A lot of arguments on here have all hinged on the assumption that we need real 64-bit processors. I don't think that it's as important as people are making it out to be.
The PPC design has 64-bit extensions that would be more than adequate for your 64-bit needs (file-systems or whatever). Lets face it, the majority of your integer work is perfectly happy in 32-bit, and when you do need real double-precision floating point values, the PPC is happy to oblige you in native 64-bit floating point arithmetic.
More importantly, the amount of power the average user needs is not increasing quite so rapidly anymore, especially for those not dependent on Micros~1 products (which have allegedly been deliberately bloated to force users to buy newer hardware). Does Uncle Joe need a GHz machine to browse the web? Hell, at the speed he moves the mouse we could have gotten him a 486 and he wouldn't have noticed the difference.
And while it may not be the most powerful architecture on the block, it certainly kicks some ass in the 32-bit world (and I've studied the architecture). Given the alternatives, I think that it definitely deserves a "best in its class" type award.
The more important question to ask is (and people have been asking this), will it be affordable? If it is, it will succeed and everybody will be happy (myself included). I think that it's a beautiful architecture, and would love to be able to buy an affordable computer based on it.
That was my first thought as well. I remember there being a lot of talk about CHRP being what BeOS people were waiting for; Now it looks like they're going to get what they wanted.
I too, find the BeOS's lack of support for G3 puzzling given that Linux can run on G3's. The word from the BeOS FAQ is:
No, the BeOS is not compatible with Apple's "G3" systems. We have requested from Apple the detailed technical specifications we would need to provide support for these systems, and Apple has declined our requests.
Does anyone know if Apple provided said technical specifications to Linux developers? Was all of this information gleaned from reverse-engineering?
Slashdot Mirror
A lot of arguments on here have all hinged on the assumption that we need real 64-bit processors. I don't think that it's as important as people are making it out to be.
The PPC design has 64-bit extensions that would be more than adequate for your 64-bit needs (file-systems or whatever). Lets face it, the majority of your integer work is perfectly happy in 32-bit, and when you do need real double-precision floating point values, the PPC is happy to oblige you in native 64-bit floating point arithmetic.
More importantly, the amount of power the average user needs is not increasing quite so rapidly anymore, especially for those not dependent on Micros~1 products (which have allegedly been deliberately bloated to force users to buy newer hardware). Does Uncle Joe need a GHz machine to browse the web? Hell, at the speed he moves the mouse we could have gotten him a 486 and he wouldn't have noticed the difference.
And while it may not be the most powerful architecture on the block, it certainly kicks some ass in the 32-bit world (and I've studied the architecture). Given the alternatives, I think that it definitely deserves a "best in its class" type award.
The more important question to ask is (and people have been asking this), will it be affordable? If it is, it will succeed and everybody will be happy (myself included). I think that it's a beautiful architecture, and would love to be able to buy an affordable computer based on it.
That was my first thought as well. I remember there being a lot of talk about CHRP being what BeOS people were waiting for; Now it looks like they're going to get what they wanted.