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Apple Disabling 3rd Party CPU Upgrades? (Updated)
mrwiz writes "According to this article at Appleinsider, it looks like Apple may be removing the upgradability of processors even further with their next generation logicboards, codenamed "Shark", by moving the boot ROM off of the logicboard and onto their processor daughter cards. "
Update: 09/07 07:56 by CT : The Happy Blues Man writes "MacOS Rumors has an update on the "trojan" firmware upgrade for Blue & White G3s. It seems that even in Apple itself, the issue was hotly contested and the proponents' reason was to stop 3rd parties from shipping G4 upgrades before Apple's G4s were shipping. Apple sources have confirmed a fix will be available. " Update: 09/07 08:54 by H :I've been told by numerous people that this is NOT true-more to follow.
Apple has made it very possible for past users to upgrade and will continue to do so. I recently upgraded my 166MHz 603e to a G3. It can be done even farther back to the original PPC's (60MHz?) They are no orgre and have been very good to customers.
With Steve they just like to steal the show. (Did you see the intel booth at Seybold? Completely empty! Laff!!!)
I continue to word if this site is becoming an Apple Hater's Rumor Mill. (Past few Apple Articles have been false AND bad PR... geez guys)
-Curt
Well, after reading some of the later comments on this thread, I think it's safe to say people jumped the gun (myself included) over the processor thing. But I still stand by my opinion that Apple made a series of blunders which limited it's market share to education.
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I'd take this news with a grain of salt. This is reminiscent of the PII/Celeron bus speed limiter rumors that went around about a year ago. I still have yet to see a current Intel chip that outright reject anything above its rated bus clock.
This is not true, while it *seems* you only copy files, the Finder automatically writes a boot signature when it sees that you created a valid system folder (it also changes the icon of that folder so that it contains a little mac classic (pre 8.0) or the MacOS logo (8.0+). It would be like if you copy io.sys, msdos.sys and command.com to a floppy, dos/windows would automatically fill in the boot sector.
Hopefully meta-moderation will take care of retarded stuff like that.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
If you have an AT PC, you'd have to change the case, the motherboard, the CPU, and the ram. If you're unlucky enough to have a bunch of ISA/EISA cards, you may have to replace one or two of those as well.
If you're lucky enough to have an ATX PC, you may only need to change the motherboard, CPU, and ram.
If you're really lucky you only need to pop in a new CPU.
Only in the last case is it really affordable to upgrade.
For Pentium users, you'd probably need to change case, memory, CPU, and motherboard. For PPro users, the same. For PII users, you may be able to just upgrade the bios and CPU. But a PII user doesn't need to worry too much about upgrading...
On the mac side I've heard that one can upgrade all the way back to the 7100 Performa series to a G3 or maybe even a G4, with a daughtercard. That's unheard of in the Wintel world; it would be like upgrading a Pentium or Pentium Pro to a PII, Celeron, or PIII, none of which are possible.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Hang on a minute :)
I own a couple of Macs and PCs (hardware nut!)
I have an original 6100, from 1994 (or 1993, whatever) with a 60MHz ppc 601 etc etc - I can currently buy a G3 upgrade for it, running at somehting like 400MHz - that's more than enough speed for any normal user. G4 upgrades are / will be available (they have been announced)
I also have one of the original beige G3s - I can upgrade that to a G4 as well.
I also have a P133 (well a P120 I clocked) It's about the same age as the 6100, maybe 1995 or so. The equivalent upgrade would be to plug a PIII into the socket 7 on my motherboard. Ooops, won't fit. Fair enough - the 601 on my 6100 is soldered to the board, the upgrade is a card in it's PDS slot. So there must be an adaptor for the pc? nope. There are those crappy evergreen overdrive things but they suck (tried one)
Yeah - sure I can get a new motherboard, but I'll need to get a new case as well, probably new ram too, not to mention the processor - that's not upgrading a system, that's replacing a system.
And intel will be changing their slot design again. Great. No wonder my pc is still a P133.
John
Troc's dubious podcast and blog: http://www.trocnet.net
While there is certainly a dark side to this issue: the argument that Apple is abusing its position, there is a another dimension to be aware of.
The huge G4 introduction at Seybold was a major step in reminding the world that there are more options out there than Windows running on Intel.
If a company such as Newer Technology or XLR8 shipped a card with the G4 on it first, Apple's announcement would have been pretty anticlimatic. No one is going to be able to generate more interest in the G4 than Apple. So, IMHO, it's overall better for the Mac industry (and all non-Wintel platforms everywhere), if Jobs gets first shot at promoting something like this.
And I know what some people are thinking: "Free market -- it's Apple's fault if they don't ship first." But it's not that simple. Apple has to ramp up tremendous volume before they are able to ship a product, which is something upgrade board manufacturers do not have to do. This gives them the illusion of being significantly faster than Apple at getting things to market.
This was the exact same issue with PowerComputing. They came out with faster machines before Apple did, but they could do this because they had so few customers. For example, I believe PowerComputing shipped 200,000 machines TOTAL in the several years they were in business (all to Apple's high-end, high-margin customers), whereas Apple has received 140,000 preorders for the iBook alone in the last two months.
So, in the end, these tiny little hardware vendors would give the Mac market a short-term gain, in exchange for a long term loss. It's much better for the platform (and all non-Wintel platforms everywhere) if Apple gets to make a big show about new techology.
So while blocking upgrades is pretty drastic, I don't think it would be unreasonable for powerpc upgraders to wait until Apple brings major new chips to market before they ship theirs.
Based on some quotes that I'm not able to reference at the moment, it seems this is how Jon Rubenstein (Apple hardware VP) feels as well. Upgrade cards add value, but it's not in the platform's best interest to be leading the way.
It's not a black-and-white issue by any means, and I welcome other viewpoints.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Of course, this would only happen if they were open sourcing MacOS to compete with LinuxPPC.
Compete with LinuxPPC. Hmmmm... okay.
Anyway, as far as open sourcing Mac OS, they've made great leaps towards that. I'm not sure how much sense it would make to open source Mac OS 8.x. But they have open-sourced the foundation for Mac OS X. Mac OS X (Consumer), Mac OS X Server and Darwin all come from the same bloodline.
The largest difference is the windowing evironments. The other difference at this point is that Mac OS X Server and Darwin are using Mach 2.5 (modified) and developers builds of Mac OS X Consumer is using Mach 3.0. Though perhaps that has changed for Darwin through community efforts.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Do you really believe this contributed to the conversation in a positive, constructive way?
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
>then blunders that all up and gets stuffed into a niche market (education).
What??? I figured education to be a bloody enormous market! The graphics business, where Apple had a massive presence until Adobe finally managed to get Photoshop to run properly on NT, now *that's* a niche market... big, but still niche.
Pay attention sir. CHRP is everywhere inside Apples these days. CHRP, if you look at the old MacWorld specs, was supposed to use PC standard ports and cheaper motherboard hardware. This is happening and is quite obviously the direction that Apple is taking with their mb's these days. AGP ports, IDE hard drives, USB ports, 100 mhz system buses..the list goes on and on. The day a pc can straight swap it's hardware with a mac is upon us. All it takes is a driver.
Don't forget, too, that hardware vendors love this opportunity. Anyone that makes a USB mouse/hub/camera can easily write a little driver for macos and sell their hardware to mac users. It reminds me of the Church of the Subgenius. The picture with the slacker taking money from both sides...
Like I said before. Apple blew us all off in the 80's. I'll spend my money anywhere else but on Apple products. Its the same old thing every year from Apple. Why buy products from a company thats going to screw their customers over year after year? When they finally close their doors I'm having a huge party to celebrate. I'll post the invites here.
Yeah, at least you CAN get an upgraded MB for a PC ATX case, try that with an IMac...
"They make firewire proprietary, which effectively kills it."
Um...excuse me? What exactly is "proprietary" about IEEE 1394?
Well, Apple is a hardware vendor. I wouln't be surprised if the OS actually costs them money. After all, in the market they were targetting, they couldn't charge thousands of dollars per licence like many other providers of a single vendor solution seem to do.
Why? It's perfectly legal to recreate a boot ROM. I'm talking re-engineering here, not copying verbatim. You could even use the clasic "one engineering takes it a apart, another (clean) engineer puts it back together based on the report" method or something.
/dev
"There's no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and keep turning left." -- Bill Vukovich
I don't see why Apple is shooting themselves in the foot like this... Heck, showing off my old PowerMacs (originally 80 and 120 MHz) with G3 upgrade cards was awsome "pro-mac" fuel. I've been drooling over the AGP-equiped G4s and beyond, but this report really leaves a sour taste in my mouth... and it's really nothing new, my PowerBook G3 cannot be upgraded due to a similar processor card design. It's almost as though Apple is trying not to be perfect...
First, I should say that I am somewhat of an Apple supporter. However, I am deeply troubled by some of the indications and rumors from Cupertino. I read the AppleInsiders article early this morning and considered sending it to /. but I was lazy. I knew there would be an uproar, as there should be. Even if the rumor is not true, enough flamage sent their way may make sure that nothing of this sort will be considered again. There are some very good things about Apple; there are also some very bad things about Apple. I fear Mr. Jobs may eventually be implicated with the later. If Apple becomes another M$, I will not buy its products either. -a
Now THIS is the kind of bullish propoganda one would read on Mackido. Sure, you'll have to buy a new motherboard if you want the newest generation of CPU's. I guess if you wanted to, you could slap a new proccesor on your old board, turn that 133 mhz Pentium into a 233, but as you say, that doesn't give much of a performance increase. What you don't realize is, that unlike on Macs, PC motherboards don't have a whole hell of alot on them 'cept the bare esentials. Sure they have the chipset, your little pci/isa/agp slots, and usually IDE/floppy controlers. They don't include things like video,sound,3d hardware, ethernet, and whatever else you want on your computer. That meens you don't have to thrown away everything else when you upgrade your motherbaord. The motherboard is just another component in the system. It happends to have alot to do with your computers performance, so it's replaced alot.
How modularized PC's are is very important. It's probably their greatest strength. While macs are prone to the all-in-one problem. "Ooops, the sound in my iMac just died. If I want it working again, I'll have to trade in the whole unit." If such a thing happends to your PC, you can just pull out the old sound card and insert a new one. That's why Apple pisses me off. I'm just a kid and I can not afford a Macintosh. PERIOD. A PC offers me alot better price to performance ratio inside my price range. I can customize my system, and buy junky components where I don't care about their quality. "Hey, I could give a flying %&$# about sound quality and I'm on a budget. I'll just pull that sound card from a 386 and use it in my speed demon!" Where would Apple let me save money on a Macintosh by doing that? Beleive me, if I could put together a PPC machine, capable of running MacOS, for the same price of a PC, I'd be browsing this from LinuxPPC right now.
Sorry if I ranted on for a long time. It's just that I hate it when people spread misinformation(even if it's not directly lies).
While I would love to think that Apple is doing everyone a favor in the future, it just seems like Apple going back into it's shell. If their _not_, though, and this is to help open up Apple, I'd eat my thoughts and do a "Happy Apple Dance" on my desk.
Well, on a PC it would be easy, but, this is not a PC. PCs have had a standard boot procedure for the past 15 years or so. I believe it just loads the first 100 bytes of the disk. (witch in turn loads the OS, or more recently the OS loader).
On a mac however, there is no clear distinction of where the ROM ends and the OS begins. To make a Mac OS boot disk, all you need to do is put some certain files on it. So the boot ROM needs at least to know the Mac's file system...
In short, there would be no way for you to do it without analyzing the code on the ROM chips. And this might destroy the 'clean room' that you need for legal coverage. I'm sure it would be possible, but, much more difficult then for a PC.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Good point on the cost cutting reasons to switch to different chipsets and whatnot, but it all really does come down to promoting more and more lack of upgradiblily. Take the soon to be implemented Intel 810e and 820 chipsets. Sure this is meant for the low end of computers and not for power users, but unfortunately the entire computer industry, on the PC side of things at least, seems to be moving away from the power user's needs in the hurry. Please don't let talks of the Merced and E2k and whatever the newest flavor of the week processor sway your thoughts. Sure there is lots of talk of extremely powerful systems that all seem to be just around the corner, but for every one post of a power chip or device, it seems as if products designed to apeal to the low end computer user and limit upgradability are actually being implemented. The 810 and 820 chipsets integrate just about everything that you could every imagine to cut costs. I mean where the hell are you going to find hardware designed for the AMR riser slot. Not to many sounds/modem cards out there in AMR. It seems as if everything that you see out there is now sub 1000.
I think that I will have to look at it this way. Just be happy that Apple even has a G4 to buy. If this all keeps up, we will no longer see any power systems.
The day that I sub $1000 SGI, I'm quiting computers for good!!!
Technology's a battle between companies producing more idiot-proof systems and nature producing bigger and better idiots
Why, oh why, is it that every time a rumour surrounding Apple gets into the public domain (sic) we get all manner of flamewars, this-really-is-the-end-for-them apocalyptic stories, etc etc etc.??
To put this all in perspective (and I'm not from the good ole US of A so forgive me for not knowing your cars very well) let us consider wanting to change your car...
How many of you with (say) a Chrysler Neon go out and buy a new engine that fits in, ummm, a Grand Cherokee?
Now, how many of you would complain if it didn't work? Or if you couldn't take your favourite steering wheel off the old car and onto the new one?
Try to keep some kind of perspective here kids. Remember that these things we're all using are *only* computers. You don't like what Apple are (rumoured to be) doing?
Don't buy a Mac then
But hey, I guess most of the flames on here aren't from Mac users anyway...
I can see that they may be doing this sort of thing to get people to buy the new model, but they are going to piss a few people off I would think that bought a G3 just before the G4 was released
Good is never enough, when you dream of being great!
I would love to see Apple focus on hardware and get out of making MacOS. This would give Be Inc. a chance to make BeOS run on the G3/G4's!
However, I do not see this happening. Apple seems to aviod too much compitition within its own platform. If they stopped making the MacOS and thus opened the platform for other operating systems, how long do you think it would take M$ to write one? Now thats a Scary Thought (tm)
Hmm...PC Users getting abused by mac Zealots...for some reason i have trouble feeling sorry for you.
If the mac users should check their info before posting, so should you.
What will you do when the P3-700's come out? I believe the BH6 doesn't have a multiplier setting that high.
Oh wait. You'll get a new board, or just whine.
When the P2's came out, everyone needed to get a new board. Sounds strangely familiar. I suppose you just did some custom soldering through a custom chipset to get your P2 to work in a socket 7 board.
The differences between PC and Mac Motherboards are disappearing quickly.
www.macosrumors.com has a slightly different version of events. Of course, they are only talking about Sawtooth not Shark, but it sounds like the recent controversy has changed Apple's attitude a little.
In this case, a third party upgrade company could simply write an openboot firmware monitor, and Bobs your uncle etc.
Or is this being over simplistic?
Christian
Watch Apple as they take another dip in the rollercoaster from stupid hardware moves -havent they learned propriatory is dead?
Mmm... Apple's quality reputation during the "Performa era" was, IIRC, not very good. They were using cheap parts, throwing them together cheaply, and had an alarmingly high return rate. (This isn't just my perception--it was the perception of someone I know of who worked at Apple designing Performas!) And we won't even get into the flaming Powerbooks....
Granted, the Quadras never suffered from that reputation. But there's a reason every iMac went through a long burn-in process--as the "consumer Mac" it was going for the same space the Performa failed in, and it needed to have close to 100% reliability. And it has.
For what it's worth, the Macintosh IIsi systems we had when I worked at Kinko's were close to problem free, but so were the IBM PS/2s that arrived while I was working there (when I started Kinko's was a Mac-only chain). It comes down to build quality, and that's not an Apple exclusive.
Hmm. IIsi and PS/2. I feel old now.
Seems to me that moving the boot ROM onto the proc card could actually make it easier to add a 3rd party proc upgrade. Granted, you would have to write your own boot ROM, but from my experience (and I admit I know NOTHING of apple/PPC boot ROMS)that shouldn't be too painful.
Interesting move by apple in anycase.
/dev
"There's no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and keep turning left." -- Bill Vukovich
It is an enormous market. We're talking everything from your little kids' preschool (used by the administration, teachers, staff mostly) all the way up to colleges and universities (used by everybody). And every single step in between. And the Macintosh dominates there.
:)
It's the primary reason Apple's still alive
"I don't believe that there is one, single, perfect spiritual way and, in realizing that, obviously you become a lot more open."
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
Not just apple. They share that patent with Sony, TI, and others.
--"In dreams begin responsibilities" - Delmore Schwartz
"Even if the rumor is not true, enough flamage sent their way may make sure that nothing of this sort will be considered again." So, if I spread a false rumor that you're beating your wife, just to create an outcry against you to make sure you never do it, that's okay? The email's ready to send, just give me the word. Sheesh. False is false.
Did I miss something? It seems to me like Apple open sourced, inserted their foot in their mouth, and then shot themselves in the foot.
--
Evergreen and Evesham micros have some nifty little cards out there. One is a complete Bios update card you plug into a pci slot and bing, y2k compliancy for sub $50. The other, is far more interesting. It sounds pretty much like the Mac cards Ive seen people describing. Its a pci card, consisting of a socket 370, a bios and 2 dimm banks. The bare card I think costs around $120 (equiv) with a 366 and 64mbs setting you back around $220ish. I believe it supports up to 256mb and a 466, but only at 66 FSB. I dont have a handy URL for them right now, I have seen them in the Evesham Micros and Dabs Direct catalogues. Considering that I have quite a few socket5 (and earlier) boards that have pci slots, I rather think I could have upgraded late 486's and because it utilises most of the original MB older legacy cards should work nicely. Oh and I dont think it can do SMP before anyone asks. Heres a thought for you, Did ABIT just make a smart guess in making the dual 370 BP6 or did they know Intel was going ppga on the p3? ==== Comentary on g3/g4 ==== Quite a bit of negative feedback from customers inquiring about the G4 chips (We're the only authorised Apple dealer in N.Ireland), and some peripheral/add on manufacturers have been in touch to inform us that work arounds will be available soon. Im a PC head, not much to do with Macs, but this would be like Intel making BIOS companies (award, gain, ami) fix their bios so that the only Bx440 chips didnt support the P3, or that the new 820i chipsets couldnt run processors faster than 500Mhz (rumoured issues with power supply on those boards). It seems like a rude move by Apple, understandable I suppose in theory, but botched in execution I really should get round to creating an acccount one of these days, Oh well Ill do it at home later on when I dont have to bicker with the firewall for an hour to see slashdot. Darkseid-[D!] www.captured.com/boomstick
Well, I suppose this could be bad news; on the other hand it's possible that Apple have given up on making money on operating systems and are concentrating on the hardware. Of course, this would only happen if they were open sourcing MacOS to compete with LinuxPPC. Probable? Probably not. Possible? Possibly.
read today's MacOS Rumors.
it seems the debate about being able to upgrade or not is a tricky one. of course, if apple has gone out of its way to disable upgraes, the third parties will have to go to all new heights to work around apple. they've figured out how to put a g3 in a 6100 (pizzabox with a soldered 601) and the terminally non-upgradeable performas, so i think a little hardware trickery isn't going to deter them.
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
Don't go flip flopping on your reasons for purchases based on rumors and half truths from some news sites. Wait a few months and see what's really up. If Apple isn't doing it for decent reasons (as in 3rd parties having G4 upgrade cards out before Apple has G4s on the market), then there is reason to be concerned. Even then, with enough protest, they may (and probably would) listen. In this case it isn't completly outrageous for them not to listen to public demand (as compared to say, listening to people telling them to open source every piece of software they ever had).
If they still don't listen, and upgrading CPUs is a very important thing to you, write them and buy a PC. Although they probably wouldn't listen to one letter, but if people start leaving their platform and informing them they are....
Actually, hardware quality gargles my nuts. It's sad, but it's true. I'm sitting next to about 50 thousand dollars worth of SCSI disks, etc, about 25 thousand dollars worth which don't work. From the 24 disks on RMA now, to the dead Adaptec cards, to the dead motherboard, it's all crap. The worst offender is intergrated motherboards, with onboard everything - I've personally seen 3 of them fry. Usually it's just an ethernet card or something, but hardware quality is pretty low, as compared to the grand ole' IBM 8086, which still runs. (No it doesn't run linux, and no - you don't wanna beowulf it, either!) But you can use it as a jackstand.
http://www.bombcar.com It's where it is at.
Fellowship 9/11
primarily using Linux? I think there's a reason they subtitled with news for nerds, rather than something more specific...that reason being they aren't obligated to report news on that thing mainly. They are free to report on any computer (and some non computer) related thing they wish. Reporting on The Gap or car commercials doesn't really fall under nerd (which is really vague in the first place), so you won't see that here.
". . .and there are
rumors that they will be releasing a patch in the near future to fix that. "
and so, IT guys are supposed to make purchasing decisions based on rumors?
Apple is clearly at fault here. They sit back and watch the rumors press gather the pitchforks and torches, and don't issue a press release or tech article, or tip off ADC members or anything. I don't think that they can say anything that would make this situation worse than the rumors, unless Apple IS planning on cutting off upgradability. At this point it would simply be damage control. Much desperately needed damage control. People are pissed.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
If everything on AppleInsider were true Disney would have bought Apple 10 times.
I saw a story on the Weekly World News that an alien tried to mate with a Harley, you should probably. And as far as rumors go I'd say AppleInsider is on par in terms of accuracy as the Weekly World News. (Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, heh)
Don't see any upgrades for the Imac, though.
"the decision to put it there in
the first place was very controversial and was mainly intended to insure that 3rd-party processor
upgrade makers didn't beat them to the market with a G4"
That's simply inexcusable - if true. Unfortunately, it looks very bad for Apple, because it was the same reason Apple killed off the cloners. They were making kick ass machines that were eating Apple's lunch, big time.
The end result of this mind-set?
WE - (the consumer) end up with slower machines than we otherwise would have been able to get.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Oh, and as far as MacOSRumors vs. AppleInsider, AppleInsider has long been known to spout garbage, and you can tell it's garbage when it damages Apple's image. They do it to make it look like they're scooping the other rumors sites. IIRC, they got horrendously burned on the Apple Media Player (AMP) story, which turned out to be an Apple Corporate ruse to root out leaks. AppleInsider ends up with more ad revenue that way, but they have the reputation among Mac rumors site watchers of being somewhat irresponsible with their reporting.
I hit both sites regularly, but I trust MacOSRumors more, and I think true insider sources trust them more too.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Umm.. i could be wrong but i don't think sheepshaver would work if you no longer have Mac ROMS...
While I generally dont like saying bad things about websites, macosrumors will often make up complete crap. For instance the Sawtooth article from a bit back, notice there are no pictures?
No real benchmarks? Vague assertions?
quote:
>"We have not yet been able to gather exact >MacBench numbers because of benchmark performance
> differences between various seeded Sawtooths, >but it didn't take much of these sorts of >experiences with
> the beautiful machine to realize what a speed >demon it is shaping up to be. "
Yes, thats because you dont have one!
From todays page:
>In a related note, we were surprised to hear from >several third party developers that not only
> had they succesfully used prototype >multiple-G4 upgrade boards on Beige and Blue G3s.
Uhhh yeah, apple is just handing those SMP g4 prototype upgrades out left and right. And they all leak info to you of course.
If you want real mac news sites try macintouch.com
or macnn.com or maccentral.com.
It just upsets me to see people actually believing some of the crud that appears on that site.
-N
that's why there's a moderation system - so you can sort thru that sort of thing.
:)
Face it, so long as people are free to express their opinion, you're going to see far far more than your share of trolls, idiots, and Persons For Whom I'd Make An Exception To The First US Constitution Amendment.
That's what moderation (them little score thingys) is supposed to fix. But letting anyone moderate doesn't exactly work, I think.... I note one moderator gave you a point - another moderator might just dink you a point for being offtopic.
Even tho I haven't a clue as to how it works, this nifty-sounding "meta-moderation" thing might take care of that.
sorry for the long offtopic post
"I don't believe that there is one, single, perfect spiritual way and, in realizing that, obviously you become a lot more open."
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
Drivers are the real problems of writing a new OS to challenge Microsoft. The fragmented state of affairs on the x86 platform is really Microsoft's dongle.
Most old NeXT customers were high-end folks, who didn't have any problems to afford new G3s or G4s. NeXT never cared much about the low end. So why use a lot of resources to support the old, slow and outdated x86 platform? :-)
Sorry - it's Raspberry-Grape-Blueberry ;)
Apple needs to stop viewing the normal and appropriate functioning of a free market as an attack against them.
You realize, of course, that if you reward them for ending your hardware's useful life, they'll just do it to you again.
Because they'd already done that work back when they stopped making black hardware? NEXTSTEP/Intel does exist; I think you still get it (or at least the ObjC library, which is the important part) if you pay a king's ransom for WebObjects.
Anti-G4 firmware is news; no-Rhapsody is not. In fact I've pointed that out a few times in subthreads babbling about what a great bunch of guys Apple are.
As an Apple customer, this seems more to me as a big misunderstanding of what is a sound business decision.
The didn't want G4 upgrade companies getting the jump on them. Now, they're fixing it.
Apple has made decisions like this before - the difference NOW is that they actually listen when there's an uproar. There was a similar problem with the pricing for AppleShare IP's 6.2 upgrade - it was way too expensive. People yelled, apple listened - it is now a free download for 6.1 users.
Apple ain't perfect - licencing for OpenStep on windows is still in the air, WebObjects' pricing is very skewed to the high-end, they killed the Newton, etc. But, I do think that lately they have displayed more pluses than minuses.
-Stu
I've been waiting since 1996 or so. I remember telling a boss that with the new CHRP/PREP architecture that would be available in "just a few more months", we could fill our student labs with PPC hardware and supply the users with MacOS, Windows NT, even Solaris on a few machines for certain departments. It'd be so great to have a single, common hardware platform to maintain. Blah blah blah.
Glad he wasn't paying attention.
There is a clear reason to buy a G4: To run Photoshop real fast. For a lot of Apple's customers, this is the difference between an eight hour workday and one of 10+ hours. I can appreciate that, and can totally understand their willingness to pay a premium for that ability.
Hopefully the new IBM motherboard spec will result in commodity PPC hardware for the tinkerers and home-built crowds who also happen to love Linux, but please don't bet the farm on it right now. I think you might be in danger of retreading my three-year old path. Let's just wait and see if anyone comes up with a compelling story there.
jm
Sony and Epson are just a few of the many companies shipping hardware that uses FireWire -- which is an international standard (IEEE 1394).
Of course this is going to be ignored since Slashdot commentors have a problem with NOT READING all of the comments before they post. Explaining why there is often 50 of the exact same comments. Plus people on here would rather continue to hate Apple based on rumors and half truths.
Uhhh...something seems wrong about this.
I have no problems with Linux, in fact it's all I use (on a PC). But your post is childish. Your post is mostly mud slinging, no facts, and you're creating cartoon characters out of OSs and CEOs.
I certainly trust Apple over MS. Neither over Linux (which isn't tied to a single corporation). MS has it's hands in more than just computer software, and that is not a good thing. Not good for capitalism, and certainly not good for consumers. Apple has control over a SINGLE platform which is a fraction of the choices available for a huge market (personal computers).
I could go on with very technical details, reasoning, etc., but I'm quite sure this is going to be knocked to a -1.
I'm browsing with an iMac ($800) with LinuxPPC!! Do you know how fast it is?? VERY!! Netscape takws time to load, but pages come in faster than IE for MAc + Win
Apple may piss you off because you don't give a flying smurf about sound quality and they don't give you the option to get a cheapo sound card, but guess what? To be extremely blunt, Apple doesn't give a flying smurf about whether you care. You are not their target market. Once all of those people out there who feel this way realize that, I think you'll be a lot happier. Apple doesn't cater to geeks who want to build their own PCs. Apple caters to people who want a tool, something to work with, not work on. Lots of people are willing to pay a premium for a computer that simply works, and if it does break, can generally be fixed fairly easily. You are not one of them. I know this. You know this. Apple knows this. Stop whining about it. If you're happy with your PC, great! If you're not, then buy a Mac, but don't whine that its specific set of features costs more.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Seems like Apple copied Microsoft/Intel instead of the other way around this time. They learned how to do planned obsolence of their hardware. I can't seem to find a 486 motherboard I can put a Pentium III into. Guess I have to buy a whole new machine.
why would I need to do that? They still make AT motherboards, for whatever chip I want.
you should at least make an *effort* to be informed, I mean, really.
Anyway, what difrence does it make *how* you upgrade your system, upgradeability is upgradeablity, no matter how you cut it. If I wanted, I could take an IBM PC XT and upgrade it to a k6-3. I would only need a new motherboard ($50) and a power supply ($10)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Well, it depends on how you want to do it. if you go with an AMD 6th generation CPU, it *would* fit in the socket, you would probably want to get a new motherboard though (so you can run it faster and, ahem, at the right voltage)
You would still be able to use the same ram/case.
It *is* posible to get AT Slot one and socket 370 boards, most of the most popular are ATX, though. I personaly hate ATX "software power control" though, ug...
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
As an owner of a 604 mac (PPC 8600) I know that I can upgrade to a G3 and I've read ads for ZIF socket daughter cards that guarantee upgradeability to G4 (XLR8, I believe). Since G3 is going to be the minimum for Mac OS X, I'm going to need to upgrade relatively soon.
Ain't Unix grand
TML
So when they ditched their proprietary bus (nubus) and their marginalized I/O (ADB and the RS-422)and start using standards based hardware (PCI, USB) all you can do is whine?
Oh come on. You might as well complain about Compaq, IBM, Dell, and any other company that doesn't take an anonymous cloner attitude and just compete solely on price. People differentiate with all sorts of design issues and they try to lock you into their brand. So are you going to feel different buying Compaq proprietary than Apple proprietary?
TML
Giving a CPU more voltage may improve it's stablity when overclocked. lowering it may let you get higher speeds. So, motherboard manufactures built the ability to change voltages into the BIOS to sell to hard-core overclockers
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Clarification:
Intel makes the Pentium processor. Apple does not make the G4 processor.
Quoted directly from MacOS Rumors:
Working closely with our friends at Appleinsider, MOSR has confirmed two very positive developments in the ongoing effort to discern Apple's willingness to keep its professional computers upgradable:
Very importantly, it has been confirmed by reliable Apple sources that the company is planning to include fix for the G4 upgrade block installed with the latest Blue G3 Firmware. Apparently, the decision to develop the block code was extremely controversial within Apple, and even its proponents generally stated that their intentions were only to provide insurance that Apple was not "surprise attacked" by third parties shipping G4 upgrades before Apple was able to ship their own G4 machine.
Secondly, MOSR has confirmed that the recent confusion over whether the new Sawtooth-based G4s were processor-upgradable was caused by outdated diagrams of the board. Once more recent versions were uncovered, it was clear that the Boot ROM continues to reside on the main board, and there are no obvious barriers in hardware nor software for the new G4s to be upgraded for years to come.
In a related note, we were surprised to hear from several third party developers that not only had they succesfully used prototype multiple-G4 upgrade boards on Beige and Blue G3s...at least one has also completed a proof-of-concept test for a multi-G4 card that would support the use of the 128-bit, enhanced-performance MaxBus as a "backplane" bus for the processors and cache chips to use for incredibly efficient inter-processor communication -- but would still be compatible with all upgradable PowerPC Macs and their 64-bit "60x" bus protocol. MaxBus, which many insiders had previously not expected to be applied to the Mac until mid to late 2000, could offer dramatic benefits even in this only partial implementation.
Admittedly Apple has that "Oh Shit!" look of kindergartner caught with both hands in the cookie jar, but it does represent a positive thing for any computer company: Listening to your pissed off end users.
----
Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
hahahahahah... I laughed... a lot when I read this.
Actually, the iMac doesn't have the proprietary Apple ROM either. The older PowerBook G3 models and the old (beige) PowerMac G3 models were the last ones to come with a real ROM with the proprietary toolbox code. Everything they are making now uses the "ROM" loaded into RAM from the hard drive, and the actual motherboard only has Open Firmware (a relatively open standard) to boot the system.
About the only time you can count on anything from AppleInsider anymore is when it has screenshots (the one thing it does better than MOSR).
It's sad. Back in the days when it was MacNN Reality, it was quite good. Now, I rarely trust what it says without a picture.
Maybe after a few years all macs should have a program on the bios that causes them to blow up. No one will be able to keep their computer for more than a few years again!
Why was the above post marked as 'Funny'??? I fail to see it, sounds to me like an honest question. One that i'd like to hear answered too.
IEEE is a standard organization. If Apple is charging a small royalty to offset development (believe it or not folks - it DOES cost money to make something like this!) That doesn't make it properitary.
Tom
>Also, one of the main selling lines in the past for Macs have been that they last 25% longer than wintel machines because of upgradeability.
Apple is NO LONGER doing such. As the majority of thier cash comes from hardware sales, they HAVE to force hardware sales.
Hence the 'all machines sold in 1997 will be able to run Rhapsody' and the x86 op-code version of Rhapsody were both killed.
To drive new hardware sales.
You wanted a saved Apple. Forced upgrades is part of the saved Apple.
(also remember: the last time Apple announced they were out to screw their customers was when Spindler took over in 1996. We all know how that ended.)
My beef with Apple is that they announced a firmware upgrade *without specifying that it blocked G4*s. That was the prime evil -- they weren't up-front about the firmware "upgrade". --Pat/zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
What happened? Sun Microsystems wasn't interested in protecting DEC's products and took over their market. DEC should have known better, they'd pulled a similar trick on IBM years before.
Here's Apple boosting PC sales by alienating its own customers. Mac customers have seen how easy it is to get a new motherboard and CPU for your PC. Their faith has made Apple a success again, and this is how they are paid back? If I were an Apple customer, I'd be losing faith about now.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens.
Apple is the A in AIM. Apple may not own the fabs but they are involved in the chip design.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
Actually, Apple wouldn't let the cloners build their own motherboards in the first phase of cloning; Apple mandated the fact that they had to license Apple motherboards.
It was when the second phase was to begin, and the companies like Motorola and IBM were going to be making their own motherboards, using the CHRP standard, that Apple ended cloning.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
I personally think Apple is doing this because they are strongly focusing on building their customer-base back up.
Apple doesn't make the G4 - Motorola does. Apple would be getting royally screwed financially if they allowed upgrades from the G3 to G4 - they wouldn't be making any money whatsoever, only motorola.
Same reason why all PC's are built proprietary (compaq, packard bell, acer, ibm) - they are only upgradable to a certain point, then after that they expect you to buy a new one. The thing is, people fall for it... And the companies profit big.
I am amazed. Apple made NO promise of g3->g4 upgradability, yet the sheep are bleating about the abuse. Apple makes a promise to ship Rhapsody on *ANY* Mac sold by Apple in 1997, and x86 op-code machines. Yet, on a *REAL PROMISE* that is broken, no one is saying boo. Real abuse of consumers....and not a word.
I am amazed.
Apple made NO promise of g3->g4 upgradability, yet the sheep are bleating about the abuse.
Apple makes a promise to ship Rhapsody on *ANY* Mac sold by Apple in 1997, and x86 op-code machines.
Yet, on a *REAL PROMISE* that is broken, no one is saying boo. Real abuse of consumers....and not a word.
uh, faster chips *need* less voltage. my old p75 took 3 volts. some of the orgionals need 5, you can't really fault intell for that... Faster chips, need lower voltages. chirst. any motherboard with shit will let you chage the voltage. hell Abit boards let you chage the voltage in *software*
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
but you can get a cheap adaptor for slot1/socket 370.
there is no way to get around different physical specs for chips and such, would really want a CPU that had to fit in the 16-pin 8088 sockets?.
besides, motherboards don't really cost that much money, like $90 for a good Abit board
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
You're thinking of the wrong "ROM". Linux or BeOS could run fine without the "ROM file" that is loaded into RAM when the computer starts up. (This code used to be in ROM, up until the iMac, hence the confusion.)
However, a Mac without anything in firmware (which is what this story refers to,) would be very much dead.
MSK
Well actually you couldn't trap the hardware bootstrap so sheepshaver can't even use the code in the boot ROM to boot MacOS. It's loader is in fact the only thing really emulated. From the sheepshaver page:
On which systems does it run?
SheepShaver should run on any BeOS/Linux-ready PowerPC system (including BeBoxen and PowerPC Amigas). It does not run on Intel machines because MacOS and PowerPC Mac applications run natively under SheepShaver (there's no slow CPU emulation involved, it's comparable to the "Blue Box" of MacOS X). SheepShaver/BeOS requires BeOS/PPC R4. SheepShaver/Linux will require at least glibc 2.0, GTK 1.2, and a 2.2.x kernel.
As someone who's been reading the Mac rumor groups for some time - I have this advice.
Take whatever you read on Appleinsider and just forget it. I find that seldom they have their facts straight.
For instance, just recently Apple announced the G4 computers. A *few* days before, Appleinsider was running a story that Sawtooth (the AGP G4 box) was NOWHERE near production and Apple was having TONS of stability problems with it. They claimed close sources and so forth and that the B&W G3 Macs were being readied for the G4 because Sawtooth was SOOOO unstable and may not be ready until next year.
Well, Apple then announced the Sawtooth box a few days later. MacOSRumors had the story straight (even had a description of the Sawtooth discussing the AGP slot before the announcement) That even ran the same day as the Appleinsider story.
Now i'm not saying they sometimes get their facts right, its just I don't put much credibility in them. Furthermore, i'm not saying MacOSRumors is infallible either (they tend to over-hype, IMHO)
Tom
Any relatively new PII motherboard worth its salt is instantly upgradeable to the PIII with a simple BIOS upgrade and slapping the PIII in place of the PII. Doesn't matter really, since the price of a PC motherboard is a mere fraction of a comparably equipped replacement Macintrash motherboard. My favorite Macintrash exclusivity story is about the older Macs, which up to Performa series used modified SCSI hard drives so that you couldn't use Apple's partitioning/formatting utility EXCEPT with hard disks that came from Apple. An expensive third party program was needed that ignored this drive ID. Next time you crack open an older Mac, look on the top of the SCSI hard drive case. See a little sticker on it with an Apple and a copyright date? Yep, that's what that's there for. Some might argue that this exclusivity is at an end, but I would like to cite Apple's recent buyout of Power Computing... one of the biggest Mac clone makers (if not the biggest). They then told the rest of the clone making community to go screw themselves, that they would no longer license Macintrash archetecture...citing that decreased hardware sales had hurt the company. Maybe so, but doesn't that narrow your target market considerably? I think so. Apple, IMO, is as bad as Microsoft, only more exclusive. They control both the hardware and the OS.
You'll still need a boot ROM. Apple used to put quite a bit of the Mac OS in ROM (back when the OS was very small), and until the iMac there was still some OS code in there. Starting with the iMac, all OS dependent code began getting moved off the ROM, but since the OS still wants it, it was moved to a file on the HD and loaded into RAM from there.
The iBook will be the first machine to be released based on Apple's universal logicboard architecture (the G4 is based on it as well, but not the low-end model, and remember the high-end models aren't shipping for a couple months), which moves all OS code out of ROM. But you still need a boot ROM. The boot ROM in the G4/iMac II/iBook essentially serves the same function as the BIOS in a PC, except that Open Firmware is something nice that the PC doesn't have. (OF is not proprietary BTW, I believe Sun uses it as well.)
--
This space unintentionally left unblank.
To some extent, but consider: would you buy an upgrade to a chip which had never even once been used in any computer being produced at the time? I wouldn't have done that, and I doubt most other people would have done it. Yeah, upgrade companies want to go up to faster chips, but you'll notice that even before the ROM block issue came up, they had G4 upgrades ready but didn't sell them (as evidenced by the fact that not only were they announcing G4 upgrades the same day as the G4 machines, but the fact that they were able to find the ROM block on the day the trojan^H^H^H^H^H^Hsystem update was released even though the block hadn't been removed).
The upgrade companies had been holding back on purpose; the ROM block changed nothing (which renders it worthless from a business perspective, but Apple decided to be paranoid).
I'm not defending Apple at all; that was a dirty trick that they pulled. But consider everything before accusing people.
(as evidenced by the fact that not only were they announcing G4 upgrades the same day as the G4 machines, but the fact that they were able to find the ROM block on the day the trojan^H^H^H^H^H^Hsystem update was released even though the block hadn't been removed).
That should read as follows:
(as evidenced by the fact that not only were they announcing G4 upgrades the same day as the G4 machines even though the block hadn't been removed, and by the fact that they were able to find the ROM block on the day the trojan^H^H^H^H^H^Hsystem update was released).
I should have used the Preview button, I guess. Actually, Rob, you should consider forcing a preview before any message is posted. It would cut down on errors and also give flamers one last chance to cool off before posting a flame.
Also, one of the main selling lines in the past for Macs have been that they last 25% longer than wintel machines because of upgradeability. Why would they change this? well, I'm using the same PC that I was in 1995, can you say that about your Mac? (it's a little out of date now, but for only about $120, I could give it some real speed). The fact is, all you have to do is swap that motherboard. *can* you even buy strait Mac motherboards?
:(
btw, PC motherboards cos about $50 for AMD k6/origional pentium board, and and $90 for a slot one. cheaper then one or two new video games...
More apple BS, I see *sigh* that really irritates me
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
These are just rumors. If we took rumor for fact we'd be in a RIGHT bloody mess. Chill out...sheesh. I'm not a big Mac fan either, but some of you out there seem to have no lives and just JUMP on this crap. It's like you're waiting for it. Grow up. Maybe then Slashdot won't be the laughing stock of the geek world like it's beginning to become. I'm talking the REAL geek world, not the made up crap this place is. Solution? TAKE AWAY THIS SILLY FEEDBACK FORUM FOR EVERY STORY HERE. If Slashdot wants to be a place where kewl stuff is gleened from the rest of the net for geeks thats one thing. But this place has gone SO far downhill. All that's here now is a story of maybe 4 to 5 lines, then HUNDREDS of responses just saying "you suck, that sucks, no you suck and that other things sucks". This happens on EVERY story. What is the purpose of feedback on a story here? Do we really gleen any more info? No, it's just people pissing other people off. It's just a "FUD spreading/Linux should be everywhere and everything else sucks and if you don't use Linux then you suck too/Bash everything else/bash every movie/bash every person no matter what except of course for Linus" kind of place now. I think it's time we move on to some other site until they "fix" this problem.
I think the flipflop nature of this news item, right there on the home page for all to see, is troubling.
/. seem to have a prejudice against Apple- specifically one who seems to pick up on an issue a few days late and highlights it as an "Apple BAD" issue. I think what happened with this story (synopsis: Apple stops G3->G4 upgrades.../Apple will reverse the patch now that the G4 machines are out/NO IT WON'T) is shoddy journalism.. especially "Several people tell me this is not true... more later"
At this point, there are no hard and fast answers to this story. Moreoever, Apple's rumor world has always been a dark and murky place with no real certainties until Apple announces. I know- I've been there and worked with several Mac rumors sites.
I find it troubling that some of the people who post news articles on
Who are your sources? And when exactly is later? You've already done the damage by spreading possible falsehoods about the company. Let's ask for some accountability here, please. If Apple is actually trying to hinder the upgradeability of its machines for good, yes, I'm pissed off too. But I don't know that for sure, and neither do you.
Slashdot shouldn't post unsubstantiated rumor unless it is clearly marked as such, which it was not tonight.
What do you think those 400MHz, non-AGP ones are? Those are the Yikes models AppleInsider talked about.
The Sawtooth ones aren't going to ship until October or later. I think Appleinsider was pretty close.
There's probably be a bit more to it than keeping processor upgrade makers from beating Apple to the punch. It's worth keeping in mind that at the present time there isn't a release OS for the PowerPC that is AltiVec aware. And if applications are AltiVec aware and the OS isn't, we have a bit of a problem on context switches. This may partly have been a ploy on Apple's part to keep the world simpler for application writers, and a little less freaking weird for users.
But the conspiracy theories are of course more interesting. Of course, time will tell.
Ok, motherboards last *a lot* longer then 6 months. Most boards can last for a few years, and still hold top of the line Chips. In fact most of the most popular boards For sale *today* were designed, and on sale over a year ago (when the 440bx chipset was released).
A friend of mine built a computer for his brother last fall (one year ago), I built a computer for a friend this fall, and we used the *exact* same Motherboard. the Abit BH6. Another friend who uses the same board (one of the most popular) upgraded his celeron 266 to a pIII 500. I also upgraded my PC from a Pentium 75 to a p200 without changing the motherboard (actually it wasn't the same board that I got with my computer, I got the board about 6 months before because it had a 1meg catch).
CPU's may not last that long, but PC boards do.
by the way, the selling price for an AT super7 board is $55, making the motherboard one of the *cheapest* components in the system. slot one's usually go for about $90 online (the bh6, anyway)
oh and one more thing, the BH6 is a "scaled down" version of the BX6, witch is even older.
could you at least *try* to get your facts strait before posting? Please? I am so sick of my platform of choice being bashed by uninformed Mac zelots
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Help! My Rumour Mill just ran out of ink!
I had heard news/rumors that Apple has been designing their OS and PCs to not need the bootrom, with the advent of MacOS X. Is this true, can anyone confirm, acknowledge, or speculate?
Well, I can't confirm, or acknowledge, but I sure as hell can speculate. As far I know, a computer *can't* boot up without some kind of boot ROM. What the boot ROM does, is store a program that the CPU runs when it first turns on. The CPU sees the ROM as a piece of RAM at address zero (remember, ROM is actually a type of RAM). The CPU then executes this code. On a PC it initializes the motherboard, checks RAM and then loads the first 100 bytes(not exactly sure about the number) off the hard drive and into memory and jumps to it (tells the CPU to execute whatever commands it finds in that part of memory). This piece of code then loads more stuff of the hard drive (IE DOS, or Linux or Win NT bootloaders)
I'm not sure exactly what it does on a Mac, but I believe it's a bit more (IE loading enough of a filesystem to be able to read the system "suitcase" off the disk and other things (I used to make Mac boot disks to try and hack past Ames high's lame security))
So I don't see how Apple could possibly do this, unless they wanted to make special hardware to load stuff of the disk, but this would cost more money, and provide no benefit whatsoever. Anyway PC's use boot ROM (usually called the system BIOS, basic input output system), and they can load whatever OS you want.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I think Apple will do the right thing, under Steve Jobs they have been one of the few companies willing to change things, because of user input. and I think that their track record on reversing stupid decisions supports my hope.
1. iMac originally supposed to have a 33.6 modem, changed to 56K when users complained
2. Opened source several key technologies
3. When their Open Source license was deemed too restrictive they changed it
4. They tried to charge $1 a port for Firewire, but then formed a patent pool with Intel, Sony, Compaq, Philps and others, and changed the fee to $.25 per system, unlimited ports.
5. Have made an effort too hold and in fact reduce the price on every system, introduced under Steve jobs, no they are still not as cheap as X86 systems, and probably will not be unless they can start to claim 20%+ market share, because the economies of scale are not there for them.
(please do not bring up promises made pre Steve Jobs aka Scully and the other dumb asses) and yes I know that they have screwed people around on OS X for Intel and free/low cost yellow box licensing, but the conspiracy side of me thinks that more of the blame lies with the Microsoft Office for the Mac deal. 150 Million bucks does not HELP save a multibillon dollar company, but having M$ Office does. Also Steve's cutting of the clones, Newton and things like Open Doc I believe was necessary. Apple it seems was like an old house the foundation was still good, but the upper floors were rotten. So just like a renovator Steve had to to tear it down to the foundation which is, easy to use multimedia computers, not cool but expensive handhelds. True sometimes good wood gets torn down too, but this is the price you pay for a renovation. And since I am rambling, the clones will probably return, once OS X is out and the Mac only needs a open standard Open Firmware to boot, the first time around Apple had to do so much design work on the boards, for the clone makers and it was not getting enough money to support the R & D for and entire industry. Just look a the motherboard for a StarMax 3000, its got Apple Computer silk screened on it not Motorola.
I also own a PowerMac 7500 (great machine!) and I've upgraded it several times - first to a 120mhz 604 from Apple, now to a 233mhz G3 from Sonnet Technologies.
:)
Never had a single glitch or compatibility problem with either upgrade. No problems with SCSI or noise. And I do serious work on this machine, five days a week.
Of course, Apple hasn't received a dime of income from me since I bought the 604 board, which is why Steve is anxious to get us oldtimers to upgrade
I've heard that the forthcoming MacOS X *client* OS will not run on the 7500, upgraded or otherwise. This alone may push me to a G4. Sigh...
If in fact these rumors prove true (If I've learned one thing, its that rumors are just that... rumors), than it would be an interesting turn of events from last winter, when the friendly Apple reps presenting the G3 at UC San Diego assured the crowd that they were "very happy with the third party companies and their cards". This was in response someone ask about Apple providing upgrades for g3's, such that they "wouldnt have to buy a new machine every 6 months". Hmm....
Check out Mac OS Rumors. The article for today (9/7) mentions that they are working on the firmware patch to the G3's mentioned on AppleInsider, but also that the decision to put it there in the first place was very controversial and was mainly intended to insure that 3rd-party processor upgrade makers didn't beat them to the market with a G4. Still not very nice, but not as ogre-like as forever baring G3 owners from upgrading. Plus the G4s themselves are easily processor upgradable for future SMP cards. It may not be as bad as AppleInsider makes it out to be. Plus, this is just an early prototype. The earlier Sawtooth prototypes also had the boot ROM on the processor daughtercard rather than the motherboard as it is currently.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I know for a fact myself that this is FALSE... ...but if you read the www.MacOSRumors.com article, well you see this for yourself. Outdated information. Happnes alot. Stop bbelieving something that (I, atleast) consider rather ridiculous. Btw... Shark refers to several of the next motherboards to be released, including Sawtooth, the one that will be shipping around October. (Shark names, ha ha, get it?) Other ones will apparently have Shark names too. Geez guys stop spewing false, bad Apple PR. Same problem with the blue g3-g4 issue. Apple just didn't want some 3rd party company spoiling their party by releasing a g4 first. There will be an update soon(TM) Apparently this caused much distress in the insides of Apple, but it was necessary, and will be changed back to the good side of the force (allowing upgrades). Hey ever seen an Pentium chip come out before Intel said so? Nope. Same general idea. -Curt
On the other hand, you will be able to switch out your Mac BootROM so if you wanted to run an O/S such as Linux or Be, you could free yourself completely of the MacOS. I think that most of the other hardware under the hood is understood well enough for some third-party to engineer a BootROM independent from Apple's. You wouldn't be able to run MacOS or OS/X but there's always sheepshaver!
~GoRK
Monty
Look, guys, rumors surround Apple like flies surround $h!+. And the Macintosh community thrives on circulating them.
Does rumormongering really belong on Slashdot?
I vote NO.
I can see the fnords!
I don't see all the shock that is being expressed over the lastest move by Apple. Apple does like other people making money from their product, without first taking a really nice cut of it. They have done this from the begining and will continue to do this until the end. Whenever that may be. (Hopefully not too soon) Not letting you you upgrade your system to the latest and the great equipment out on the market has always been around in computers, Apple just likes to take it one step further. They always had.
When Intel decides that it would be fun to change the voltage on the board for the Pentium III, so you can't bring your 350 PII to a new level of Quaking, there was really no uproar. Why should Apple's move be that much different.
Basically, if computers companies don't create a cut-off point, how are they going to get everyone to buy they newest products every year or so. I'm not saying that it is fair, but I guess that I have become too desensitized towards corperate computer practices.
Technology's a battle between companies producing more idiot-proof systems and nature producing bigger and better idiots
Everyone chill your nuts, I can picture apple loyalists going on murderous rampages, slaughtering helpless sheep and launching their innards at Apple HQ.
THIS IS A RUMOR! There is nothing announced yet, and no one outside of apple and its tight ring of beta testers has seen this machine yet. Also, one of the main selling lines in the past for Macs have been that they last 25% longer than wintel machines because of upgradeability. Why would they change this?
Most importantly people, look at the competing Mac rumors site Macosrumors.com, they claim that the boot rom is not on the daughtercard but on the mainboard as it should be, and it is all confused. Realize that these sites sensationalize and sometimes probably make up the rumors they post. They have seen all the commotion over the boot ROM patch and this site has found a way to stir it up even more and get hundreds of thousands of more hits by getting posted here on Slashdot.
To Rob - have we had enough Apple stories for one day?? I mean I love Apple but this is starting to become a little overkill. Also this story was a little out of line, it is a malicious rumor that is probably not true.
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." --Saul Belloe
One of the main things that is being overlooked here is the instablility of most "3rd party" upgrades. With the advent of the g3, dozens of people bought upgrades for their older machines. They run fine, sure. However, as a game developer (of sorts), many of these machines had fundamental timing issues which introduced numerous headaches to people trying to write code. Applications would run too fast on one machine and be fine on another. As the chip devolopers didn't have these problems with every cpu, you couldn't just write special code for *every* processor availble (Which in itself is preposterous).
In other news, as and old Mosr junkie, Appleinsider should burn in hell for the cheap knockoff it is (I'm not saying, note, that MOSR is better...just that I prefer their sources of bs.)
The MACiNTOSH is case insensitive.
I remember reading that since the G4 had new registers (altivec) the OS would have to be modified to save the extra registers during a process switch (I believe I read this in a recent addition of MacTech) otherwise any app that used the altivec registers would overwrite the previous app's registers. So maybe Apple put this firmware patch in to prevent the G4 from working on systems earlier then MacOS 9 (the first OS with basic AltiVec support). Of course if the G4 computers run 8.6 they probably use some kind of enabler that should be easy to download...
Ummm...Appleinsider (heck, all of the rumor sites) get burned all of the time. It's partially due to Apple's disinformation machine (probably a few merry pranksters, too!).
Hmmm...let me see...what were the rumor sites saying a week before the G4 was anounced at Seybold?
AppleInsider: Sawtooth (the middle and high end machines that were shown at Seybold) would be released in January. As a stop-gap measure, Apple was scrambling to release Yikes! at Seybold (the low-end machine that was shown at Seybold).
Think Secret: No G4s until after January
Of course, let's not forget MacOsRumors live coverage of Lee Iaccoca being interviewed for the Apple CEO position!
Of course, here's my favorite: did you hear the one about the secret NSA security key in Windows?
I've never known a single Mac in my lifetime that had its sound "die" or any other component on the motherboard go bad. In fact, that's the strength of Apple hardware. It goes through a ton of QA testing before it ships, and that is added into the price. Sure I could go to Kwan's PC chop shop and throw together a Wintel machine for less but how well do the components work together? Are they quality-made parts that are guaranteed to last as long as the machine itself? It's great that people like to buy the best-selling Ford Escort because they can afford it and find cheap parts to fix it when it goes bonkers but hey.. if I can afford a BMW that is classier, looks better, runs just as fast, and is more reliable.. I'll pay the extra dollar. The only thing I would replace on my four year old Mac is the aging keyboard (since I bought the system with a no-name keyboard instead of the Apple one). It's lasted this long with no internal failures plus I've bumped it up to 280 MB of RAM plus I've swapped out the 120MHz PowerPC 604 with an overclocked PowerPC G3 running at 305MHz. It came with MacOS 7.5.5 and now it's running MacOS 8.6. It's tricked out and everything works fine. In fact, it's so well built and integrated, I've got it hooked up to a stereo system, a 1-Gig external drive, a CD-R, a Zip, SyquestEZ-Flyer230, a VCR, a Scanner, a 10Base-T hub w/cable modem, and a second monitor for dual displays. This is the venerable 7600 model, introduced in 1995. It was well worth the cost.
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Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
Is this really flamebait? Sure it's a little ungramatical, and a little offtopic... and a little technicaly incorect, but still. It was just an anit-mac rant. Hopefully meta-modereation will take care of this.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The great thing about not having bootROM on the motherboard is that a 3rd party could build a CPU daughtercard upgrade that would have a bootROM which would enable SAY....BEOS!! plus, OSX is not going to have any code in BootROM. SO essentially it is apple hardware independent. i.e. 3rd party PPC people can get it up and running on thier systems.
anti-mac rants show up here all the time...but they need to have *some* merit to them.
-K
One day, you'll learn to watch what you post...
Hello ignorant PC buyers!!! When was the last time you've upgraded your Intel-based PC WITHOUT buying a new motherboard? Doesn't happen, never has since the early of the Pentium (P60-P233). Ever since then a mainboard lasts 6 months, coincidently as long as the time for the next generation CPU to come along.
Oh wait a second, yeah you can upgrade a 400 P3 to a 450 PC.... I forgot about that, sorry.
"The voices in my head say crazy things"
Geez. All this rumor mongering and negativity!
I've heard rumors on both sides; Apple disables G4 to prevent future upgradeability *or* to prevent 3rd party from introducing G4 to early.
We won't ever know which one is true if Apple has indeed decided to fix the B&W G3s in the near future.
Likewise this boot rom thing.
I had heard news/rumors that Apple has been designing their OS and PCs to not need the bootrom, with the advent of MacOS X. Is this true, can anyone confirm, acknowlege, or speculate? Anyhow, by moving the bootrom off the motherboard it means that future motherboards would not need to be changed if bootroms are unnecessary, reduced, or modified. Instead all Apple has to do is produce a new daughtercard at significantly less cost.
Yes, this may *become* an issue if they refuse to license out the bootrom to 3rd party upgrade manufacturers. It may also become a *boon* if, for example, someone wanted to convert G4s to Be boxes(and wrote/designed their own bootroms for BeOS), or Linux, or what have you.
Did I mess something up? It's possible. Please correct!
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Even if this were true, it wouldn't mean the end of 3rd party hardware. Apple likes to control their hardware - and why not? It allows them to take shortcuts in their OS. Apple would (and does, I've had several friends intern/work for Apple) call this level of control "assuring a high-quality customer experience".
When Apple couldn't keep up with demand and was strapped for cash, it licensed its hardware technology out and Mac clones started to appear. The most successful of these companies was Power Computing. When Apple had some money again and decided that they couldn't get MacOS to run "just so" on the souped-up Power Computing hardware, well, this press release speaks for itself.
Bottom line - Apple will let people make compatible hardware when/if they have to. They never want to.
Imaging if you will. It has been rumored that Apple may one day allow clones to be made, again. By moving the ROM to the processor card, Apple rids the mainboard of the proprietary Apple parts. It is a standard "open" PwerPC motherboard design. LinuxPPC and Be would be much more able to support the hardware. Clones could produce nonMacOS systems easily. Apple would sale more Power Macintosh machines. And there would be an increase the PPC market share. Mr. Jobs was smart enough to bring Apple back from it's death bed. Do you really think that he would let it go back?
A while back there were discussions that Apple had found a new way to reenter the cloning market. One of the problems with the earlier clones was that the motherboard designs were all from Apple and had to include the Apple ROM. To my understanding, recent Macintoshes only include bootup code in flashable roms and load the rest into RAM at boot. One of Apple's complaints from the previous cloning experiences was that while they were developing the new motherboards, the cloners were pumping the existing designs past Apple's implementations. Maybe with this new design, cloners could write boot ROMs for CHRP systems? Or perhaps Apple sees themselves as sole supplier of processor cards to a new breed of clone systems in the future (Then they could keep cloners from jumping to faster processors before Apple had a chance to first release them?)
Enough of this, eh? Here is an excerpt from the MacOSRumors information posted today.
_ _____________
"Very importantly, it has been confirmed by reliable Apple sources that the company is planning to include fix for the G4 upgrade block installed with the latest Blue G3 Firmware. Apparently, the decision to develop the block code was extremely controversial within Apple, and even its proponents generally stated that their intentions were only to provide insurance that Apple was not"surprise attacked" by third parties shipping G4 upgrades before Apple was able to ship their own G4 machine.
Secondly, MOSR has confirmed that the recent confusion over whether the new Sawtooth-based G4s were processor-upgradable was caused by outdated diagrams of the board. Once more recent
versions were uncovered, it was clear that the Boot ROM continues to reside on the main board, and there are no obvious barriers in hardware nor software for the new G4s to be upgraded for years to come.
In a related note, we were surprised to hear from several third party developers that not only had they succesfully used prototype multiple-G4 upgrade boards on Beige and Blue G3s...at least one has also completed a proof-of-concept test for a multi-G4 card that would support the use of the 128-bit, enhanced-performance MaxBus as a "backplane" bus for the processors and cache chips to use for incredibly efficient inter-processor communication -- but would still be compatible with all upgradable PowerPC Macs and their 64-bit "60x" bus protocol. MaxBus, which many insiders had previously not expected to be applied to the Mac until mid to late 2000, could offer dramatic benefits even in this only partial implementation."
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driph
This is a rumor . There's another rumor going around that Apple's going to reverse the G4-block in the Blue G3's. They can't both be right (well, I suppose they could, but it would make no sense at all).
Wouldn't matter anyway, seeing as how OSX (and therefore Darwin) requires no proprietary boot ROM. Nor, actually, does OS8.6 (the G4's and iBooks have no proprietary ROM in hardware, therefore MacOS wouldn't be able to boot at all if it still required one. Truth be told, MacOS has booted on CHRP machines since 8.1!) All the upgrade makers would have to do is trot on over to FirmWorks and get their OpenFirmware ROM's from there. No big deal.Linux already works with these OF modules, so it doesn't hurt them in the least. MacOS... well, what do you think OSX is for?
But I'll humor you =)
So lets say I upgrade my PPro...
I have to replace the motherboard. Mine has SCSI. That already places me into the $300 motherboard range. None are Celeron compatible, so minimally I need a slocket and PPGA Celeron, so I spend $400 or so already. Then I need to upgrade the ram, as I have the measly SIMM type, and no one supports it anymore. I have 96MB. Lets say I buy up, into 128MB. Last I checked, sdram prices have gone up. So now I'm spending almost $570 for an upgrade.
All Apple users, if I am not mistaken, of the G3 series can upgrade to the G4, with a minimal amount of hassle. B&W G3s need a bootrom patch(or something like that), but that's it.
Heck, I suspect all PowerPC users, 603, 604, 603e, etc, can upgrade to the G4... THough I can't be certain, not owning a PowerPC.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
I keep taking shit for buying intel instead of apple- sure, the G4 is better, but the apple platform is so full of propriietary shit that they can do this... bah
You got the SCSI story all wrong! It was not the SCSI HDs that were modified. It was Apples SCSI partitioning tool. The block was in the software of that app. It was there so that 3rd party vendors of SCSI partition/editing/etc programs could bundle their apps with SCSI disks not Apple Branded.
Silly rabbit, didn't you know that according to Apple Corp. internal documents, RGB will heretofore stand for "Raspberry-GeminiGreen-BondiBlue"?
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Of course, now someone will say that what really sucks is discussions about discussions about moderation. Well that sucks too !
Score: -1, Offtopic, sorry...
that I wouldn't call Apple a bad apple if they ended up doing. Why would I condone it? Because Apple would lose a hell of alot of money if people could upgrade their G3's to G4's using third party hardware. Not only from the standpoint of not making money on their own upgrade kits, they also lose money because as long as you don't break any warrenty rules they still have to provide Joe Mac user with tech support which costs them money. I've also seen some examples of the third party G3 upgrades for the 7100 and 8100, they worked so horribly the old board had to be put back in. Macs are things you buy with the knowlege that upgrading it is going to be difficult if not impossible simply because of their design philosophy. In my experience Macs were the computers that didn't need to be replaced every year to keep up with the OS and software where PCs need extreme updates after a year. I think part of it is due to the fewer commercial available Mac programs, they don't push the hardware as much as new PC programs do, which is both a curse and a blessing.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Oops, I misspoke.
What I meant was not removal of the bootrom, per se, so much as removal of OS dependent stuff from the rom, leaving, essentially, just the BIOS stuff.
Previously some part of the OS was stored in the bootrom, and from what I've heard Apple is migrating away from that model. That's what I've heard, at least.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Why is it a blunder to get into a niche market as education? Their blunder was to not capitalize on their strength(education) and grow outwards as students moved up through the school system, into college, and into the business world.
And about firewire: as far as I can tell, they didn't make it proprietary, they just charged a $1 per port(it is now, I've heard, $0.25 per machine) fee for it's use. And it is far from dead, as Sony, a large, well entrenched, and savvy consumer products giant, has been putting firewire (called iLink) into every single product than can, from camcorders, VCRs, TVs, etc. Don't tell me that there is a smaller market for consumer electronics than PCs/iMacs! So firewire isn't dead and it isn't going to disappear, especially as lots of other consumer giants are using firewire for storage, consumer products, PC peripherals, etc.
And about backwards compatibility: they didn't do anything to make their CPUs non-backwards compatible. They released a patch to make their B&W G3s not-forward compatible, and there are rumors that they will be releasing a patch in the near future to fix that.
A lot of general hype, mis-information, and bad press is floating around.
Even I may be guilty of spreading some, so please correct me if I am wrong! But be careful of spreading more rumors and buzz or hype.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Apple (NASDAQ: SUX) announced a bold new technology today: iColor monitors. Unlike the old-style of monitor that shows colors based on the red/blue/green primary colors, the new iColor technology uses previously unknown colors. Said Apple Technology Guy Steve "I-Should-Be-Fired-From-My" Job, "It's really amazing! No one knew these colors even existed and we've been able to incorporate them into a revolutionary product!"
Apple downplayed rumors that the new iColor display colors were not compatible with the human eye, forcing many users to upgrade to proprietary eye formats. "While it is true that legacy eyes will not be able view the iColor monitors, we feel that many users will be happy to choose from a wide array of eye-vendors for their future seeing needs" said the Apple spokesperson, although a list of eye vendors has yet to appear.
When asked, critics were quick to point out that proprietary eye design is not the worst issue. Said one critic, "They've obsoleted the entire electromagnetic spectrum! Lightbulbs, radios, magnets, basic electronic theory: it's all out and we'll be crushed under the heel of Apple's tyranny!" An Apple spokesperson replied by noting that "We have not obsoleted the entire electromagnetic spectrum--only the visible portion has been upgraded to Light 2.0".
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Put Hemos through English 101!
"An armed society is a polite society" -- Robert Heinlein
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Apple will fix the ROM block and the ROM will stay on the motherboard according to other (more reliable) sources. Either report both sides or stop this Anti-Apple Rumor mungering! It is not Slashdot's place to get taken in by every third crazy Apple rumor and spread all the bad ones attempting to hurt Apple. The Mac websites are full of crazy rumors, please be more responsible. This is supposed to be a news site not a rumor mill.
I'm the owner of a Power Mac 7500 that's been upgraded twice, so I'm clearly not happy about Apple preventing user upgrades. Perhaps, however, there's another side of the story? When I upgraded my 7500 to a 604, there was a high-pitched (and barely noticeable whine) sometimes, which I was told was normal when putting a 604 in a 7500 (it didn't happen in the 7600). Then when I upgraded to a G3, I've noticed some increased instability due to imcompatibilities with the SCSI controller; about once a month, the first SCSI hard drive isn't seen by the system when I turned it on. My point is, processor upgrades (although they are less expensive for the user) are not really good alternatives for most users. Perhaps Apple's concerns are for how the 'upgraded' Mac tends to be a bit crappier than a real Mac, so they don't want their less experienced users getting involved with it. Think about how the old, Macs in classrooms give kids a bad impression of Macintoshes. An upgraded Mac can kind of do the same thing. I'd be interested to know if any Apple hardware people anonymously would like to state if Apple specifically targeted the upgrade market, or if this was the byproduct of other changes to the ROM.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
I'm not sure I believe that Apple has *ultimately* decided to disable G4 upgrades from B&W G3 machines. I hear rumors that they are going to fix it, especially after this uproar.
I'm not sure how Apple took this one step further than anyone else... Intel released the PPro socket8, then(ostensibly to cut costs) went to the PII Socket1, then(again, to cut costs) went to the Celeron PPGA Socket370, and will in the future migrate the PIII to the flipchip Socket370.
Now since there aren't any clones for any of these chips(barring Athlon's use of the socket1), I'd imagine Intel does the same thing to force purchases of new motherboards, memory, and CPUs all at once. So you're right in that this isn't a new tactic.
What's amazing is that even with this problem, there still exists the ability/possibility of B&W G3 owners upgrading to G4s and beige G3s upgrading to G4s.
Thats as if I had the chance/option to upgrade my PPro to a Celeron or PIII.
So Apple still wins, I think.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*