I could see Intel licensing the Mac OS down the road, under a cost-per-copy and profit-sharing agreement with Apple - but even that makes little to no sense if AMD eventually ramps up production.
Licensing Mac OS X to Intel would allow Intel to sell Mac-compatible PCs and chipsets to PC makers, thus locking AMD out of what could be an expansive Mac market. If the PC-based Mac became a hot seller, PC makers might be all for it, ensuring success and AMD lock-out. Microsoft would be hacked off in a bad way, with two major threats:
1. Kill Mac Office. Not bloody likely if they're selling xmillion copies.
2. Increase Windows licensing costs for PC vendors or yank Windows licenses. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot - this could lead to PC manufacturers pushing Intel Macs even harder.
Intel buying Apple? Once again, Cringely allows his logic to lead him to a conclusion that's way outside the bounds of reality. I don't think it'll happen - but Intel licensing the Mac OS is a distinct business possibility, and it could be a way to slowly erode Microsoft's hedgemony in the PC operating system space.
I'm extremely happy with my Sony Ericsson T616. I'm using it with Cingular.
It syncs easily, works with Salling Clicker, and still has decent battery life after almost a year of use. I don't use many minutes; maybe 100 a week. Haven't tried data connectivity through Bluetooth since I'm always near a WiFi access point.
There was once a time when we had IRIX on MIPS, OpenVMS and Tru64 on Alpha and VMS, Solaris on Ultrasparc, HPUX on PARISC, Unixware on Intel, OS2, and all the BSDs plus Linux out there. It was a rich world. Lots to learn. Each one had a strength you could count on. All thats collapsed, Be was bought out, SCO was too, Alpha, Tru64, OpenVMS were too, Ultrasparc and Itanium and PARISC are dying, MIPS is dead, OS2 is dead, the diverse mainframes are dead, and we're seeing even more industry consolidation, and later the demise of some of the companies who couldnt differentiate enough.
I think there's an interesting comparison with the examples above and the way the automotive industry consolidated over the past 100 years.
As little as sixty years ago, there were dozens of American car brands and several car companies. Now, we have the brands of Chrysler, and Dodge under Daimler Chrysler, Buick, Cadillac, GMC, Chevy, Pontiac, Hummer, and Saturn under General Motors and Ford, Ford Truck, Lincoln, and Mercury under Ford Motor Company. Similar consolidation has occurred in Europe; only in Japan have the majoy players resisted (or are legislated against) buying each other to increase their market clout.
While the number of companies and brands of cars have decreased, there is arguably greater innovation and competition in the automotive space than ever before. New engine programs, improvements and refinements of existing designs, and striking new aesthetics appear every year. Instead of the ho-hum cars of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, market segmentation has actually increased - Toyota, known 30 years ago for tiny compact cars and toylike trucks now markets 1/2 ton trucks and fuel-thrifty hybrids on the same lot.
I predict that we'll see the same thing on an accelerated schedule in the computer industry - and I could argue that we are already seeing this phenomena. While there are fewer brands and fewer computer companies than there were five years ago, I'd argue that a consumer can now buy a computer (operating system included for this example's sake) that is much closer to exactly what they need than ever before.
Want something compact and cheap for decent performance data service? Get a blade server. Are you a home user with modest needs and a requirement for style? Mac Mini. Want a portable computer with exactly the size and capabilities you need? Even Apple offers four distinct sizes and among six increasingly capable models of portable computers.
As different auto companies use corporate engines among brands (the VW 1.8l turbo used in VWs, Audis and Skodas, and the GM 3800 V6 or 350c.i. V8 are two good examples), common logic board designs, processors, and even operating systems are going to be used on a company's computers.
While the overall variety of computers and operating systems on the market has been reduced over the past several years, I'd argue that there are still a healthy number ofoptions, and that the flavors out there (several Linuxes, Windows of all shapes and sizes, various Mac OS X versions) provide a welcome commonality to a product landscape that is already incredibly complex.
Your post is filled with a lot of assumptions based on stuff you obviously either read on AppleInsider or made up out of whole cloth.
The shift from PPC to Intel signals a shift in culture at Apple. It means that Apple has gone from being an innovative 'cool', 'hip' company (of course we know that a lot of that is just marketing hype) to being much more staid and conservative.
Clue: Apple used to be at the mercy of "cool, hip" middle management that couldn't focus more than two months into the future. These days, they're at least thinking strategically and realistically. In five years, Intel will be delivering much faster processors than they are making today. Five years ago, no one would have believed the G4 would only experience a three-fold clock speed increase to date, but it's true.
Intel has to satisfy practically the whole industry, and they have to stay competitive with AMD. I think they can do better than Motorola or IBM when it comes to general purpose CPUs.
I tend to agree with your pessimism, but perhaps for somewhat different reasons.
The shift from PPC to Intel signals a shift in culture at Apple. It means that Apple has gone from being an innovative 'cool', 'hip' company (of course we know that a lot of that is just marketing hype) to being much more staid and conservative.
If Steve Jobbs felt he really needed to make a move to a different CPU he could have made a very bold move (something he _has_ done in the past) and chosen to move towards the Cell processor. Why would that make so much sense? Well, for one each Cell processor contains several PowerPC processors, so chances are....going to the PPC really did give Apple a quantum leap in performance. This switch is being done more for bottom-line business reasons. Jobbs feels he can get better pricing out of Intel. He also feels that the relationship with IBM was somewhat rocky. I think one of the big problems was that he couldn't get a G5 in a laptop. However, he may have lost his patience at just the wrong time. IBM was apparently about to be able to fulfill that wish.
Says who? Can I borrow your crystal ball? When did IBM announce that they'd be shipping 3.2GHz G5s for Apple? Oh - wait - they haven't, and although they assured Apple the 3GHz part would be ready two years ago, it still isn't ready.
This was a huge opportunity lost for Apple. Had they gone with the Cell processor
Which isn't shippping either....
it's possible that they would have been able to create machines that were so much faster than Intel/AMD PCs that it would have drawn a lot of attention and market share.
Intel has to deliver faster and better product for every company making PCs. That now includes Apple. Cell doesn't work in a Mac, it isn't a general purpose CPU, and is nothing to base long-term desktop or laptop design on.
But instead Apple took the safe route. Too bad.
As a Mac user who wants to keep using Macs for a long time and as an Apple shareholder, I am fucking overjoyed they took the safe route. It's just a box, after all. The OS is what makes it magic, and Apple keeps delivering on that front.
I expect the hardware side of the business to fix things when they're not optimum either, and that's what the move to x86 is all about. Intel's roadmap is more compelling than IBM's.
I think one of the big problems was that he couldn't get a G5 in a laptop.
Yeah, Steve just couldn't wrap a PowerBook around a processor with heat dissapation on par with a Halogen lightbulb. It helps when you realize that the 1.6GHz G5 has nearly four times the power dissipation of the 1.2Ghz G4 part used in the PowerBook.
No matter what you think you know about Cell, multicore G5s, or other fantasy products that could have been the basis of new Macs, the reality is that Intel will be delivering faster and faster x86 processors every year to satisfy the PC industry. IBM and Freescale are more interested i
I wonder if this is based on Virtual PC's IP, purchased from Connectix a couple of years ago?
At the time, lots of people thought MS was just going to kill VPC off quietly, but it appears that they're using the technology in lots of unanticipated ways. While VPC was a decent solution for running x86 on PowerPC, it excels at virtualizing several machines on one physical x86 box.
I could be 100% wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm 100% right here, Apple hasn't used "proprietary roms" to "force" anyone into booting Mac OS on "Apple Made hardware" in years. Several years. This is why I can run OSX on my linux box running PearPC WITHOUT an Apple Rom.
You're right. In fact, even when Macs still included ROMs on the motherboard, users weren't forced to run Mac OS. MkLinux (early PowerPC microkernel linux started as a research project under Gil Amelio) was installable and ran just fine on the monolithic ROM macs of the era, including my hopped-up 7600 with two 180MHz 604 processors.
Based on a similar architecture, the Apple Network Server, an AIX box, DID NOT come with Mac ROMs and forced users to boot into AIX. At the time, there were both Mac OS and Windows NT ROMs under development for these machines, but they never saw the light of day. I ran an ANS with Mac ROMs for some time as an AppleShare IP server in my cube (what a waste, I know), but with all the drive bays filled, it had scandds of storage - more than any other Mac could handle at the time. The ROMs were bugggy though - Ethernet didn't work after a restart, so the server had to be manually switched back from lo1 after a restart.
The first "ROM-less" Mac was the Blue and White PowerMac G3. It featured a Mac OS ROM file in it's System Folder that was loaded in a scheme called "ROM in RAM" that sped access to the ROM routines and made the architecture more flexible for use with (then) Rhapsody, then OS X.
Back to the present, I am a little disappointed that Apple seems to be going with a regular BIOS and some sort of lock out routine. Perhaps by using the Pentium's processor serial number, Apple can have Intel produce "Apple X86" processors that will be checksummed by the installer to allow installation if the computer is a Mac x86. This will also stall user processor upgrades and it negates some of the benefit of going with Intel by frustrating the commonality argument, so it may not be the best path.
A brilliant light when the CPU is excited, followed by a loud poof and smoke?
No, but then again, people who take everything literally usually aren't ever going to admit they're swayed by marketing anyway.
Neither is Pentium, though PowerPC is an even stupider name. I guess Athlon isn't that great of a name either and Sempron is downright stupid.
I don't know if you're really thinking this one through. PowerPC seems to be the most descriptive of all the names you cited. PowerPC is the name for the chip architecture that brought a subset of IBM's POWER instruction set architecture to personal computers, using elements of Motorola's 88k RISC bus...hence PowerPC. Subsequent versions of the chips have all followed a relatively consistent naming convention, like PowerPC 601, 603, 604, 740(G3), 750, 7400 (G4), and 970.
Pentium, I'm assuming, was meant to take the Greek root for five "pente" add "ium" an produce a connotation in the consumer's mind that it was the fifth iteration (or fifth element, if you will) of Intel's X86 architecture.
I agree that Sempron is a stupid name - and just as I noted in my first reply, it is a word entirely made of up marketdroid "good sounding" syllables - unless, that is, AMD meant for it to be associated with the Italian word Sempre, used in music to mean "throughout" or "always".
I can't answer your question, after a moment of confusion (during which I chalked up a seeming "mistake" to the quality of Slashdot's editorial staff) I figured it out.
I do have to give IBM credit for naming the processor after something that actually exists, rather than formulating a marketing driven non-word for their new product. Xenon is a gas that when excited, produces brilliant light...not a bad association.
I mean, what the hell is a Xeon anyway? Xenon, now that's something we can all relate to. Perhaps the name for IBM's new XBox processor was chosen after perusing the Greek root of Xenon xenos, which means "strange".
There's also a recommendation likely to raise the ire of the geekier sorts: that ISPs only permit users to send mail through their own servers (presumably by blocking port 25 outbound).
Waitaminit. Would that mean that I could no longer use my mail client with my (insert name of mail provider that is not my internet provider here) e-mail account?
Let Comcast try that. They'll be wondering what happened to the revenue-generating cable splitter boxes at our apartment complex. You know - the ones that are unlocked.
The sound currently does not work and the machine, although faster than StrongARM speed on the desktop, crashed several times during the demonstration. There is no release schedule as yet.
I'm sure it'll steamroll the Windows XP juggernaut any day now. People don't listen to their computers anyway, so sound is of little consequence.
You can use IEEE 1394 hard disks for the Windows 2000 system and boot partitions, as well as normal storage. To use these drives for the system or boot partition, the computer's BIOS must have IEEE 1394 boot support.
You know, you're right, and that's the first article I came across when I was trying to determine whether or not I could repair the installation by using a FireWire disk enclosure.
Problem is, it's not clear from looking at the case or included equipment whether a computer has this capability - unless it's a Macintosh. To find out whether a computer supports all this crap, I have to know ahead of time or look in the BIOS settings.
In a similar vein, I can't repair the same installation on the same machine because the disk is too big. The onboard ATA controller doesn't support very large disks, like the 200GB disk with the wounded copy of W2kSP3, so with the disk attached to the SATA card, I'm required to find another PC that works, put a driver a on a floppy disk , press F6 when booting from the Win2k CD...can you see why I roll my eyes when I hear some PC-centric IT people talk about how cheap PCs are up front?
I should mentione that these monkeyshines are all needed on a 2001 vintage IBM PL300 - a widely deployed machine in a lot of corporations. Sure, it's on the old side, but it's indicative of the state of the art in the 2001-2002 timeframe.
Most of the small form factor corporate desktops I've seen deployed around here (Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, etc.) have USB, PS/2 legacy ports, a CD-ROM...no FireWire anywhere. Sure, your new HP desktop might have a "1394" port on the front, but again, it's up to you to find out whether it supports booting, and if so, how to invoke that feature.
It can take an hour just to get the tools together to start a repair on a PC. A PowerBook or G4 desktop from five years ago will boot from a CD or Firewire disk with a copy of OS X on it by holding down one key on the keyboard - or simply by attaching a "rescue disk" iPod to the FireWire port. You bring up a good point, but as far as flexibility in startup devices and startup modes, the Mac is still light years ahead of most PCs I've seen.
1. On the Apple menu, choose Software Update 2. If updates are available, click Install.
Boy howdy, that Windows Update sure is easy in comparison. "You MUST install Direct X 9 separately from everything else, reboot seventy-eleven times, and dance backwards across the carpet while holding a DDR 2700 DIMM...."
Yes. In my mind as an IT person, one of the chief advantages of a Mac is that you can boot any Mac with built-in FireWire from a FireWire disk - including an iPod.
You can prevent this from happening by setting an Open Firmware password, but for re-imaging machines, it is a godsend.
As a bonus for those of us who want more utility out of our portable boot disks, all FireWire-equipped PowerBooks and any FireWire equipped desktop since some of the later G4s have the ability to boot in what Apple appropriately calles "FireWire disk mode". Pressing the "T" key at startup turns your $2500.00 Mac into a $100.00 firewire disk enclosure.
Dollars signs aside, I can assure you that FireWire disk mode is quite gratifying to watch when you've done something stupid to your machine and rendered it unbootable.
I don't know if the same thing is possible with USB and PCs, but I know that trying to recover Windows 2000 by using a FireWire disk enclosure is impossible, and I assume this holds true for XP as well.
I've got an SE/30 with an Ethernet card in storage, but I haven't hauled it out in ages because it can't connect to my OS X machines on the network.;-(
Anyone have an answer to this besides installing Linux 68k?
Went to the discount Computer place on Duane street in Santa Clara (what, don't all Slashdot readers live in the Bay Area?) and picked up a couple of upgrades to my home network.
Currently, the fiancé and I have four CPUs:
-Dual 2GHz G5 (Heavy lifter for Photoshop and Framemaker, and also the FAX machine) -PowerBook G4 Ti (for catching up on Slashdot anywhere in the house) -StinkPad A21m (fiancé's personal system) -IBM Personal System 300 (itunes Server) -A Canon 1560
The Macs are running Panther and Tiger respectively, while the PCs are both running Winddows 2k. Of course, we have to tie all this stuff into the Internet, so here's what we use:
-Comcast Internet (which sucks on a regular basis...) -A 3Com LinkSwitch 1000 24-port 10/100 switch ($4k in -1996...$15.99 yesterday at Discount Computer) -Apple Airport Base station in hub mode for the laptops... -A "router card" four-port ethernet card in the PC. It came with nifty software that allows me to set up the PC as a router and use the other ethernet card for the Internet.
Total cost for everything...you don't want to ask. The G5 was a gift, the IBM desktop and laptop were bought for pennies on the dollar at Metricom's employee bankruptcy sale (you only get a week of severance, but we'll sell you this $2k laptop for $150!), the PowerBook was bought through Apple's employee sale, and the 10/100 switch was $16.00. I guess it all cost about $3k or so.
"I think we have a lot of diversity throughout the entire game. We have some dark areas, and we have outdoor areas that are brighter. I think how diverse everything is will really go a long way. We didn't really set out saying, 'This game is going to be dark, this game is going to be light' -- we set out to make a cohesive environment where you go through different extremes and you'll see a bunch of different stuff."
It doesn't need to withstand the force, it gives a little.
Supertramp - Give A Little Bit Lyrics Roger Hodgson & Rick Davies -- Give a little bit (of your tensile strength) Give a little bit (of your tensile strength) of your love to me Give a little bit (of your tensile strength) I'll give a little bit of my love to you There's so much that we need to share Send a smile and show you care I'll give a little bit (of your tensile strength) I'll give a little bit (of your tensile strength) So give a little bit (of your tensile strength) Give a little bit (of your tensile strength)
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I could see Intel licensing the Mac OS down the road, under a cost-per-copy and profit-sharing agreement with Apple - but even that makes little to no sense if AMD eventually ramps up production.
Licensing Mac OS X to Intel would allow Intel to sell Mac-compatible PCs and chipsets to PC makers, thus locking AMD out of what could be an expansive Mac market. If the PC-based Mac became a hot seller, PC makers might be all for it, ensuring success and AMD lock-out. Microsoft would be hacked off in a bad way, with two major threats:
1. Kill Mac Office. Not bloody likely if they're selling xmillion copies.
2. Increase Windows licensing costs for PC vendors or yank Windows licenses. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot - this could lead to PC manufacturers pushing Intel Macs even harder.
Intel buying Apple? Once again, Cringely allows his logic to lead him to a conclusion that's way outside the bounds of reality. I don't think it'll happen - but Intel licensing the Mac OS is a distinct business possibility, and it could be a way to slowly erode Microsoft's hedgemony in the PC operating system space.
I'm extremely happy with my Sony Ericsson T616. I'm using it with Cingular.
It syncs easily, works with Salling Clicker, and still has decent battery life after almost a year of use. I don't use many minutes; maybe 100 a week. Haven't tried data connectivity through Bluetooth since I'm always near a WiFi access point.
Pretty decent range and battery life.
The T637 is a relatively recent equivalent...
There was once a time when we had IRIX on MIPS, OpenVMS and Tru64 on Alpha and VMS, Solaris on Ultrasparc, HPUX on PARISC, Unixware on Intel, OS2, and all the BSDs plus Linux out there. It was a rich world. Lots to learn. Each one had a strength you could count on. All thats collapsed, Be was bought out, SCO was too, Alpha, Tru64, OpenVMS were too, Ultrasparc and Itanium and PARISC are dying, MIPS is dead, OS2 is dead, the diverse mainframes are dead, and we're seeing even more industry consolidation, and later the demise of some of the companies who couldnt differentiate enough.
I think there's an interesting comparison with the examples above and the way the automotive industry consolidated over the past 100 years.
As little as sixty years ago, there were dozens of American car brands and several car companies. Now, we have the brands of Chrysler, and Dodge under Daimler Chrysler, Buick, Cadillac, GMC, Chevy, Pontiac, Hummer, and Saturn under General Motors and Ford, Ford Truck, Lincoln, and Mercury under Ford Motor Company. Similar consolidation has occurred in Europe; only in Japan have the majoy players resisted (or are legislated against) buying each other to increase their market clout.
While the number of companies and brands of cars have decreased, there is arguably greater innovation and competition in the automotive space than ever before. New engine programs, improvements and refinements of existing designs, and striking new aesthetics appear every year. Instead of the ho-hum cars of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, market segmentation has actually increased - Toyota, known 30 years ago for tiny compact cars and toylike trucks now markets 1/2 ton trucks and fuel-thrifty hybrids on the same lot.
I predict that we'll see the same thing on an accelerated schedule in the computer industry - and I could argue that we are already seeing this phenomena. While there are fewer brands and fewer computer companies than there were five years ago, I'd argue that a consumer can now buy a computer (operating system included for this example's sake) that is much closer to exactly what they need than ever before.
Want something compact and cheap for decent performance data service? Get a blade server. Are you a home user with modest needs and a requirement for style? Mac Mini. Want a portable computer with exactly the size and capabilities you need? Even Apple offers four distinct sizes and among six increasingly capable models of portable computers.
As different auto companies use corporate engines among brands (the VW 1.8l turbo used in VWs, Audis and Skodas, and the GM 3800 V6 or 350c.i. V8 are two good examples), common logic board designs, processors, and even operating systems are going to be used on a company's computers.
While the overall variety of computers and operating systems on the market has been reduced over the past several years, I'd argue that there are still a healthy number ofoptions, and that the flavors out there (several Linuxes, Windows of all shapes and sizes, various Mac OS X versions) provide a welcome commonality to a product landscape that is already incredibly complex.
But that's just my two cents.
Your post is filled with a lot of assumptions based on stuff you obviously either read on AppleInsider or made up out of whole cloth.
The shift from PPC to Intel signals a shift in culture at Apple. It means that Apple has gone from being an innovative 'cool', 'hip' company (of course we know that a lot of that is just marketing hype) to being much more staid and conservative.
Clue: Apple used to be at the mercy of "cool, hip" middle management that couldn't focus more than two months into the future. These days, they're at least thinking strategically and realistically. In five years, Intel will be delivering much faster processors than they are making today. Five years ago, no one would have believed the G4 would only experience a three-fold clock speed increase to date, but it's true.
Intel has to satisfy practically the whole industry, and they have to stay competitive with AMD. I think they can do better than Motorola or IBM when it comes to general purpose CPUs.
I tend to agree with your pessimism, but perhaps for somewhat different reasons.
The shift from PPC to Intel signals a shift in culture at Apple. It means that Apple has gone from being an innovative 'cool', 'hip' company (of course we know that a lot of that is just marketing hype) to being much more staid and conservative.
If Steve Jobbs felt he really needed to make a move to a different CPU he could have made a very bold move (something he _has_ done in the past) and chosen to move towards the Cell processor. Why would that make so much sense? Well, for one each Cell processor contains several PowerPC processors, so chances are....going to the PPC really did give Apple a quantum leap in performance. This switch is being done more for bottom-line business reasons. Jobbs feels he can get better pricing out of Intel. He also feels that the relationship with IBM was somewhat rocky. I think one of the big problems was that he couldn't get a G5 in a laptop. However, he may have lost his patience at just the wrong time. IBM was apparently about to be able to fulfill that wish.
Says who? Can I borrow your crystal ball? When did IBM announce that they'd be shipping 3.2GHz G5s for Apple? Oh - wait - they haven't, and although they assured Apple the 3GHz part would be ready two years ago, it still isn't ready.
This was a huge opportunity lost for Apple. Had they gone with the Cell processor
Which isn't shippping either....
it's possible that they would have been able to create machines that were so much faster than Intel/AMD PCs that it would have drawn a lot of attention and market share.
Intel has to deliver faster and better product for every company making PCs. That now includes Apple. Cell doesn't work in a Mac, it isn't a general purpose CPU, and is nothing to base long-term desktop or laptop design on.
But instead Apple took the safe route. Too bad.
As a Mac user who wants to keep using Macs for a long time and as an Apple shareholder, I am fucking overjoyed they took the safe route. It's just a box, after all. The OS is what makes it magic, and Apple keeps delivering on that front.
I expect the hardware side of the business to fix things when they're not optimum either, and that's what the move to x86 is all about. Intel's roadmap is more compelling than IBM's.
I think one of the big problems was that he couldn't get a G5 in a laptop.
Yeah, Steve just couldn't wrap a PowerBook around a processor with heat dissapation on par with a Halogen lightbulb. It helps when you realize that the 1.6GHz G5 has nearly four times the power dissipation of the 1.2Ghz G4 part used in the PowerBook.
No matter what you think you know about Cell, multicore G5s, or other fantasy products that could have been the basis of new Macs, the reality is that Intel will be delivering faster and faster x86 processors every year to satisfy the PC industry. IBM and Freescale are more interested i
I wonder if this is based on Virtual PC's IP, purchased from Connectix a couple of years ago?
At the time, lots of people thought MS was just going to kill VPC off quietly, but it appears that they're using the technology in lots of unanticipated ways. While VPC was a decent solution for running x86 on PowerPC, it excels at virtualizing several machines on one physical x86 box.
I could be 100% wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm 100% right here, Apple hasn't used "proprietary roms" to "force" anyone into booting Mac OS on "Apple Made hardware" in years. Several years. This is why I can run OSX on my linux box running PearPC WITHOUT an Apple Rom.
You're right. In fact, even when Macs still included ROMs on the motherboard, users weren't forced to run Mac OS. MkLinux (early PowerPC microkernel linux started as a research project under Gil Amelio) was installable and ran just fine on the monolithic ROM macs of the era, including my hopped-up 7600 with two 180MHz 604 processors.
Based on a similar architecture, the Apple Network Server, an AIX box, DID NOT come with Mac ROMs and forced users to boot into AIX. At the time, there were both Mac OS and Windows NT ROMs under development for these machines, but they never saw the light of day. I ran an ANS with Mac ROMs for some time as an AppleShare IP server in my cube (what a waste, I know), but with all the drive bays filled, it had scandds of storage - more than any other Mac could handle at the time. The ROMs were bugggy though - Ethernet didn't work after a restart, so the server had to be manually switched back from lo1 after a restart.
The first "ROM-less" Mac was the Blue and White PowerMac G3. It featured a Mac OS ROM file in it's System Folder that was loaded in a scheme called "ROM in RAM" that sped access to the ROM routines and made the architecture more flexible for use with (then) Rhapsody, then OS X.
Back to the present, I am a little disappointed that Apple seems to be going with a regular BIOS and some sort of lock out routine. Perhaps by using the Pentium's processor serial number, Apple can have Intel produce "Apple X86" processors that will be checksummed by the installer to allow installation if the computer is a Mac x86. This will also stall user processor upgrades and it negates some of the benefit of going with Intel by frustrating the commonality argument, so it may not be the best path.
So this means the average cost per system sold is going up, not down?
No, but then again, people who take everything literally usually aren't ever going to admit they're swayed by marketing anyway.
Neither is Pentium, though PowerPC is an even stupider name. I guess Athlon isn't that great of a name either and Sempron is downright stupid.
I don't know if you're really thinking this one through. PowerPC seems to be the most descriptive of all the names you cited. PowerPC is the name for the chip architecture that brought a subset of IBM's POWER instruction set architecture to personal computers, using elements of Motorola's 88k RISC bus...hence PowerPC. Subsequent versions of the chips have all followed a relatively consistent naming convention, like PowerPC 601, 603, 604, 740(G3), 750, 7400 (G4), and 970.
Pentium, I'm assuming, was meant to take the Greek root for five "pente" add "ium" an produce a connotation in the consumer's mind that it was the fifth iteration (or fifth element, if you will) of Intel's X86 architecture.
I agree that Sempron is a stupid name - and just as I noted in my first reply, it is a word entirely made of up marketdroid "good sounding" syllables - unless, that is, AMD meant for it to be associated with the Italian word Sempre, used in music to mean "throughout" or "always".
I can't answer your question, after a moment of confusion (during which I chalked up a seeming "mistake" to the quality of Slashdot's editorial staff) I figured it out.
I do have to give IBM credit for naming the processor after something that actually exists, rather than formulating a marketing driven non-word for their new product. Xenon is a gas that when excited, produces brilliant light...not a bad association.
I mean, what the hell is a Xeon anyway? Xenon, now that's something we can all relate to. Perhaps the name for IBM's new XBox processor was chosen after perusing the Greek root of Xenon xenos, which means "strange".
Waitaminit. Would that mean that I could no longer use my mail client with my (insert name of mail provider that is not my internet provider here) e-mail account?
Let Comcast try that. They'll be wondering what happened to the revenue-generating cable splitter boxes at our apartment complex. You know - the ones that are unlocked.
I'm sure it'll steamroll the Windows XP juggernaut any day now. People don't listen to their computers anyway, so sound is of little consequence.
Crashing? Feh. That's just the "core dump wizard"
This story reads like someone's paranoid MRD.
You know, you're right, and that's the first article I came across when I was trying to determine whether or not I could repair the installation by using a FireWire disk enclosure.
Problem is, it's not clear from looking at the case or included equipment whether a computer has this capability - unless it's a Macintosh. To find out whether a computer supports all this crap, I have to know ahead of time or look in the BIOS settings.
In a similar vein, I can't repair the same installation on the same machine because the disk is too big. The onboard ATA controller doesn't support very large disks, like the 200GB disk with the wounded copy of W2kSP3, so with the disk attached to the SATA card, I'm required to find another PC that works, put a driver a on a floppy disk , press F6 when booting from the Win2k CD...can you see why I roll my eyes when I hear some PC-centric IT people talk about how cheap PCs are up front?
I should mentione that these monkeyshines are all needed on a 2001 vintage IBM PL300 - a widely deployed machine in a lot of corporations. Sure, it's on the old side, but it's indicative of the state of the art in the 2001-2002 timeframe.
Most of the small form factor corporate desktops I've seen deployed around here (Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, etc.) have USB, PS/2 legacy ports, a CD-ROM...no FireWire anywhere. Sure, your new HP desktop might have a "1394" port on the front, but again, it's up to you to find out whether it supports booting, and if so, how to invoke that feature.
It can take an hour just to get the tools together to start a repair on a PC. A PowerBook or G4 desktop from five years ago will boot from a CD or Firewire disk with a copy of OS X on it by holding down one key on the keyboard - or simply by attaching a "rescue disk" iPod to the FireWire port. You bring up a good point, but as far as flexibility in startup devices and startup modes, the Mac is still light years ahead of most PCs I've seen.
No shit. It's software. You can just download it. Why make a big deal about shipping it?
I'll do you one better:
1. On the Apple menu, choose Software Update
2. If updates are available, click Install.
Boy howdy, that Windows Update sure is easy in comparison. "You MUST install Direct X 9 separately from everything else, reboot seventy-eleven times, and dance backwards across the carpet while holding a DDR 2700 DIMM...."
Yes. In my mind as an IT person, one of the chief advantages of a Mac is that you can boot any Mac with built-in FireWire from a FireWire disk - including an iPod.
You can prevent this from happening by setting an Open Firmware password, but for re-imaging machines, it is a godsend.
As a bonus for those of us who want more utility out of our portable boot disks, all FireWire-equipped PowerBooks and any FireWire equipped desktop since some of the later G4s have the ability to boot in what Apple appropriately calles "FireWire disk mode". Pressing the "T" key at startup turns your $2500.00 Mac into a $100.00 firewire disk enclosure.
Dollars signs aside, I can assure you that FireWire disk mode is quite gratifying to watch when you've done something stupid to your machine and rendered it unbootable.
I don't know if the same thing is possible with USB and PCs, but I know that trying to recover Windows 2000 by using a FireWire disk enclosure is impossible, and I assume this holds true for XP as well.
Sheesh Apple wants $100.00 for an iBook battery, but that's cheap compared to tapping a vein.
On the other hand, I suppose you can replace your blood for less, and in less time.
I've got an SE/30 with an Ethernet card in storage, but I haven't hauled it out in ages because it can't connect to my OS X machines on the network. ;-(
Anyone have an answer to this besides installing Linux 68k?
Went to the discount Computer place on Duane street in Santa Clara (what, don't all Slashdot readers live in the Bay Area?) and picked up a couple of upgrades to my home network.
Currently, the fiancé and I have four CPUs:
-Dual 2GHz G5 (Heavy lifter for Photoshop and Framemaker, and also the FAX machine)
-PowerBook G4 Ti (for catching up on Slashdot anywhere in the house)
-StinkPad A21m (fiancé's personal system)
-IBM Personal System 300 (itunes Server)
-A Canon 1560
The Macs are running Panther and Tiger respectively, while the PCs are both running Winddows 2k. Of course, we have to tie all this stuff into the Internet, so here's what we use:
-Comcast Internet (which sucks on a regular basis...)
-A 3Com LinkSwitch 1000 24-port 10/100 switch ($4k in -1996...$15.99 yesterday at Discount Computer)
-Apple Airport Base station in hub mode for the laptops...
-A "router card" four-port ethernet card in the PC. It came with nifty software that allows me to set up the PC as a router and use the other ethernet card for the Internet.
Total cost for everything...you don't want to ask. The G5 was a gift, the IBM desktop and laptop were bought for pennies on the dollar at Metricom's employee bankruptcy sale (you only get a week of severance, but we'll sell you this $2k laptop for $150!), the PowerBook was bought through Apple's employee sale, and the 10/100 switch was $16.00. I guess it all cost about $3k or so.
Yes, and modern jet aircraft are somewhat more reliable than old piston-to-prop aircraft.
Look it up....
I'll never buy another Maxtor product again after my MaxLine Plus II died.
I was happy to read on their web site that the MaxLine Plus II drives have a five year warranty.
I was, ah, disappointed to find out that the MaxLine Plus II I bought in February 2003 had a TWO year warranty.
Same drive, different warranty. I'm fucked. Yay Maxtor.
"I think we have a lot of diversity throughout the entire game. We have some dark areas, and we have outdoor areas that are brighter. I think how diverse everything is will really go a long way. We didn't really set out saying, 'This game is going to be dark, this game is going to be light' -- we set out to make a cohesive environment where you go through different extremes and you'll see a bunch of different stuff."
Sounds an awful lot like Marathon 2 to me....
Clearly you haven't experienced the joys of ice-cube trays.
Don't ask me how to apply that material to roads, though.
Sure as I c'n set a wireless tower in the holler, I c'n say that there a'int no way to freeze the roads south of Virginny!
It doesn't need to withstand the force, it gives a little.
Supertramp - Give A Little Bit Lyrics
Roger Hodgson & Rick Davies
--
Give a little bit (of your tensile strength)
Give a little bit (of your tensile strength) of your love to me
Give a little bit (of your tensile strength)
I'll give a little bit of my love to you
There's so much that we need to share
Send a smile and show you care
I'll give a little bit (of your tensile strength)
I'll give a little bit (of your tensile strength)
So give a little bit (of your tensile strength)
Give a little bit (of your tensile strength)
with Apple's adoption of PDF as the display system on Mac OS X?
Why is Microsoft going after this market? It doesn't make sense to me.