PlayStation 3 to support Mac OS X Tiger - Page 2

It's their way to win the format war.

If they can sell 10 million or so the first year, it sure will help. right now MS doesn't seem to know what it wants to do, or when it will do it as far as HD-DVD goes.

I think that the format war is pretty much finished. We're just waiting for the de facto winner. While Xbox looks good, it will be squashed by PS3 and later on by Nintendo Revolution.

It will be interesting to see what Revolution will include. If it's Blue-Ray, we have a winner...

I just came off the ARs thread about the Sony/MS thing. Talk about nutty

Where did you hear that?

I did read the thread, and still think it's a good idea.

<ramble>
Apple had OSX Intel for some time. Who's to say that they didn't have a working (even partially) version for Cell to check wether they would use it or not? IBM would have certainly given Apple (one of the co-designers of PPC) a bit of notice that Cell was on it's way.

It all depends on how much time Apple is prepared to spend on such projects. They've had OSX Intel for 5 years running the same build as the PPC.

Yes this could (if it is even remotely on the cards) cut into their real low end sales, but for someone who needs a general purpose computer with a couple of monitors attached with a nice amount of drive and RAM, ofcourse a single tasking PS3 would not be an option. Someone who wants to play games and surf the web it would be fine.

Apple would get a dollar amount per unit sold. If it's $15 (like some embedded OS vendors) then it's $15,000,000 for every million units, $150,000,000 for every 10 million. Consoles sell in the many millions, if Apple had $15 for each PS2 sold they'd have an extra $1,374,300,000 ( 91.62 million PS2 units worldwide as of 20 July, c|net). Not a small amount of money, but probably not a business unit's worth either. Factor in a small group of people working on this (engineers and liasons for sony and thirdparty developers for example) and you're looking at a tidy sum for not too much effort, imho!
Factor in the extra exposure, an extra factor of coolness, more developers learning about our chosen OS, and yet more "halo-effect" for Apple computers then it looks pretty good.

And if the PS3 is going to be an expensive unit as they keep saying, well maybe Apple could get more than $15/unit?
</ramble>

If, and it's a pretty big 'if', this is true then we're in for a few exciting years!

Add salt.

It has a microkernel and a generally more "real-time" behavior.

Boy, are you reaching. Sony just makes a profit on these things. You really think they want to share it? You're making up numbers like you know what it would be worth. But you don't.

Sony has its own OS. That's what it will use. When vendors don't have their own they use Linux. Why? So that they DON'T have to pay a fee.

Some people dream big. Just remember that it's just your dream. And when you wake up...

I could have *SWORN* it was a big news about a month ago, but actually heading to the Sony Connect site... well, it's still up. Bugger. Nevermind.

From XNU: The Kernel:

XNU's Mach component is based on Mach 3.0, although it's not used as a microkernel.

See Mach kernel obsolete? (et.al.) for some discussion about this.

When compared to Linux or Windows, it certainly qualifies as a microkernel. Being a feature-rich desktop OS, I'm not entirely sure it's possible to realistically implement a true microkernel. Beyond that, Linus is a smart guy with some great accomplishments, but he's not infallible, or even necessarily "right most of the time." If he were, Transmeta might not be a big mass of hot air.

But I don't want to sound like I don't respect the guy. Linux is a great thing, and it has been hacked into many different forms, but ultimately I think Darwin, XNU, or whatever you want to call it is actually a better foundation for embeddeded application than is Linux. Of course, given the amount of development on the subject it's a lot easier to deal with embedded Linux than it might be to embed Darwin.

Linux got great early free press, and that helped to catapult it to where it is today. There are other UNIX derivitives that are actually better in many ways, as well as being less messy. But it was new, and free, and pushed as being unique. It went from there. Thr BSD's are considered to be cleaner though.

Man, my daydreaming the other day about itunes/iphoto supported on the psp mightn't be too crazy. Imagine having these intergrated into your console as well, playlists from itunes in games, iphoto in, um, iphoto.. on a games machine...

yeah, not that great, but itunes for music and movies on the ps3 & psp would be awesome!

</ENDDAYDREAM>

We pay pay that kind of royalty on an embedded OS. We pay the fee for all sorts of corporate support reasons for a well known OS with a long track record, with experienced paid engineers reacting to our problems. I understand that paid doesn't always mean good.

The PS2 unit sales were reported here: http://cnet.com.au/games/ps2/soa/Son...0056080,00.htm

Reaching? Perhaps, but it's FUN!

enjoy!

SOMETHING is going to have to happen between Apple and Sony. They are bickering over iTunesMS Japan and someone is going to have to blink. Maybe giving into FairPlay is worth installing OSX on PS3's! I'd do it. Apple needs to open up iTunes someday and you might as well get something for it now.

So? Having a microkernel does not mean it's better. Darwin is OK, but it's in no way comparable to Linux/*BSD.

That's why noone uses it. Not even hobbyists. It's alive only because Apple wants to keep it alive. As opposed to Linux and *BSD that are kept alive by... users.

And I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "real-time" behavior.

You are confusing Linux with Linus. They're not one and the same. While it is true that Linus (Torvalds) wrote Linux, the kernel, it is also true that today, as a result of years of work on the project, it is estimated that only about 2% of the kernel remains his original work. The rest is re-written, much by people around him, and some by people employed by IBM, HP, Intel, etc.

Linus != Linux.

What a red herring.

Even if you did manage to hack Darwin to run on a machine without OF, it would run like CRAP!

1) The processor isn't designed for general purpose computing.

2) No accelerated 3D would be supported or engineered by anyone.

3) No other form of acceleration would be likely, like using the SPEs or whatever.

4) Only 256MB RAM. Didn't we go through this crap with the old Mini specs? It isn't enough!

Come on guys, use your noodle!

Well, something seems to be going on between Apple and Sony.

Don't you guys remember the last big keynote address, where Ken Kutaragi, President of Sony, came onstage and started rambling about how Apple and Sony hoped to work together, and it looked almost as if Steve was about to give the cut-off sign as if he were about to give away something?

Maybe this is that thing.. maybe Steve is blindsiding us all again.. after the Intel keynote, I could believe almost anything of Apple..

Embedded OS's are completely different from general purpose OS's. One area of difference is the amount of code. An embedded OS might have 5% of the code of an OS X or an XP. They are also operation specific: Control that engine, control that film processor, etc. I've had several on my machines over the years.

If Apple would license X to Sony, they would ask for more than that, perhaps as much as MS gets for XP, around $35-45.

PS2 sales were about 20 million units a year; pretty good. With the high price being asked for this, it might not sell more than half that. At least until they lower the price substantially. They they couldn't afford to pay for the OS.

So how hard would it be to run Apple widgets on PSP ... the embedded os and graphics engine just need to run java/html and something that emulates QE?

That could be done without much fuss, if Dashboard isn't some proprietary code that can't be duplicated because of copyright, trademark etc. and is needed.

But there's always Konfabulator now that that Yahoo, I think, bought it. It's not as good or sophisticated, but it works.

No, it wouldn't, since the margins on software are ten times better than hardware margins. Apple might do better with frenetic Mac OS X sales than be harmed by languishing Mac sales.

Yes it would. Profits are only one part of a product. Cash flow is as important, and even more important. If Apple loses a billion from hardware sales, but makes 100 million from software, that would be a problem.

Profit is taken out after all other costs are added up. R&D costs are one of them. Apple's software sales this year will be somewhat over $1 billion. Hardware sales over $10 billion. The rest is iTunes sales, services, etc. Software sales won't make up for the hardware R&D costs being lost.

Apple can't afford to lose hardware sales. If they sell the OS at retail, and they average a sales price of $110; that could mean a profit of $80. If they license it to Sony for $25 , let's say, they might make, what, $15? So a million copies would sell for $25 million, with a profit of $15 million? And you figure that it would make up for the sales of $600 million of Mini's and eMacs? Even if the percentage of profit is much lower, say 10%, that would be $60 million.

Of course all of these numbers are quesses. But they aren't all that far off, from what we know about selling prices for the hardware, even conservative. It's more likely the prices average higher.

The software price couldn't be higher because it's a game machine, and even though it's being said that it will come in for $400 now, it will be lowered real fast. I don't believe that it will cost $400, even in the beginning. Sony wouldn't be able to supply this to every machine it sells as it would bring the price even higher. Most gamers won't want it, and won't be willing to pay the price for it.

Mac OS X has an interface that took designers years of planning... and it was designed to work with a keyboard and mouse, are they gonna include those in the box?

Really people, this is not gonna happen...

It would be such a waste to have OSX on a gaming console...

There's nothing that says that it might not be a "Mac OS X Lite.." Apple may have had this on the backburner for a tablet for years, just like Mac OS X Intel which many people poo-poohed but was borne out to be reality.. who knows, they might be maintaining it for just such a use, as in the PS3 and maybe even XBOX 360..

The loss leader aspect of consoles pretty much makes the whole thing a non-starter, but why is anyone worried that OSX on PS3 is going to cannibalize eMac sales?!?!? Are all of the schools going to start buying PS3's for their computer labs!?!?

At some point Apple will take one of two paths....
Keep control of both h/w and s/w and stay below 10% market or ease control over h/w and go above 10% market. Either way Apple will sell probably the same number of Macs and get the same amount of money. 10% of all computer buyers will still want the Apple Difference.

You know, you guys are really too much. If you could come up with even one well thought out business reason for Apple to do these things, it might be worthwhile to think about. But other than the usual; "Boy, if Apple came out with this, it would be sooo cool!" bit, there's nothing.

Can't you guys sit down and think this out? How much money would it cost Apple to do this? Why would Apple do this? What benefit would they get from it? What problems would it cause? Was it offered, and if so, why didn't they accept it already? What does the Cell actually do that would be an advantage? How is it being used now? Why are game programmers not able to use more than one or two of the SPE's now? What's the difference in architecture? How could Apple accommodate that? The possible limitation of 512MB of memory? Etc.

I know it's fun and all, but despite what Sony said, this is not a done deal.

Oh of course not. This is sheer silly speculation.

What's in it for Apple? Licensing fees. Exposure in millions of living rooms. Downsides? Dev costs. Essentially they'd have to port Darwin to the PS3 mobo. Probably not that bad, really, since they'd be porting a tiny subset.

What's in it for Sony? A Media Center core that's already well tested, has H.264/MPEG-4 support, etc, etc. *NOT* a Mac replacement, that's just silly. Imagine however if it was just Darwin + QuickTime + iTunes/iPhoto/iPVR. Downsides? iTunes Music Store competes with Sony Connect. That right there is a full stop on this IMO. Sony would never ship iTunes on the PS3 to compete with Connect. End of story.

Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

Technically, it's not that big a deal if a Media Center subset is all that's required. The Cell is a crappy *general purpose* CPU, but for single-app-at-a-time, it's pretty teh snapp!e. Technical issues aren't the problem here. Business model is, and it simply isn't there.

The technical issues are there. The PPe is a stripped down G4 core with two threads. Ok, but not such a big deal. If the SPE's, in sufficiant number can't be brought to bear, then it's not so fast.

Absolutely, but what would a Media Center need? (And remember, that's *ALL* I've ever said made sense...) Decompression/compression. What do the SPE's excel at? Ayup. What's left? The UI.

That isn't much.

If the PS3 can't handle simple playback of MP3/AAC/MP4/H.264, then Sony has MUCH bigger problems on their hands.

I have *never* claimed that a full MacOS X on PS3 made any sense - I think it's utterly inane. But a Media Center bundle? Feasible, and except for Sony Connect, it might make sense. That's the deal killer though. No business model = no way.

The Cell, and PS3, can handle H.264 at 1080p. That's what it's designed for. But if using Darwin, etc. It can't have the SPE's out in full force, then it might not be able to. And if all Darwin does is to let us see hi-def and such, then it's not doing any more than the PS3 can do already. So what's the point? We know that iTunes won't be politically possible unless Sony changes their tune (groan) about music sales. So far that doesn't look good. In Japan they haven't even licensed their music to Apple yet. If They and Apple were to cooperate on these far more complex relationships, one would think that the much easier one of music licensing would be a cinch. But it's not.

All this is.... is that sony will support OS X as a development platform.... That is you can use OS X on a Mac and develop for the PS3.

That's most likely the possibility. Just as MS has used the G5's for that purpose. Though they used their own OS.

Personally I think if this was to happen it would be the coolest thing (Now do I believe this will happen ? :/).

As far as the hacking bit goes, I don't think there would be much required. I mean PearPC and similiar emulation proved tiger could be run on generic PPC (g3/g4/g5) hardware and the cell is the continuation of the PPC family. I don't see it being anymore difficult then installing 10.2 on a generic G4 or G5.

Plus I imagine if the good people over at opendarwin and otherworld have anything to say about it XPostFacto will be moded to run Tiger on the new PS3 machines.

In closing points I still don't believe the complete migration to x86 macs yet. Aside from the fact Intel is still stalling, claiming it can't produce enough processors for Apple's new Macs. Plus the new Mac roll out plans don't migrate the whole line till 2007, and that's if all goes well. The "Cell" which is the next in the powerpc line offers a clean, inexpensive, powerful path to commonplace SMP and if IBM's claims are to be taken seriously, one which exceeds 4Ghz. Putting "Cell" based macs well over modern PCs for a fraction of the cost. The new PS3 which retails for $500 will ship with 4 cell processors.

PearPC has proved that you can emulate OS X running at about 10% of speed on the x86. Not in the slightest bit useful at all. The project is just to show that it can be done at all. I also don't understand your sentence about PearPC proving that OS X could be run on "(g3,g4,g5) hardware". It was designed to run on that hardware. Also, the Cell, while being an offshool of the PPC family, is not a continuation of it. If anything, the Xenon, in the 360 would be closer to that. The Cell requires a great deal of work to be usefull to OS X.

Sony obviously got quite a bit ahead of itself with that statement, and has most of us scratching our heads over it.


Unless you are working on these bits yourself, it's hard to figure where you are coming up with them.


This is really TOO much! Are you serious?


Sure, the whole line (including the XServe) might not be moved over till sometime 2007, though it looks as it might be sooner.


This is no more than uninformed speculation, or, just simply incorrect.

The Cell isn't that suitable for SMP. The Mac will not be based upon it. That's pretty obvious at this point.

The PS3 has ONE Cell processor. One of the SPE's is also disabled. The PS3 is also not in production yet. It therefore doesn't retail for anything. Sony has not given a final price, and it's subject to much speculation.

This is no more than uninformed speculation, or, just simply incorrect.

The Cell isn't that suitable for SMP. The Mac will not be based upon it. That's pretty obvious at this point.

The PS3 has ONE Cell processor. One of the SPE's is also disabled. The PS3 is also not in production yet. It therefore doesn't retail for anything. Sony has not given a final price, and it's subject to much speculation. [/B][/QUOTE]

Actually your the one speculating my friend. Sony, IBM, and Freescale have already said the purpose of the cell is to be a native SMP Processor or is made to be installed in SMP confiurations. In addition Sony's official statement is that the PS3 will hav an MSRP of about $500 and contain four (not one) Cell processors. Again this information is from official statements, and not an alleged release like is being discussed here. So it is you my friend who is very much mistaken.

Actually your the one speculating my friend. Sony, IBM, and Freescale have already said the purpose of the cell is to be a native SMP Processor or is made to be installed in SMP confiurations. In addition Sony's official statement is that the PS3 will hav an MSRP of about $500 and contain four (not one) Cell processors. Again this information is from official statements, and not an alleged release like is being discussed here. So it is you my friend who is very much mistaken. [/B][/QUOTE]

We all ready know the specs of the PS3, and it will contain ONE Cell. If you can find this Sony document that you are referring to, then please provide a link to it, as it goes against what is already known, and written about.

There was some speculation a long time ago that the PS3 might be using 2 or more Cells linked together. That was based purely on estimates from patent applications though.

Sony has said that the PS3 will contain 1 Cell, the Cell in this case being defined as one PPE, and 8 SPEs (with one disabled to improve yields). Later uses of the Cell will probably vary the amounts of SPEs - and maybe PPEs - as regards their needs for HDTV, servers, and so forth.

Similarly the Xbox360 is using a 3 PPE design, Xeon. Which is not Cell (having none of the software, memory, bandwidth, or SPE elements that it has) but does use the same IBM designed processor, albeit with some custom modifications.

Both the Xbox360's and the PS3's PPE's will be running at 3.2 GHz which is roughly comparable on out-of-order-code to a G4 (NOT a G4+ like current G4s) at 1.6 GHz.

At least one company is building a Cell server, although I don't know offhand how many Cells they may or may not be using in each server. I do know that linking together multiple Cells, beyond 4 I believe, requires more work then originally envisioned.


And just to nitpick a little arttwist55, Freescale doesn't have anything to do with the Cell. Toshiba on the other hand...


All this merely to back up you up of course, melgross.

And I thank you for that.