eh I'm in advertising programmer, I don't think its how people are being taught but naturalistic to human behavior heh, its just that media now is getting to be more like political campaigns being big, not demographically specified as much. People are natural producers and consumers as both, whats happening tho and happened also in your generation even more so than mine heh is that people didn't realize what was readily available to them.
Whats with everything thinking apple will make a headless imac for sub 500? I mean it'd just be a loss leader they'd sell nothing else if they made one... I for one don't think it to be a good idea. For one computers are getting more and more portable, I think possibly 800 at least for a cube redux thing, sub 500 for something with a g3 or somethen in it just good enough to run internet, word, play some music and only an AGP slot, nobody but us technical types add anything into PCI slots anyhow, look at any HP, Dell, or Sony ad, do they even advertise that they have PCI slots? no its all about what apple has, DVD-burner, multimedia software (which sux) and huge warranty plans. The AGP slot will just attract gamers, honestly I dont' want them to do a cube, PC users don't mind fan noise why do we so much? it isn't THAT loud c'mon. Apple has creamed the competition in some big areas, ease of use, and ease of fixing things.
Here with in the advent that some say almost 2 million computers are going to be 5 years or older and I believe 27% of that is apple computers, and another 22 I believe were computer other than windows, apple will see a huge up in market share I'm think 7% now? because it will blow away the old conventions of userbase. Apple is waiting to seize its day here when that times come which is the fall quarter supposedly when the next big computer upgrade shift is supposedly happening. this fall is going to be very very upgrade centric from all the manufactuers. With the 970 and Panther going on things will be interesting. If they just made an ad from their honest heart of a guy at apple showing all it could do instead of these people who say... I'm a mac guy you should be too. macs are cool.. and yeah my dad doensn't have one, but he helped me buy mine... go out and get one today on someone elses tab!!
I think Moto is going to switch from measuring performance by MHz, to measuring it using the Total Transistor Tally, or "CubiT" (T-cubed, get it?).
Of course this was a senior management level decision, and the managers called upon Moto's crack engineering team to add lots of extra transistors to the G4. The virtuoso engineers reluctantly piled on the transistors, sending data on long, meandering paths circling round and round.
But see, the new G4 will have 58 million transistors compared to the PPC 970's 52 million--that's 6 MILLION FASTER!
Thanks to a potent mixture of media and advertising exposure, today's population is well primed for dutifully accepting Moto's claims. Legions of highly-trained consumers will buy up Moto's new G4 chips and use them with pride, constantly reminding themselves that their Macs are 6 million faster than that other PPC chip from the blue meanies.
I just noticed you have the IBM 970 with 6 layers, I thought there were 8 levels of interconnects on the 970.
I don't know and couldn't find out. But the die size number for the 970 and the 7457 indicate that the 970 should have less layers of metal, and since the 750fx is built on a 130 nm process with 6 layers of metal, I think the 970 being built on the same process is the obvious choice.
Computers are more broad than television and radio, my friend, in terms of providing education, and not just the internet is used for providing that education (software, presentations, video, etc.). I was homeschooled during my high school years, and I used my computer for about 90% of the material I studied and learned, and did very well on my ACT.
I'm not sure where this is going, but the teachers or school system can select the textbooks and tools themselves (I believe that's the current system we have now in the country), maybe providing it on CD-ROM.
Compaq. Need I say more? I would say this is more at fault with the people who used to be at Compaq, not the actual computer systems they got. Getting the right tools for the education requires alot of research and funding. Sounds to me like they didn't do a good job of it.
My point still stands: in classrooms everywhere, IT monkeys are making decisions that impact children's education. When my 5'1", 90 lb. sister has carry 60lb. of books and an 8lb. laptop to ALL her classes, this is unacceptable.
You don't need a computer in a history class anymore than you need a TV or a slide rule. Putting a book on a CD-ROM is not an acceptable reason to spend $2,000 on a laptop and $500 per year on maintenance.
I'm not rejecting computers as a learning tool. But despite the best efforts of Apple, Microsoft, etc they are still tempermental and complex beasts. The Internet, while useful, is completely overrated as a research tool. They shouldn't just be crammed down teachers' throats because they are "the future."
I don't know and couldn't find out. But the die size number for the 970 and the 7457 indicate that the 970 should have less layers of metal, and since the 750fx is built on a 130 nm process with 6 layers of metal, I think the 970 being built on the same process is the obvious choice.
On page 14 of Peter Sandon's IBM Power 970 Presentation it states that the 970 has 8 levels of copper interconnect. I'm not sure but I think this may mean it is 9 layers??
He already mentioned that LBB. Geez, you two have been acting like a married couple lately!
Programmer is very anal-retentive. ie you don't get to score many points against him. (When you get the chance...you've got to take it. Even if they're cheap ones.)
I still think I can 'take him' on the 'low end g4 box', though.
Mind you. I'm not sure that's the real Programmer. He's been acting kind of emotional and strange of late. Ranting and raving about Generation X. It doesn't sound like him. He's normally got the succinct verbosity of a Viper. (Maybe he's rattled about the re-sale value of his dual 1 gigger when the 970 hits..?)
Hmmm.
(Perhaps he and other G4 owners can sell their G4s to Apple dirt cheap so that they can make a dirt cheap headless G4 Mac when the 970 hits?)
Lemon Bon Bon
Married old couple? Don't get me started on 'married couples'...otherwise Amorph will be carting me over to General Discussion quicker than Programmer...
Anything short of a 970 in the PM's, upon the next revision, would be an utter disaster. The 970 is destined to be the CPU of the PM, soon, that much is clear. But, IBm has not earned the right to the unfettered optimism some now point in their direction. Supply? Yields? Cost? If the supply and yields aren't very good, the price won't be either, regardless of transistor count or process size (basically regardless of the number of chips per wafer)
And even if they are, does anyone know how many 970's a month IBM can crank out. It's virtually guaranteed that they won't be able to feed Apple's entire line-up for some time to come. When they come out, IF THE PRICES DON'T GO NORTH OF IDIOTIC, demand will be strong and Apple will need all they can get just for powermacs.
The G4 at .13u SOI/Low-K will be in time to fill the inbetween time for the rest of the lines, AND to give laptops the long battery life they need.
Bandwidth, while not stellar, will still be plenty good for mobile applications. Currently, Apple feeds up to a dual 1.42Ghz G4 with a mere 167Mhz bus. In single CPU applications the VERY efficient MPX can still do a reasonably good job of meeting vowel-mac slash laptop demands. Everyone pretty much agrees Apple can eeek another 33Mhx from the FSB for a nice round 200, coupled to a bigger L2 and 1-2MB L3, and it's looking pretty good in the 1.33-1.8Ghz range. Not earth shaking but a substantial upgrade path for next 12-18 months on everything from eMacs to pBooks.
If there's a 970 based notebook, it will come in the for of a 17" ONLY.
About IBM. Just as potentially dangerous as moto, neither needs Apple's business, and if making money means doing things that are better for their own PPC agendas, it's pretty obvious that BOTH will do that. Apple needs to have two suppliers, period, and moto and IBM are the only game in town when it comes to PPC's.
I fully expect a role reversal of IBM and moto chips, NOT a wholesale replacement of moto, as temporarily gratifying as that may be. IBM will supply the pro stuff and moto the consumer stuff, at least until mid 2004. Moto will probably hang on to the pBook business a lot longer than some of you expect too. And by then, with SMC's help, and perhaps some house clearing , and even a reason to fix some already developed, but flawed G5 class designs, we may see them back. Apple knows they can't rely on any one single vendor regardless of past performance.
It's funny really, all this IBM rah rah rah going on now. Where has IBm been. Making hypothetically rapid uber-G3's? Nope. G3 NEVER scaled faster than the G4, and was never substantially revised apart from the fx. Some say IBM wasn't interested, but that's just as dangerous. This is all much too complimentary to IBM, saying, "We could do it better." and actually doing it are two different things. IBM had promised 2ghz .13u altivec G3's long ago, never delivered. It's one thing to look at the 10000USD per chip Power CPU's and say, "well obviously, they could do it, just look." But it's another thing to do it for under 400USD, a space where they have yet to match anything from Moto. In fact, it's taken this long just to get close, and the 970 isn't here yet...
I still think I can 'take him' on the 'low end g4 box', though.
Ha! In your dreams, bub.
Quote:
Mind you. I'm not sure that's the real Programmer. He's been acting kind of emotional and strange of late. Ranting and raving about Generation X. It doesn't sound like him. He's normally got the succinct verbosity of a Viper. (Maybe he's rattled about the re-sale value of his dual 1 gigger when the 970 hits..?)
Its the first time the subject has come up here in a discussion I've been part of, so you just haven't seen my non-technical side. A viper. Heh. 8)
Rattled? No, I bought it when I did because I needed a new machine but didn't want it to last less than 2 years. This way I'll get on board around the time the 980 arrives.
I started a discussion on Mojave, because I thought it might be the key to finally getting a low cost, high performance Mac. If rumors from a fairly good source (NMR) are true it will have the AltiVec on board, which makes it a great G4 replacement. However, it is not going to appear for a while. So maybe the low end Macs, if real, will begin with Gobi.
Some rumors, and estimates based on known fact about the G4 and 970, suggest that the IBM 970 will cost less than the Motorola G4. If this is true, the G4 Macs may rapidly disappear from the product line. For example, in an iMac the 970 can be run at lower voltage and lower clock rate, giving lower power and lower performance than the Power Macs. The PowerBooks could also get the 970. Beside cost, it makes sense to use the 970 in place of the G4 to improve sales. Considering the iMac, if it had higher performance and a 64-bit CPU, it would sell better.
So where would that leave the rumored low end Mac? Surely it cannot sport a 970 CPU, but the G4 would cost more, for lower performance. So a low end Mac may not be a G4, but a high clock rate Gobi G3. The Gobi would likely go into the iBook too. Possibly a Gobi G3 will provide a higher clock rate than a Motorola G4, and have high enough performance until Mojave finally appears. Then both the low end Mac and iBook will also have AltiVec.
Hmm. What about a dual 1.5GHz G4 but it only costs $499?
I don't know if there's a performance dance, but we've all seen the price dance. Careful how you answer...
Well, there's the price-performance dance, the mother dance, which can lead to off-shoots, the price dance, the performance dance, none are mutually exlusive really, most are permutations performed at different times of the year, based on need, the moon, the tides...
No need to even look at 1.5's, take the top level DP1.42, performs about on par with 999-1299USD wintelon harware. If I could get one in the 999-1499 range, comparatively, it'd be a good enough deal.
No need to even look at 1.5's, take the top level DP1.42, performs about on par with 999-1299USD wintelon harware. If I could get one in the 999-1499 range, comparatively, it'd be a good enough deal.
The 7457 might be able to do something like this, since it can easily reach clock rates that the 7455 struggles to reach, and since it has a bigger L2 cache. It should also come with a significantly lower price than the XPC7455s.
The real issue, of course, is getting an inexpensive modular Mac past Steve. With a Motorola CPU.
As for IBM yields of the 970, that's fodder for another thread; but I'm not worried at all about that.
What becomes interesting is the possibility that PM's may not be exclusively PPC970 based, depending on issues like supply, cost, and legacy (which is still big)
The cost arguments would seem to come out against it. We don't what a 970 will actually cost, IBM says they're gonna be cheap, but will they actually be cheap? In any case, ONE 970 ought to cost less than 2 G4's, but you never know.
I think it's going to be a hairy first quarter for Apple's PM's, if/when they finally show a 970, there's almost no way that they'll be able to meet demand short of pricing them through the roof, which can hurt the long term reception of the machine even once prices are lowered.
It's gonna be interesting.
Apple can almost never resist the urge to drop on half assed effort into the low end machine, we'll see.
On page 14 of Peter Sandon's IBM Power 970 Presentation it states that the 970 has 8 levels of copper interconnect. I'm not sure but I think this may mean it is 9 layers??
Looking at the 970's die photo, I can believe 9 layers since it looks like IBM seems to have a lot of wasted space in it. With less transistors than the 7457, it should come in smaller than the 7457.
For the pricing between the 970 and 7457, I can see the 970 being cheaper than the 7457 even though it has a larger die size for a few reasons. IBM's 130 nm fab (CMOS 9S?) is mature and is 300 mm so it can have much better economies of scale than the 7457. Yields on the 970 may well be much higher than the 7457's on Moto's HiP7, a fab that has yet to ship anything of merit.
The real issue, of course, is getting an inexpensive modular Mac past Steve.
S'funny that you should mention that...
Macworld Mag's financial page waxes lyrical about Apple's laptop range outpacing the PCs in terms of growth (and here in the UK...) vs declining desktop sales.
Sure. However, that really masks just how poor Apple's desktop sales are. So their laptop sales aint that great either! (Well, Amorph, that's the way my logic sees it... )
Still, my point, 'Notebook sales have lifted the industry, while desktop sales are weak. Apple management is understood to be taking MAJOR steps to address its SLOW desktop sales' (Direct quote from Macworld 'financial' page.)
Ergo. 'Major'. Trimming the lard (THAT'S ALOT OF WHITE PLASTIC=NOT CHEAP?) of the ass of the eMac? Just had a price cut/feature 'bump' (ancient 1 gig G4...woo-hoo...) iMac2? Have Apple found a way to (MAKE IT CHEAPER) get the iMac 2 well and truly under the 1K mark as an affordable LINE of computers as per the original? Or...
OR...maybe Apple are considering something else. 970s may help the tower line back to 250K sales per quarter, at least. But...what about the Apple AIO 'consumer' desktop that's competing with 3gig P4s / 'headless' computers ie Towers?
Obviously, something has got to give or the sales pounding Apple is getting via its Towers, iMac2 and eMac will look like the glory days if the rot isn't halted. They're fundamentally flawed and that's why people aint buying them. Not in the numbers Apple would like. It aint the economy...because PC makers are holding sales while Apple's unit sales FELL.
Buyers are voting with their wallets. They want Q6. But they can manage with 4. It works. Dunnit? They want Mac Enterprise solutions in Mac schools, no doubt.
But most of all, buyers want choice, they want power and they want affordability.
What was that Steve Jobs was saying about tablets? A rich man's toy? If Apple want their computers to shed that tag then they're going to have to meet the needs of 98% of the market that 'Think Different'.
Cheaper. Faster. Sexier.
Something more flexible to buyers than the 'Twins of Evil' iMac2/eMac - a low end g4 box? Which would at least be 'different' to what the iMac2/eMac offer. What do they offer? They're essentially the same (iMac2/eMac) machine. The 'headless' concept meets a different need.
A lower price. Not stuck with Apple's choice of monitor. How draconian...
I smell an iCube like the one in the linked picture above. Yes. It's got the 'feet' instead of an expensive acrylic skirt. Something like that...but....enamel iBook white...with a silver Apple logo. Ati 7500. 256 megs of ram. 1 gig plus G3+SIMD. A few ports. £495 inc VAT. Get Ives all over the 'cheap n' sexy' thing. Lemon Pips with excitement and squeezes juice outta wallet. I'd bet Apple could hit 250 K sales at least with something like that.
'Cheaper. Faster. Sexier.'
Lemon Bon Bon
'Apple management is understood to be taking MAJOR steps to address its SLOW desktop sales'
Ergo. 'Major'. Trimming the lard (THAT'S ALOT OF WHITE PLASTIC=NOT CHEAP?) of the ass of the eMac? Just had a price cut/feature 'bump' (ancient 1 gig G4...woo-hoo...) iMac2? Have Apple found a way to (MAKE IT CHEAPER) get the iMac 2 well and truly under the 1K mark as an affordable LINE of computers as per the original? Or...
Do not forget the original, and primary, market for the eMac. When you have to have a computer that will be handled by K-6 kids, you want it to be big and solid. The thick, smooth case is a feature.
A pure consumer machine doesn't have to be so rugged, of course, but it shouldn't be flimsy either.
Apple's statement about reviving slow desktop sales could be read any number of ways. A fire-breathing PowerMac will do wonders for desktop sales, for example.
Quote:
Buyers are voting with their wallets. They want Q6. But they can manage with 4. It works. Dunnit? They want Mac Enterprise solutions in Mac schools, no doubt.
If you mean Quark 4, sure, it works. In Mac OS 9. You can run it in Classic mode (and some do) but you can also simply not buy hardware until Quark runs native. You're describing a reason not to upgrade.
I don't doubt that Apple will attack the consumer market aggressively. Their market share in that space is apparently 10%. At this point, there are so many tacks they could take that I'm not sure that *fill-in-what-I-want* approach to prediction is going to work all that reliably.
Exactly. I'd hedge a bet and bet Apple will use the 970 (directly/indirectly) to introduce a new kind of Mac which meets the needs of the many that aint buying eMacs or iMac2s. That sounds like the headless jobby to me.
The imac2 and emac do the same job. Yes, the eMac is 'rugged' but it's not the catch all for Edu' that Apple wanted. If only it was. Therefore the sales figures suggest something(s) is/are wrong.
I think the iMac2 is 'rugged' enough for Colleges though. So 'ruggedly' (handsome) that they were stolen from the college where I will be working soon! They replaced the 'puddings' with eMacs instead. Still, I'm so used to seeing beige towers in colleges and schools...that I thought the eMac suite was a gorgeous thing of beauty. In that context they looked quite something. I've never seen so many Macs in one place before!!! All with MX and Adobe suites AND Lightwave suites! Heaven? Close. (and the obligatory MS suite of bloatware...)
Check out 'insider's G5 story! I'm not sure we'll have a 'low end g4 box' if I'm reading the smoke signals correctly.
Either way, if Apple themselves aint happy with their desktop sales (and that's Tower to Consumer...) then I'll take their word for it :P
What's significant is that they (apparently) plan to do something about it. And if they're serious about growth they will. It's going to take something pretty seismic to get to that 10%. The current eMac/iMac2 show no sign of getting Apple anywhere near that.
A G5 at WWDC for the Towers etc. Yep. But what this means for consumer line isn't quite as clear. A quick transition of the 970 to the consumer lines by early 2004?
Or...the Cube taken out the freezer..? Both please.
Comments
Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon
Take it over to general discussion, Programmer...
Whats with everything thinking apple will make a headless imac for sub 500? I mean it'd just be a loss leader they'd sell nothing else if they made one... I for one don't think it to be a good idea. For one computers are getting more and more portable, I think possibly 800 at least for a cube redux thing, sub 500 for something with a g3 or somethen in it just good enough to run internet, word, play some music and only an AGP slot, nobody but us technical types add anything into PCI slots anyhow, look at any HP, Dell, or Sony ad, do they even advertise that they have PCI slots? no its all about what apple has, DVD-burner, multimedia software (which sux) and huge warranty plans. The AGP slot will just attract gamers, honestly I dont' want them to do a cube, PC users don't mind fan noise why do we so much? it isn't THAT loud c'mon. Apple has creamed the competition in some big areas, ease of use, and ease of fixing things.
Here with in the advent that some say almost 2 million computers are going to be 5 years or older and I believe 27% of that is apple computers, and another 22 I believe were computer other than windows, apple will see a huge up in market share I'm think 7% now? because it will blow away the old conventions of userbase. Apple is waiting to seize its day here when that times come which is the fall quarter supposedly when the next big computer upgrade shift is supposedly happening. this fall is going to be very very upgrade centric from all the manufactuers. With the 970 and Panther going on things will be interesting. If they just made an ad from their honest heart of a guy at apple showing all it could do instead of these people who say... I'm a mac guy you should be too. macs are cool.. and yeah my dad doensn't have one, but he helped me buy mine... go out and get one today on someone elses tab!!
Of course this was a senior management level decision, and the managers called upon Moto's crack engineering team to add lots of extra transistors to the G4. The virtuoso engineers reluctantly piled on the transistors, sending data on long, meandering paths circling round and round.
But see, the new G4 will have 58 million transistors compared to the PPC 970's 52 million--that's 6 MILLION FASTER!
Thanks to a potent mixture of media and advertising exposure, today's population is well primed for dutifully accepting Moto's claims. Legions of highly-trained consumers will buy up Moto's new G4 chips and use them with pride, constantly reminding themselves that their Macs are 6 million faster than that other PPC chip from the blue meanies.
Originally posted by rickag
I just noticed you have the IBM 970 with 6 layers, I thought there were 8 levels of interconnects on the 970.
I don't know and couldn't find out. But the die size number for the 970 and the 7457 indicate that the 970 should have less layers of metal, and since the 750fx is built on a 130 nm process with 6 layers of metal, I think the 970 being built on the same process is the obvious choice.
Originally posted by SoopaDrive
Computers are more broad than television and radio, my friend, in terms of providing education, and not just the internet is used for providing that education (software, presentations, video, etc.). I was homeschooled during my high school years, and I used my computer for about 90% of the material I studied and learned, and did very well on my ACT.
I'm not sure where this is going, but the teachers or school system can select the textbooks and tools themselves (I believe that's the current system we have now in the country), maybe providing it on CD-ROM.
Compaq. Need I say more? I would say this is more at fault with the people who used to be at Compaq, not the actual computer systems they got. Getting the right tools for the education requires alot of research and funding. Sounds to me like they didn't do a good job of it.
My point still stands: in classrooms everywhere, IT monkeys are making decisions that impact children's education. When my 5'1", 90 lb. sister has carry 60lb. of books and an 8lb. laptop to ALL her classes, this is unacceptable.
You don't need a computer in a history class anymore than you need a TV or a slide rule. Putting a book on a CD-ROM is not an acceptable reason to spend $2,000 on a laptop and $500 per year on maintenance.
I'm not rejecting computers as a learning tool. But despite the best efforts of Apple, Microsoft, etc they are still tempermental and complex beasts. The Internet, while useful, is completely overrated as a research tool. They shouldn't just be crammed down teachers' throats because they are "the future."
Originally posted by THT
I don't know and couldn't find out. But the die size number for the 970 and the 7457 indicate that the 970 should have less layers of metal, and since the 750fx is built on a 130 nm process with 6 layers of metal, I think the 970 being built on the same process is the obvious choice.
On page 14 of Peter Sandon's IBM Power 970 Presentation it states that the 970 has 8 levels of copper interconnect. I'm not sure but I think this may mean it is 9 layers??
He already mentioned that LBB. Geez, you two have been acting like a married couple lately!
Programmer is very anal-retentive.
I still think I can 'take him' on the 'low end g4 box', though.
Mind you. I'm not sure that's the real Programmer. He's been acting kind of emotional and strange of late. Ranting and raving about Generation X. It doesn't sound like him. He's normally got the succinct verbosity of a Viper. (Maybe he's rattled about the re-sale value of his dual 1 gigger when the 970 hits..?)
Hmmm.
(Perhaps he and other G4 owners can sell their G4s to Apple dirt cheap so that they can make a dirt cheap headless G4 Mac when the 970 hits?)
Lemon Bon Bon
Married old couple?
And even if they are, does anyone know how many 970's a month IBM can crank out. It's virtually guaranteed that they won't be able to feed Apple's entire line-up for some time to come. When they come out, IF THE PRICES DON'T GO NORTH OF IDIOTIC, demand will be strong and Apple will need all they can get just for powermacs.
The G4 at .13u SOI/Low-K will be in time to fill the inbetween time for the rest of the lines, AND to give laptops the long battery life they need.
Bandwidth, while not stellar, will still be plenty good for mobile applications. Currently, Apple feeds up to a dual 1.42Ghz G4 with a mere 167Mhz bus. In single CPU applications the VERY efficient MPX can still do a reasonably good job of meeting vowel-mac slash laptop demands. Everyone pretty much agrees Apple can eeek another 33Mhx from the FSB for a nice round 200, coupled to a bigger L2 and 1-2MB L3, and it's looking pretty good in the 1.33-1.8Ghz range. Not earth shaking but a substantial upgrade path for next 12-18 months on everything from eMacs to pBooks.
If there's a 970 based notebook, it will come in the for of a 17" ONLY.
About IBM. Just as potentially dangerous as moto, neither needs Apple's business, and if making money means doing things that are better for their own PPC agendas, it's pretty obvious that BOTH will do that. Apple needs to have two suppliers, period, and moto and IBM are the only game in town when it comes to PPC's.
I fully expect a role reversal of IBM and moto chips, NOT a wholesale replacement of moto, as temporarily gratifying as that may be. IBM will supply the pro stuff and moto the consumer stuff, at least until mid 2004. Moto will probably hang on to the pBook business a lot longer than some of you expect too. And by then, with SMC's help, and perhaps some house clearing , and even a reason to fix some already developed, but flawed G5 class designs, we may see them back. Apple knows they can't rely on any one single vendor regardless of past performance.
It's funny really, all this IBM rah rah rah going on now. Where has IBm been. Making hypothetically rapid uber-G3's? Nope. G3 NEVER scaled faster than the G4, and was never substantially revised apart from the fx. Some say IBM wasn't interested, but that's just as dangerous. This is all much too complimentary to IBM, saying, "We could do it better." and actually doing it are two different things. IBM had promised 2ghz .13u altivec G3's long ago, never delivered. It's one thing to look at the 10000USD per chip Power CPU's and say, "well obviously, they could do it, just look." But it's another thing to do it for under 400USD, a space where they have yet to match anything from Moto. In fact, it's taken this long just to get close, and the 970 isn't here yet...
Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon
Programmer is very anal-retentive.
What?!
I still think I can 'take him' on the 'low end g4 box', though.
Ha! In your dreams, bub.
Mind you. I'm not sure that's the real Programmer. He's been acting kind of emotional and strange of late. Ranting and raving about Generation X. It doesn't sound like him. He's normally got the succinct verbosity of a Viper. (Maybe he's rattled about the re-sale value of his dual 1 gigger when the 970 hits..?)
Its the first time the subject has come up here in a discussion I've been part of, so you just haven't seen my non-technical side. A viper. Heh. 8)
Rattled? No, I bought it when I did because I needed a new machine but didn't want it to last less than 2 years. This way I'll get on board around the time the 980 arrives.
Originally posted by Matsu
Anything short of a 970 in the PM's, upon the next revision, would be an utter disaster.
Hmm. What about a dual 1.5GHz G4 but it only costs $499?
I don't know if there's a performance dance, but we've all seen the price dance. Careful how you answer...
Some rumors, and estimates based on known fact about the G4 and 970, suggest that the IBM 970 will cost less than the Motorola G4. If this is true, the G4 Macs may rapidly disappear from the product line. For example, in an iMac the 970 can be run at lower voltage and lower clock rate, giving lower power and lower performance than the Power Macs. The PowerBooks could also get the 970. Beside cost, it makes sense to use the 970 in place of the G4 to improve sales. Considering the iMac, if it had higher performance and a 64-bit CPU, it would sell better.
So where would that leave the rumored low end Mac? Surely it cannot sport a 970 CPU, but the G4 would cost more, for lower performance. So a low end Mac may not be a G4, but a high clock rate Gobi G3. The Gobi would likely go into the iBook too. Possibly a Gobi G3 will provide a higher clock rate than a Motorola G4, and have high enough performance until Mojave finally appears. Then both the low end Mac and iBook will also have AltiVec.
Just speculation.
Originally posted by johnsonwax
Hmm. What about a dual 1.5GHz G4 but it only costs $499?
I don't know if there's a performance dance, but we've all seen the price dance. Careful how you answer...
Well, there's the price-performance dance, the mother dance, which can lead to off-shoots, the price dance, the performance dance, none are mutually exlusive really, most are permutations performed at different times of the year, based on need, the moon, the tides...
No need to even look at 1.5's, take the top level DP1.42, performs about on par with 999-1299USD wintelon harware. If I could get one in the 999-1499 range, comparatively, it'd be a good enough deal.
Originally posted by Matsu
No need to even look at 1.5's, take the top level DP1.42, performs about on par with 999-1299USD wintelon harware. If I could get one in the 999-1499 range, comparatively, it'd be a good enough deal.
The 7457 might be able to do something like this, since it can easily reach clock rates that the 7455 struggles to reach, and since it has a bigger L2 cache. It should also come with a significantly lower price than the XPC7455s.
The real issue, of course, is getting an inexpensive modular Mac past Steve.
As for IBM yields of the 970, that's fodder for another thread; but I'm not worried at all about that.
The cost arguments would seem to come out against it. We don't what a 970 will actually cost, IBM says they're gonna be cheap, but will they actually be cheap? In any case, ONE 970 ought to cost less than 2 G4's, but you never know.
I think it's going to be a hairy first quarter for Apple's PM's, if/when they finally show a 970, there's almost no way that they'll be able to meet demand short of pricing them through the roof, which can hurt the long term reception of the machine even once prices are lowered.
It's gonna be interesting.
Apple can almost never resist the urge to drop on half assed effort into the low end machine, we'll see.
Originally posted by rickag
On page 14 of Peter Sandon's IBM Power 970 Presentation it states that the 970 has 8 levels of copper interconnect. I'm not sure but I think this may mean it is 9 layers??
Looking at the 970's die photo, I can believe 9 layers since it looks like IBM seems to have a lot of wasted space in it. With less transistors than the 7457, it should come in smaller than the 7457.
For the pricing between the 970 and 7457, I can see the 970 being cheaper than the 7457 even though it has a larger die size for a few reasons. IBM's 130 nm fab (CMOS 9S?) is mature and is 300 mm so it can have much better economies of scale than the 7457. Yields on the 970 may well be much higher than the 7457's on Moto's HiP7, a fab that has yet to ship anything of merit.
This is what I'm wishing for
The real issue, of course, is getting an inexpensive modular Mac past Steve.
S'funny that you should mention that...
Macworld Mag's financial page waxes lyrical about Apple's laptop range outpacing the PCs in terms of growth (and here in the UK...) vs declining desktop sales.
Sure. However, that really masks just how poor Apple's desktop sales are. So their laptop sales aint that great either! (Well, Amorph, that's the way my logic sees it...
Still, my point, 'Notebook sales have lifted the industry, while desktop sales are weak. Apple management is understood to be taking MAJOR steps to address its SLOW desktop sales' (Direct quote from Macworld 'financial' page.)
Ergo. 'Major'. Trimming the lard (THAT'S ALOT OF WHITE PLASTIC=NOT CHEAP?) of the ass of the eMac? Just had a price cut/feature 'bump' (ancient 1 gig G4...woo-hoo...) iMac2? Have Apple found a way to (MAKE IT CHEAPER) get the iMac 2 well and truly under the 1K mark as an affordable LINE of computers as per the original? Or...
OR...maybe Apple are considering something else. 970s may help the tower line back to 250K sales per quarter, at least. But...what about the Apple AIO 'consumer' desktop that's competing with 3gig P4s / 'headless' computers ie Towers?
Obviously, something has got to give or the sales pounding Apple is getting via its Towers, iMac2 and eMac will look like the glory days if the rot isn't halted. They're fundamentally flawed and that's why people aint buying them. Not in the numbers Apple would like. It aint the economy...because PC makers are holding sales while Apple's unit sales FELL.
Buyers are voting with their wallets. They want Q6. But they can manage with 4. It works. Dunnit? They want Mac Enterprise solutions in Mac schools, no doubt.
But most of all, buyers want choice, they want power and they want affordability.
What was that Steve Jobs was saying about tablets? A rich man's toy? If Apple want their computers to shed that tag then they're going to have to meet the needs of 98% of the market that 'Think Different'.
Cheaper. Faster. Sexier.
Something more flexible to buyers than the 'Twins of Evil' iMac2/eMac - a low end g4 box? Which would at least be 'different' to what the iMac2/eMac offer. What do they offer? They're essentially the same (iMac2/eMac) machine. The 'headless' concept meets a different need.
A lower price. Not stuck with Apple's choice of monitor. How draconian...
I smell an iCube like the one in the linked picture above. Yes. It's got the 'feet' instead of an expensive acrylic skirt. Something like that...but....enamel iBook white...with a silver Apple logo. Ati 7500. 256 megs of ram. 1 gig plus G3+SIMD. A few ports. £495 inc VAT. Get Ives all over the 'cheap n' sexy' thing. Lemon Pips with excitement and squeezes juice outta wallet. I'd bet Apple could hit 250 K sales at least with something like that.
'Cheaper. Faster. Sexier.'
Lemon Bon Bon
'Apple management is understood to be taking MAJOR steps to address its SLOW desktop sales'
Just in case anybody missed it.
Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon
Ergo. 'Major'. Trimming the lard (THAT'S ALOT OF WHITE PLASTIC=NOT CHEAP?) of the ass of the eMac? Just had a price cut/feature 'bump' (ancient 1 gig G4...woo-hoo...) iMac2? Have Apple found a way to (MAKE IT CHEAPER) get the iMac 2 well and truly under the 1K mark as an affordable LINE of computers as per the original? Or...
Do not forget the original, and primary, market for the eMac. When you have to have a computer that will be handled by K-6 kids, you want it to be big and solid. The thick, smooth case is a feature.
A pure consumer machine doesn't have to be so rugged, of course, but it shouldn't be flimsy either.
Apple's statement about reviving slow desktop sales could be read any number of ways. A fire-breathing PowerMac will do wonders for desktop sales, for example.
Buyers are voting with their wallets. They want Q6. But they can manage with 4. It works. Dunnit? They want Mac Enterprise solutions in Mac schools, no doubt.
If you mean Quark 4, sure, it works. In Mac OS 9. You can run it in Classic mode (and some do) but you can also simply not buy hardware until Quark runs native. You're describing a reason not to upgrade.
I don't doubt that Apple will attack the consumer market aggressively. Their market share in that space is apparently 10%. At this point, there are so many tacks they could take that I'm not sure that *fill-in-what-I-want* approach to prediction is going to work all that reliably.
The Cube was "put on ice," though...
The Cube was "put on ice," though...
Exactly. I'd hedge a bet and bet Apple will use the 970 (directly/indirectly) to introduce a new kind of Mac which meets the needs of the many that aint buying eMacs or iMac2s. That sounds like the headless jobby to me.
The imac2 and emac do the same job. Yes, the eMac is 'rugged' but it's not the catch all for Edu' that Apple wanted. If only it was. Therefore the sales figures suggest something(s) is/are wrong.
I think the iMac2 is 'rugged' enough for Colleges though. So 'ruggedly' (handsome) that they were stolen from the college where I will be working soon! They replaced the 'puddings' with eMacs instead. Still, I'm so used to seeing beige towers in colleges and schools...that I thought the eMac suite was a gorgeous thing of beauty. In that context they looked quite something. I've never seen so many Macs in one place before!!! All with MX and Adobe suites AND Lightwave suites! Heaven? Close. (and the obligatory MS suite of bloatware...)
Check out 'insider's G5 story! I'm not sure we'll have a 'low end g4 box' if I'm reading the smoke signals correctly.
Either way, if Apple themselves aint happy with their desktop sales (and that's Tower to Consumer...) then I'll take their word for it :P
What's significant is that they (apparently) plan to do something about it. And if they're serious about growth they will. It's going to take something pretty seismic to get to that 10%. The current eMac/iMac2 show no sign of getting Apple anywhere near that.
A G5 at WWDC for the Towers etc. Yep. But what this means for consumer line isn't quite as clear. A quick transition of the 970 to the consumer lines by early 2004?
Or...the Cube taken out the freezer..? Both please.
But I am greedy.
Lemon Bon Bon