report to him (what ever happened to that Ovitz guy?) Even with people who really, really knew their stuff, Apple almost tanked.
Any team Disney might assemble would probably not bebetter and in the confusion of transition would lose the few minutes Jobs has gained for Apple in from of the howling pack of competitors.
Lots of companies have deep pockets. Lack of funds doesn't seem to be Apple's problem. Their stock price and credit rating prove that.
Don's been staring at the Pocohantas poster in his
office too long.

Re:Get rid of it by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 21:17 · Score: 0

actually the blue and white G3 macs have a lot of 'off the shelf' parts in them. You can slap cheapo UltraDMA drives in there, replace the cd-rom with one of those sweet Kenwood TRUEX drives, blah blah blah

Crying for Moderators - Flamebait! by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 22:36 · Score: 0

Oh, but it's either 1) Pro Apple 2)Pro Starwars or 3) Pro Establishment. So is can stay.

Re:Crying for Moderators - Flamebait! by alfredo · 1999-06-13 07:24 · Score: 1

Would Goofy replace Jeff Goldblum?

--
photosMy Photostream

If Disney buys anything it will be SGI by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 22:43 · Score: 0

And it does not seem Beluzzo would have
any reasons not to sell it (even to Microsoft),
if it makes the stockholders happy.

Re:what a fool by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 23:56 · Score: 0

blah, it came from IBM Research...

Re:what a fool by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 03:36 · Score: 0

Actually, the play station 2 specs for raw polys is 72 Million. About 12 million with all effects including parallel lighting etc. While no one not under NDA AFAIK has actual silicon, it does look like the architecture is strong enough to deliver with multiple rambus channels, etc.

The bad news is that they may not be able to pump out enough of these puppies given they are going to new processes (.18 micron) & new fabs...

don't read this (sooooooo off topic) by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 04:39 · Score: 0

Why don't they put an end to your life, you puny little retard? You just can't stand that the Mac is winning now, can you? You can't stand that they've taken your precious open source model and used it for their benefit, and are soon going to have as rock-solid an OS as Linux.

You fucking crybaby, you just can't stand that you backed the wrong horse, not the Mac users of the world. When your precious Wintel monopoly falls, bleeding, into oblivion and the Mighty Macintosh takes its rightful place atop the mount Olympus of computing, you will be sitting in your room, crying, and jerking off all over your pathetic Pentium XVI motherboard (with MMX!!!).

Re:AltiVec vs. MMX/MMX2/SSE by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 05:22 · Score: 0

It's not an FPU, it's a vector processor.

There are three ways your program can benefit from Altivec: (1) calling the same ol' system API's, but in this case they just happen to be optimized for Altivec. (2) letting MrC, Codewarrior, and hopefully Apple's version of egcs sniff your code and optimize it inito Alitvec instructions, (3) use the Altivec api calls, i.e. vector3 = add(vector1, vector2).

www.devworld.apple.com has alls sorts of documentation on Altivec for developers.

Re:Would you like some swamp land with that rumor? by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 06:20 · Score: 0

Don Crabb! My mortal enemy! That explains it all...

Re:Um... by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 06:57 · Score: 0

'What are we going to do tonight, Brain?'

'The same thing we do every night, Pinky, we're going to take over the world...'

'Oh, so you don't fancy a rematch then, Brain?'

'Pinky, your pathetic attempts at diverting me from my plan amply demonstrates your miniscule intelligence. Besides, I have it all cunningly planned on my nice new, shiny G3 tower. It can't possibly fail. '

'So what's that, Brian?'

'Oh, yes. It's crashed. Type 11, aparrently. And before I'd saved. We have failed!'

'Naarf!'

--Nick
The Reverend ViRTUE.

Re:Enough is enough by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 08:02 · Score: 0

> Don't you think if people were
>interested in it you'd see a direct Redhat port
>of Linux, and Microsoft would have stayed on.

actually there are two ppc distributions very similar to redhat - mklinux (www.mklinux.apple.com) and linuxppc (www.linuxppc.com). you should really check your facts before making such blatently incorrect statements. ppc is a great platform, don't trash it without good reason.

i'm not saying i wholy agree with that moron who wrote the original post, but i'm writing to point out that there are intelligent people out there who find the ppc platform, running macos, or linux, to be an extremely useful and viable piece of hardware.

--d

I have my doubts by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 08:03 · Score: 0

I dont see them doing all this work just to "sell out." From Steve Jobs' past, I don't see him selling out when the road gets tough. Mac's have been around for ages, during the good times and the bad. Steve isn't a quitter. This article could be correct. If Steve does need to sell, he'll go out with a bang and with all the effort he can put into his company. We need more users like that pushing an OS/machine to it's bitter end/beginning.

Re:Apple stock buy-back more likely by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 10:57 · Score: 0

Re Palm PC - Be on the lookout for an Apple PalmOS handheld before too long. (poop via MacOSrumors)

-- Dirt Road

Apple defeys gravity? No, they fly! by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 10:59 · Score: 0

I'm tired of reading the death knells for Apple! Not only will Apple not die, it does not deserve to. Of any mainstream OS, it is the most stable, most useful, most intuative and easiest to use. It is no wonder that Apple holds a high marketshare in the schools, and that since the introduction of the iMac, is expanding by leaps and bounds in the first-time user market. Let us not forget the true innovators in this market. And I'm not talking about Mr. Billy G. Steve Jobs is not our savior, but the Mac nonetheless deserves a long and prosperous career.
The Football

Why you never get support calls... by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 11:16 · Score: 0

People like me, inside the depts that use Macs, are the ones who get the calls.

We learn quickly how to show the schmuck what to do to fix the problem herself next time, and when to escalate to the "real" support folks (usually when the network falls down).

Just make sure we have current system CDs, and a site license for Norton (or TechTool Pro), and we'll take care of things down here. It takes maybe 2-3 hours a week tops.

-- Dirt Road

Crabb's Agenda in all this... by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 11:34 · Score: 0

...is that he is associated with Enterprise Mac users and is hacked off waiting for action on that front. There are still some Mac enterprise folks left and yes, there used to be more. Like other categories of Apple Users (Mac Subnotebook users, oh Duo; Apple PDA users; Mac UNIX users, A/UX and AIX; NT Yellow-box users/Next afficionados) Don is a bit tired of waiting for his category to get un-Steved (Steved = Apple user/developer parlance for tech sacrificed by Jobs in order to a) bolster profit and b) focus the co.).

So, my theory is that Don is just trying to twist the Man's nose, in effect, "You can't sell computers in the Enterprise, so let's say you're going to sell the co. because of that failure." A bit of reverse psychology, if you will. Goes along with the aforementioned "MacOS X Server is dead" bit that Don came out with a while back. I appreciate Don for for his enterprising nature, and witty, heartfelt pieces on the Mac, but this is likely to be ineffective.

Here's to the folks who have said this should not have been picked up as news, no matter whether my theory is close to the truth or not.

My first Unix system was an A/UX box running on a Mac, I know it was "SysVrOLD", but it was alot like Perl, easy things easy, hard things possible, for what I was doing then. Since that time I've admined SunOS, Solaris and AIX, and used Linux/Intel and Linux PPC, plus a few other O/S that should remain nameless. I'm glad to see Unix back on the Apple platform in the form of MkLinux, LinuxPPC, and soon MacOS X, with its BSD layer.

Goofy isn't a bad idea... by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 12:14 · Score: 0

Frankly, considering that Goofy was always so clumbsy and fumbling over things and messing stuff up, he would be the perfect candidate for an iMac. It's the one thing that might go smoothly in his life..."if it's easy for Goofy to get on the Internet, maybe it's easy for you?"

Let's face it... by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 12:19 · Score: 0

The future is going in that direction anyway. Historically most inventions travel through a "hobby" stage before they go wide and integrate into peoples lives. It kind of makes sense.

If Apple handled things the right way, their products could become as invisible and as widely used as the light switch.

Re:Apple's market cap is actually... by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 12:22 · Score: 0

A smart CEO would sell about now. It makes sense.

Here here! by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 14:16 · Score: 0

Don Crabb is one of the reasons why MacWeek seems so tabloid-esque. He should be ashamed that he rehashed this story.

Re:Get rid of it by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 18:00 · Score: 0

Yeah, they've gotten better about it. But I've upgraded several friends' machines piecemeal (and never bought a whole machine all at once myself), and I might be running a PowerPC if I could hop in my car and get a motherboard or the latest G3.

Re:Don Crabb is a Moron by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 18:08 · Score: 0

Was he by chance ranting about OS X Server for Intel, which they apparently *have* killed? (After promising a lot of developers who absolutely depended on it, that it would indeed ship...)

Re:Let's turn this thing around... by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 18:28 · Score: 0

Wow.

I haven't seen a delusion that grand in a long time.

*applause*

Re:AltiVec vs. MMX/MMX2/SSE by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 18:40 · Score: 0

Apple is recoding the Quickdraw , Quicktime and the Sound Manager Routines Among others to take advantage of Altivec. That means any program which supports Quicktime will see the acceleration benefits!

Can't wait to see how Sorenson encoding performs on a G4 w/Altivec.
Rumor has it that Connectix will release v3.0 of VirtualPC to support Altivec...

Re:Don Crabb is a Moron by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 19:36 · Score: 0

Yes its dead jim, like YellowBox is dead too.

Cartoon Maker Steve Jobs doesn't like competition.

Re:what a fool by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-13 23:32 · Score: 0

nope. wrong again.

IBM *already has* a vector-processing unit strategy in their Power 3 chipset. Motorola wants vector-processing, too. And AltiVec was an *Apple* creation, not a Motorola creation. Who do you think designs all those custom chips for Mac motherboards? Apple has some of the most prolific and capable chip designers out there.

Please stop spreading the misinformation about the BYTEMark tests that the PC pundits have been trying to use ever since BYTE ran (and re-ran) those tests. The fact is, the PowerPC *is* twice as fast on the BYTEMark test, with or without the bitfield test factored in.

Microsoft: The only one who *can't* buy Apple by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 06:12 · Score: 1

Were this DOJ thing not going on, I'm sure MS would be salivating at the prospet of buying up their last competitor. But with the Feds watching, they can't.

But who says that Apple has to be bought by someone? I say just liquidate the company and all its assetts, divide up the profits among the shareholders and actually end the company's existance. It'll be the last nail in Microsoft's coffin. And MS will will finally receive the punishment it deserves. Apple will have died for a purpose rather than fading into obscurity or being absorbed into an aimless corporate conglomerate.

Re:Microsoft: The only one who *can't* buy Apple by Mike+McCune · 1999-06-12 07:52 · Score: 1

$150 million, while it seems to be a lot, isn't the reason for the agreement. The reasons Apple entered the agreement was to keep Office for the Mac current with the Windows version. Without Office, the Mac would become another Amiga. Great technology but not enough mainstream applications. The reason M$ entered the deal was to settle once and for all the "look and feel" lawsuit and also to push IE in order to put Netscape six feet under.

--
In a world that is Free and Open, who needs Windows and Gates?

No one seems to have a memory... by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 08:58 · Score: 1

What is this, about the 1000th time we've heard this rumor about Apple being sold over the years? And yet a lot of people fall for it and day stuff like "yeah, but this time it sounds real...".

Rumors of it's sale and/or demise have been going around ever since the Mac came out.

This is old new...been there, done that. Let's move on. If it IS sold, then sure, that will be news.

Anything for a fast buck.... by Anonymous Coward · 1999-06-12 16:13 · Score: 1

I think Apple may be beating the Brooklyn bridge for being the single must sold thing ever....

Is it June already? by Skyshadow · 1999-06-12 05:52 · Score: 3

Well I'll be damned, it is June already. You can always tell because it gets too hot and humid here in the midwest, and rumors that Apple's going to be purchased by Disney start making their rounds.

I've heard this rumor at least once a year since I was in high school (remember? Before there was a Windows NT? Ahh....). You can almost set your watch by it. Personally, I'll start believing that Apple's going to be bought out when I see some hard information about it, rumors be damned.

----

--
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.

Fscking astonishing. by Chris+Johnson · 1999-06-13 11:22 · Score: 1

"You can modify any page here, and add your questions, answers, and examples of Squeak code". Eeep! We are talking ITS (Incompatible Timesharing System) out there and alive on the Web! How is it that nobody noticed this happening?
Just looked at the whole main front page. Damn if it isn't the simple truth! Forget 'weblogs', that's tame and tiresome- 'Swikis' are clearly the novel concept. Yes, there are old versions, yes it can be reverted (with a certain amount of tedious cut+paste) from backups in the case of wilful destruction, but by God if it isn't ITS (intentional total lack of) security all over again, with the same social contract and extended trust. I could have tweeked out the HTML all I wanted- that's what it's about. So could you. Of course I didn't- I don't know enough about Squeak to contribute- yet. I hope people get the same shock of recognition that I had, and realize, 'Damn- this _is_ my page! They don't even know who I am but I get to edit the HTML of it anyhow.' I hope whatever slashdotters are slashdotting all these sites (one was already tottering under the load) can understand the freedom of this. It's like the freedom of linux coding only applied to a shared web space. I think this is wonderful. I had no idea anyone was doing anything this daring, this cool.

Interim CEO by Trepidity · 1999-06-12 08:20 · Score: 2

...for very large values of "interim."

--
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10

Re:Interim CEO by Geoff · 1999-06-13 22:09 · Score: 1

That woud be "Interim CEO for life."

(Alas, not too original. I stole the line from SportsCenter, where Bud Selig was often referred to as "Acting commissioner for life." Selig was "acting commissioner" of Major League Baseball for several years before becoming the real commissioner recently.)

--
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso

Re:mmx vs. altivec by Have+Blue · 1999-06-12 10:28 · Score: 1

The main differences between AltiVec and MMX/SSE/whatever:

AltiVec-optimizing compilers on release (I heard CodeWarrior will simply recieve a "Optimize for AltiVec" checkbox in the prefs)
AltiVec acceleration of low-level OS tasks (copying, math, etc.)
Many more registers, plus some other streamlining inside the processor that MMX/SSE didn't have.

Just wait until....! by gavinhall · 1999-06-12 08:54 · Score: 1

Posted by d106ene5:

Wait until Q1/Q2, when the next version of Mac OS X Server hits (in addition to Client) -- along with dual or quad processor G4s

This is reminiscient of the spew once heard on the OS/2 advocacy groups. "Wait until...". Whatever. Apple won't be any better position to market to the enterprise once any of this comes into play. Here's why:

1. Intel boxes are fast enough for 99% of desktop users. "Faster" doesn't turn many heads these days unless you're talking high-end CAD, animation, data mining, etc, and Apple doesn't exist in these markets anyway.

2. OSX. The last thing IS managers want is to have to integrate yet another OS into the office network. Why would they bother when they can already do anything the Mac would do for them with cheaper Wintel boxes they already administer?

3. History. Apple has never made a dent in the enterprise market. Those trends are meaningful - are you going to be the brave IS manager who bets the shop on a largely untested OSX platform? Don't give me all this bunk about how NextStep is a proven platform - there is plenty of new code in OSX to merit testing. Apple has never and will never be a piece of the enterprise puzzle.

Re:Just wait until....! by IntlHarvester · 1999-06-13 00:56 · Score: 2

Apple has never and will never be a piece of the enterprise puzzle.

Who says OSX Server is aimed the "enterprise"? What about the traditional Mac server market in DTP shops and education? Right now, these people are largely using WinNT for the bigger jobs.

Besides, Apple only makes desktop hardware - hardly enterprise server stuff.
--

--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Re:Just wait until....! by alfredo · 1999-06-13 07:37 · Score: 1

Darwin is a wild card. what is to keep da geeks from porting it to the Intel platform? Is this a backdoor way to knock NT off it's game?

Hey, this iMac of juniors is easy to use. Hmm wonder if I can use it at the office. It runs MS office, and it would look good at the receptionists desk, and that strawberry color is the same as our logo color.

--
photosMy Photostream
Re:Just wait until....! by TheInternet · 1999-06-12 10:55 · Score: 1

Intel boxes are fast enough for 99% of desktop users. "Faster" doesn't turn many heads these days unless you're talking high-end CAD, animation, data mining, etc, and Apple doesn't exist in these markets anyway.

Faster was your word, not mine. :) I don't think anybody will buy into the platform because it's simply faster. When referring to dual/quad G4s, I only meant that this is what's required to compete head-to-head in terms internet serving.

Once that plateu has been reached, then ease-of-administration issue merits consideration of the platform, particuarly for people that don't grok concepts like glibc2.

OSX. The last thing IS managers want is to have to integrate yet another OS into the office network. Why would they bother when they can already do anything the Mac would do for them with cheaper Wintel boxes they already administer?

You make a good point, and I don't have a particuarly good answer to that. But the fact is everything changes, and it can be initiated by anyone at any time. Linux is proof of that.

Apple has never and will never be a piece of the enterprise puzzle.

Never is a long time.

Scott

--
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas

Don Crabb is a Moron by gavinhall · 1999-06-12 10:51 · Score: 1

Posted by APrescott:

Don Crabb has been spreading mis-information about Apple for a long time. Just weeks before Mac OS X Server shipped he was running around screaming that Apple had cancelled it. Why would anyone listen to a word he says anymore?

I've heard so many Apple take over rumors that I'll believe it when I see it.

Re:Enough is enough by gavinhall · 1999-06-13 06:36 · Score: 1

Posted by Redalert:

>You can't stand that they've taken your precious >open source model and used it for their benefit, >and are soon going to have as rock-solid an OS >as Linux.

I think you really need help. Apple doesn't have much to do with open source, and Darwin is another failure waiting to happen. It is not really open source.

I'm sure if things continue the way they do I'm sure that Apple will be alive five or even ten years from now, but I doubt they will ever rise above 8% of the total market share.

>Wintel monopoly falls, bleeding, into oblivion >and the Mighty Macintosh takes its rightful

Again Apple will never takes it place among the mighty. Their market share might grow, my guess is it won't, but even if it does it will never take Intel/AMD. The only thing that could have killed Intel is if Microsoft would have turned most of their work to the Alpha port of NT. Which of course they didn't since x86 controls the market, and will until Merced is released.

The PowerPC never had a chance and never will. Simply put it isn't good enough, and even IBM realizied this when they decided to sell off most of the line to Apple. Don't you think if people were interested in it you'd see a direct Redhat port of Linux, and Microsoft would have stayed on.

Re:Enough is enough by gavinhall · 1999-06-13 22:34 · Score: 1

Posted by Redalert:

>actually there are two ppc distributions very >similar to redhat - mklinux >w.mklinux.apple.com) and linuxppc >www.linuxppc.com). you should really check your >acts before making such blatently incorrect >tatements. ppc is a great platform, don't trash >t without good reason.

I'll trash the PowerPC platform anytime I feel free too. It's a chip that's on the same playing field as the CISC based P6 design. What it's not is a real RISC design. I think you've been reading too much MacKido.

As for LinuxPPC and MkLinux being based on Redhat that is somewhat true. Actually I'm not so sure about MkLinux, but the other is.

The problem is that you don't see the port directly from Redhat. You do on the other hand see ports of Alpha, x86, and Sparc. There are a number of ports that are not offical, but none of them are completed enough to use full time. Hell you can't even recompile WordPerfect 8 to run on PowerPC.

Note:
The one feature I find attractive about LinuxPPC is that with Sheepshaver you can actually run Mac OS through Linux. Another advantage is that it seems to be rather fast due to the architecture of the processor, but comes no where near Alpha.

Don Crabb by crayz · 1999-06-12 06:54 · Score: 1

That fool is none other than DOn Crabb, who I believe has said this before. He's also said many other stupiud shit things and thinks he can tell Apple to do whatever he wants. He's full of shit but he just keeps popping up on one crappy site after another. Damn.

Re:what a fool (cont.) by Lurker · 1999-06-13 05:55 · Score: 1

Despite the fact that they compete with the Wintel complex, Apple is guilty of this too. Their blatantly false adverts about how the original 233MHz iMac was "faster than Intel's fastest PII" (at the time, 400MHz), et cetera are just as bad as any of Intel's P2/3 commercials, which claim everything from "our CPUs let you do all these neat things that the other guy can't" to "the PIII makes the 'net go faster".

Every time I hear someone complaining about Apple's "blatant false advertising" in the iMac ad, I have to wonder about the reading comprehension of the person making the charge. They did not say the 233MHz iMac was "faster than Intel's fastest PII". If you listen closely, what they actually said was, the processor powering the iMac is up to twice as fast as the fastest Pentium II. Anyone with a brain also knows that the reverse is also true: the Pentium II is up to twice as fast as the PPC G3. That is, I'm sure you can find some benchmark where either of those statements is true. Believe me, if Apple had made a claim which was factually untrue in their advertising, they'd get nailed for it. Or maybe I'm being monumentally naive.

Re:...and Apple's a software company. Right? by Ryano · 1999-06-13 20:16 · Score: 1

"I'm not sure why you're so transfixed on the money issue. While he has stock, he only takes a $1/yr paycheck. All evidence points to the fact that he's not in it for the money."

On a point of information, as far as I know, Steve Jobs only holds one share of Apple stock in order to keep his family on a health plan. This makes Jobs' motives even trickier to fathom. There is quite a lot of interesting stuff being written about this though, such as Gil Amelio's new book and a couple of corporate histories of Apple.

Re:what a fool by substrate · 1999-06-12 07:48 · Score: 1

Motorola is fabricating it, but the original champion for adding a vector processor was an engineer at Apple who came up with the original spec. I'm sure Motorola did an awful lot of modifications to it in order to make it feasible.

Re:mmx vs. altivec by substrate · 1999-06-12 07:45 · Score: 2

They didn't call it an FPU because it isn't just an FPU, its a vector processor. Floating point units (and integer units) are part of this vector processor but calling it a FPU doesn't define its operation. The G4 or whatever its eventually named will contain an FPU, it will also contain this AltiVec processor which happens to be a vector processor.

Vector processors are what power the traditional supercomputers like the Cray T90 or the NEC machines. They are capable of performing dot product or vector operations on multiple data in a single cycle. The vector processors on machines like the T90 are much more powerful than AltiVec.

You are correct on one thing, special code will need to be made to make use of the AltiVec enabled processors but Apple has had the compiler available to the general public for some time now, as well as AltiVec emulators.

Not all code works well on a vector processor, but the return on investment for code that does is rather stunning. It so happens that a lot of graphical operations do play very nicely on a vector processor.

Re:Got to happen by substrate · 1999-06-12 09:44 · Score: 2

The old software doesn't stop working, or at least the majority of it won't. There will be backwards compatibility, but software running in backwards compatible mode won't make use of the new 'modern' features. Apple has already gone through these exercises at least twice: The original 68K based macs had a 24 bit memory address. Programmers would play tricks and use the otherwise wasted 8 bits for a variety of things. Great... except when 32 bit memory busses were introduced, some of the software that made use of these hacks broke very badly. The next event I know of was the transition from 68K processors to the PowerPC. They wrote a fairly decent 68K emulator. The fastest 68K mac shortly after the introduction of the PowerPC was a PowerPC. It wasn't perfect, some things did break, but by and large it worked.

Some possibly lesser changes were the introduction of PCI (no backwards compatibility with NuBUS at all) and USB (you can get USB->ADB converters)

Re:what a fool by substrate · 1999-06-13 01:37 · Score: 2

No, throughout the design of a product the specifications slowly evolve from rough paper tigers to a final specification. Interim specifications aren't released as they're part of the design process and could potentially assist others in either reverse engineering exercises or in avoiding pitfalls in competing projects.

I'm trying to recall where I originally read this, it was probably a trade magazine like EE times but it wasn't something I thought I'd ever reference again.

Where's AOL? by Helmholtz · 1999-06-12 05:48 · Score: 2

I was surprised not to see AOL in the list of potential buyers. I wonder if the coffers have finally run dry, or if they're just holding out for a better price. So much for useless conjecture.

Sean

--
RFC2119

Re:Where's AOL? by Wayfarer · 1999-06-12 06:31 · Score: 1

I doubt the coffers have run dry yet. :) If I were AOL at this point, the only things stopping me from buying Apple outright would be:

a) Fear of the DOJ.
b) Worries about short-term losses from Apple.
c) The fact that I could probably buy whoever buys Apple.

-W-

--
-W-

Is it all journey, or is there landfall?
--Ellison & van Vogt, 'The Human Operators'

Re:Old Hat by J.+FoxGlov · 1999-06-12 16:10 · Score: 1

Plus MacOS Rumors already ran this two months ago. Then, it was that Jobs, "real" CEO of Pixar, supposedly wanted Disney to buy Pixar, and "possibly" was interested in selling Apple along with it.

My bets are on Jobs's ego. He has more ego than anyone else in Silicon Valley, and isn't going to sell Apple for anything (unless Jobs has been replaced by a space alien.) Apple is his baby. He almost went shit nuts when Sculley forced him out.

He's not going to let someone else be in charge of Apple. Especially since most companies think using what's most conventional and what's most popular is the way to do business.

Apple's been the biggest innovator in computing for years. If it gets sold to anyone else, it will die.

J.

--
damned vulpine http://sb.drtwister.com/

Get over the $1 salary thing! by Watts+Martin · 1999-06-12 23:32 · Score: 1

While I consider it doubtful that the company's going to be bought, the fact that Jobs only draws a $1/yr salary from Apple is not very relevant. The CEO of Netscape also drew only a $1/yr salary, and he didn't have a job at Pixar. But he had stock options from Netscape. To play devil's advocate, it's not entirely irrelevant to remember how Netscape's CEO ultimately made his last batch of money from the company.

And, while Apple's $6.3B market capitalization is indeed high, that wouldn't be a showstopper for the companies that show up in the variations on this rumor. (Sony has a $40B market capitalization, and Disney a $60B.)

The question is ultimately whether or not these companies think they'd have something to gain by buying Apple. While Sony and Apple may be targeting similar markets, Apple doesn't fill in any gaps in Sony's product line. (One can argue that Macintoshes are intrinsically more attractive to media creators than Sony PCs, but it's more realistic for Sony to try to give media creators a compelling reason to move to the Vaio line when they outgrow their current computer through interoperability across their video and professional editing lines.) And, while Disney doesn't have a computer line that Apple is competing with, it's questionable as to whether they'd want a computer line. There is no better business case I'm aware of for a "content provider" to market their own computers than there is for a TV network to market their own televisions.

Squeak from both Apple and Disney by Colin+Simmonds · 1999-06-13 03:27 · Score: 1

Check out the Squeak system, which, oddly enough, was partially written by Disney.

It gets better. Squeak came out of a research group at Apple, which later moved to Walt Disney Imagineering to keep working on it.

Colin

what a fool by MoNsTeR · 1999-06-12 06:09 · Score: 1

Yeah, we've all heard this before. Apple is going
to die/be purchased by [company]/whatever. Much
as I hate to admit it, Apple is probably going to
be around in its current guise for quite some time.
Maybe once MacOS X becomes standard, I can stop
thinking of the iMacs and new G3s et al. as an
unmitigated plague upon the face of computing.

But more importantly, whatever foo at ZD wrote this
thing is just that, a total fool. He slings buzzwords like "digital video" and "MP3 audio" in an attempt to bolster his bogus speculation. He reveals himself to be under total control of the marketroids as well, with statements such as "how does 60 million polygons a second hit you?". 60Mpolys *is* fast. But I'd wager that if he'd said 6Mpolys instead, his readers would have been just as impressed, despite the fact that every commodity 3D card can push that many polygons. He also seems convinced that AltiVec is somehow relevant. What was that big new thing that Intel was hyping that was supposed to change the way we computed, bringing multimedia pizzaz into everyday tasks and accelerating gaming into the next century? Oh yeah, MMX. And we all know how MMX played out: some games use it, mostly to speed up sound playing and some other mundane tasks, but it had none of the big impact Intel predicted. Moving on, 3DNow! from AMD and Intel's analogous extensions, SSE, are and will continue to be nearly...

Re:what a fool by MoNsTeR · 1999-06-12 13:58 · Score: 1

You're right, no consumer level cards can pump 60MPolys, which was part of my point. However, 6MPolys is well within reach. The Voodoo2 can render 8MPolys, I believe, and the new generation including the TNT2 can push around 12.

MoNsTeR
Re:what a fool by djwolf · 1999-06-12 07:12 · Score: 1

not to dispute your original point but, to my knowledge NOTHING renders 60million polygons per second. I believe that you may be able to find around 6 million or so with some oxy cards or doubtfully some tnt2 stuff, but that's it. If i'm wrong please tell me where to buy...

--
---- I like compilers
Re:what a fool by craw · 1999-06-12 07:34 · Score: 2

While AltiVec is being hyped by Apple, it is really a Motorola creation. As you known, IBM and Motorola have a philosophical disagreement wrt to the PowerPC architecture; IBM wants simplicity and pure speed, while Motorola wants the additional SIMD instruction set.

AltiVec is relevant to the issue at hand (ie. Disney). In terms of audio and video processing (we're talking multimedia, not necessarily restricted to gaming), many of the basic algorithms are primarily vector manipulations. Rather than having each individual programmer reinvent the wheel, Motorola, Apple, and others are recoding these essential algorithms using the AltiVec technology. I believed that things like optimized FFT's (audio manipulations), DCT's (video), BLAS (lot's of applications) are or will be available. As for the polygons, I want 60M lighted, textured, Gouraud shaded triangles per second (then I will be really impressed).;-)

I realize that you are wary of the hype (as one should be), but check out the performance specs for some very useful algorithms. I personally hope that this is not hype. I also wish that AltiVec optimized libraries (e.g., FFT's) become available for LinuxPPC.

BTW, elsewhere in this thread you comment about the Apple hype concerning the PowerPC performance. IIRC, the integer Byte test results were heavily biased by a single test (bit manipulation?); Apple then reported the "average" test results.
Re:what a fool by craw · 1999-06-12 10:12 · Score: 2

Interesting. I guess that I bought into the hype that Motorola was spreading about AltiVec.;-) I always thought that AIM was an "interesting" alliance made up of strange bedfellows.

Do you know what the original specs were and how much it changed in the actual implementation?

If this comment starts off as a +2 it is not because of content.
Re:what a fool by alhaz · 1999-06-12 14:37 · Score: 1

*sigh* ok, I can't say that I know one way or the other whether AltiVec is a Motorola or IBM addition to the design. But here's what I can tell you.

IBM is already using AltiVec in it's embedded PPC setups - mostly routing equipment. Has been for close to a year.

Having already been familiar with AltiVec as the brain inside a piece of networking equipment, I thought it somewhat odd when it started getting hyped as an MMX-beater.

Furthermore, IBM and Motorola have reversed their decision to go separate ways with PPC design.

--
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
Re:what a fool by znu · 1999-06-12 10:57 · Score: 1

The "RealityMonsterTM multisubsystem" in the high-end SGI Onxy2 systems renders "up to 210 million polygons per second and [has a] 7.2 gigapixels per second fill rate", although the high-end Onyx2 might not fit in your door. Go here, and bring LOTS of cash

--
This space unintentionally left unblank.
Re:what a fool by 1millionmhz · 1999-06-12 06:29 · Score: 1

Gimme a break. ZDNet isn't exactly targeting the fringe, so it can't be full of jargon like "60Mpolys". Saying "60 Million polygons per second" isn't a pointer to Crabb's cluelessness, but the phrase he used ("how's that grab you?") is just lazy writing.
I'm still not sold on AltiVec being a big deal just yet, but the Apple has a much better chance of having AltiVec adopted by the majority of developers than Intel did with MMX. Oddly, in this case, the smaller market share for the MacOS works in its favor as Apple only has to convine a handful of major players (Adobe, Macromedia, Avid, etc.) to support the instruction set and the rest of the developers will flal into lockstep. We'll see how it plays out, but most likely not for two years or so.

The keys to success are:
Re:what a fool by nphinit · 1999-06-12 06:24 · Score: 1

uhh, get your facts straight about MMX/AltiVec. MMX died because developers had to go out of their way to support it. FWIU, AltiVec is more like a super-FPU that you don't need to specifically program for.

Re:what a fool (cont.) by MoNsTeR · 1999-06-12 06:27 · Score: 2

(posting from lynx, text field length limit)
...pointless. True, 3DNow! did allow the K6-2 to *match* the gaming performance of the PII in many cases, but so would have designing that chip with a pipelined FPU (a move that would have improved more than just gaming performance). Note the K7, sporting a 3 fully pipelined FPUs (more than the PPro/2/3), that, when code is properly compiled for it, surges out 30%+ ahead of the P6 core *at the same MHz*. Assuming Intel follows their lead and redesigns their FPU, then 3DNow! and SSE will go to the marketing graveyard along with MMX: used, but never really appreciated. It's not too hard to see that AltiVec will suffer the same fate, unless perhaps Apple's uber-marketroids pull out all the stops...

But anyway, I've rambled on far too long about multimedia processor extensions, only to show that the author was your average everyday idiot who believes all the marketing. In fact, after reading 2.5 years of Computer Shopper, I'd be inclined to say the same about EVERY Ziff Davis author. There was one CShopper columnist, I believe his name was Eric Grevstadt, who "got it". He wrote about how we don't really need $3,000 desktops and $5,000 laptops to run Word and Excel, how "upgradability" is a phantom feature, since most users never upgrade and upgrading is usually less economical than buying a new PC (for mainstream users, anyway). Knowing that, it's not too hard to understand why Computer Shopper, a publication that thrives on advertisements from vendors selling overpriced, overpowered PCs, didn't like him and gave him the axe. Ziff Davis is in bed with MS, Intel, Dell (et al.), plus any number of other big players in the Wintel PC industry, and they have a vested interest in keeping computing
expensive, de-empowering, and deceptive to the unwitting user. Despite the fact that they compete with the Wintel complex, Apple is guilty of this too. Their blatantly false adverts about how the original 233MHz iMac was "faster than Intel's fastest PII" (at the time, 400MHz), et cetera are just as bad as any of Intel's P2/3 commercials, which claim everything from "our CPUs let you do all these neat things that the other guy can't" to "the PIII makes the 'net go faster". As a friend of mine adamantly maintains, Disney is one of the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse (MS is another, I forget the other 2), and them gaining another foothold into our lives by acquiring Apple would be a Bad Thing.

But hey, that's just the great whirlwind that is modern computing. If I said "I wouldn't have it any other way", I'd be lying, but I have come to half-accept it. But the important thing is to understand it, to see through the hype, FUD, and half-truths is more and art than a skill.

Happy computing.
MoNsTeR

mmx vs. altivec by MoNsTeR · 1999-06-12 06:35 · Score: 2

Nope. I just glanced over Apple's site, found quite a few expo talks and white papers. AltiVec, like MMX, 3DNow!, and SSE, is an instruction set extension and needs to be programmed/optimized for.

Really now, why would they have given a uber-FPU a special name? It would have been far more straightforward and effective to say, "our FPU is really f***ing fast all by itself! you don't need to code in some obscure ISA extension!" Like I said, seeing through the hype is an art. Things with names and campaigns behind them are rarely simple.

MoNsTeR

Re:mmx vs. altivec by fprefect · 1999-06-13 03:58 · Score: 1

Don't forget that MMX took over the floating point registers, you could only do one or the other. AltiVec is simply another unit and doesn't affect use of floating point.

--
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.

MORE mmx vs. altivec by Sleepy · 1999-06-12 22:20 · Score: 1

I don't have all the specs here, and I'm to lazy to reread them anyways. But there's an apples and oranges difference between AltiVec and FPU.

You might be confising them, because in the Intel world the FPU must be turned OFF when MMX is in use. How is it Intel says MMX is great for 3D is BEYOND me... as far as I am concerned MMX was good for a few PhotoShop extensions. AltiVec does not have this crippling design flaw - with PowerPC the Integer, Floating Point AND "vector processor" (AltiVec) can all run simultaniously.

Another huge advantage of AltiVec is preexisting applications already support it by way of QuickTime. It wasn't until recently that Microsoft started writing multimedia layers into their OS (although they change name every month...). QuickTime's been around for AGES, and if you accelerate QT with AltiVec everything is going to require much less CPU or simply run faster.

One last difference between AltiVec and MMX is when you want MMX you must write that code in assembly - x86 Assembly SUCKS compared to just about anything else. Provided compiler support is there, you can use any damn language you want with AltiVec. This is great for quick everything, but it helps those kind souls doing Mac ports of popular open source utilities.

I didn't even get into benchmarking, because I don't care. Simply because of the bad design of MMX you'll never see large parts of Windows taking advantage of it. Now I wish I had waited on buying my B&W G3 because AltiVec is almost here, but this is the way things work...

Re:Not only is it June... by MonkeyBoy · 1999-06-12 12:13 · Score: 1

...but people are repeating themselves.

I remember Crabb saying almost the exact same thing back when Apple had roughly 20% of the consumer market.

These rumors have one major problem, which is that large media conglomerates have little to gain from taking such a MAJOR gamble by purchasing Apple. Hell, most of them are still smarting from their last foray into computers, namely their invasion of the consumer gaming market a few years ago.

Unless Microsoft is broken up by a DOJ, Apple's chances of becoming the Sony of consumer computers is slim to nothing. Microsoft's marketing machine has too many spin doctors on their side (and industry players won over by them) for that to happen.

And after working at Viacom for 5 years, I find it hard to believe even the best marketing wonk could overcome the pencil pushers.

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Moof!

Let's turn this thing around... by teleny · 1999-06-13 00:25 · Score: 1

A few facts: Jobs has stated that he wants Pixar to be as big as, and independant from, Disney, with all the trimmings (theme parks, games, TV, toys, music, etc.) The Pixar/Disney deal is merely a marriage of convenience until Pixar gets known and established enough to be independantly distributed.
Meanwhile Dreamworks is chafing under M$'s rule, and Katzenberg (late of Disney) is full of rancor for his old employer.
Jobs is still a friend of his fellow farm-boy, George Lucas, who has just launched one of the most profitable films in history.
With a few small stretches, this looks extremely promising for animation. Dreamworks kicks out Gates, reforms around Spielburg and Geffen. Spielburg and Lucas hire Katzenburg, lure Jobs over to their side of the Force, bringing Pixar over. Together they buy Apple, meaning that they not only have control over the whole means of producing movies, but even the computers used to produce the special effects, the game software, the light shows at the new Pixar theme park, etc. Disney finds itself up against a studio that makes FAR better movies than Prince of Egypt, and the Cosmic Balance is restored.
AMEN! and pass the popcorn.

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teleny, friend of cats.

Re:one condition, please by arielb · 1999-06-12 10:12 · Score: 1

ok as long as Microsoft kills Windows too. I'm sick of crashing and a terribly thought out design and I'm sick of people promoting it as the greatest thing in the world and screwing those who don't agree.

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That's it... by LafinJack · 1999-06-12 14:51 · Score: 0

OK, that's it, engage rant mode, offtopic moderations be damned.

Some of you Linux people are starting to piss me off a little bit more than I already was. You are worse than the Windows users. You are worse than us (we?) Mac users (although I still want to try LinuxPPC). Hell, you're worse than OS/2 and Amiga users! Just shut the fluck up! I'm gonna use a Mac, Joe Bob Hillbilly across the street is gonna use Windows, and Ned Pocket Protector next door is gonna use Linux/Amiga/whatever, no matter what your misguided opinion is! Got it? Nobody gives a damn what you think! If I need to use some obscure Windows app, I got VPC, baby! If I need some stinkin' X terminal I can get Linux! I may change my mind if a big bunch of people give me a hell of a lot of good reasons, but not because a handful of stoner nerds says, "Like, bury all those stupid Macs, 'cause, like, they're stupid!" (Just so you know, Steve Jobs and co. has the record for burying the largest number of computers, so hah!)

Well, I think I'm done now...

The one and (thankfully) only,

LafinJack