Apple dumped Display PS because of a not so nice license fee (PDF is free), and Adobe wasn't happy about Apple dumping Display PS.</strong><hr></blockquote>
As I remember it Adobe was developing DisplayPS attempting to make it a real display environment, not just a printing environment. MS approached Adobe about co-developing a display technology for what would be in XP. Adobe dropped development of DisplayPS to shift resources to this co-development project. Apple was at that time a few months from releasing OSX. They may not have been getting the licensing deal that they had hoped for as well. But this is all history, display PDF is much faster and has many more features. And like you point out it is free. I believe that the reason that Apple even looked at DisplayPS was because they had experience and the Foundation and AppKit were built around it and that was a big investment in both time and money. I think that in the licensing deal Steve thought that Apple would get a huge break on the fee or even get it for free, being that the Macintosh market is many times bigger than the NeXT market. It is interesting that MS chose not to use the technology that they were co-developing instead going inhouse. I think that Adobe would have been much more willing to deal on DisplayPS fees if they thought the MS deal would fall through.
Those release dates may be for a "general" release of the 970. Certainly there could be a "private" contract between the two providing Apple with chips at an earlier date. </strong><hr></blockquote>
This was my thought the day the chip date was announced.
<strong>This was my thought the day the chip date was announced.</strong><hr></blockquote>
But doesn't the 970 have an Altivec unit on board? Not too many other companies use SIMD/Altivec that I know of. I am guessing the 970 is the chip for Apple and the PPC9xx family is for the general population. And mid to late Feb, by my guess.
If I recall, the 7457RM is slated for early 04 delivery while the 970 should ship by Q3 of 03. Again Moto is a little too late, if they are able to live up to that timeline, and they havent had a good record of meeting projected ship dates since the initial release of the G4.
<strong>If I recall, the 7457RM is slated for early 04 delivery while the 970 should ship by Q3 of 03. Again Moto is a little too late, if they are able to live up to that timeline, and they havent had a good record of meeting projected ship dates since the initial release of the G4.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Since Motorola's avowed target market is the embedded space where low component counts, low costs, low power, and low heat are all very important it seems obvious that the rumoured 7457RM would have very different design goals than the 970. This is good for Apple -- the PowerPC was supposed to be (and is) a family of processors, not just one. Since processor design, like all engineering, is a set of tradeoffs and compromises there cannot be a single processor that is ideally suited to all uses. PowerPC, however, aims to put compatible processors into as many different product spaces as possible. In those terms it has been an outstanding success. PowerPCs are used in everything from small portable products, to network routers, to cars, to desktop computers, to notebook computers, to servers, and beyond. Back in '95 the PowerPC group at Somerset was designing the PC-class chips and they had 3 on the go at once: 603, 604, 620. These were aimed at the portable, desktop/workstation, and server markets respectively. The 603 emphasized low power, while the 604 emphasized performance. They stomped the Intel guys on both counts. Since then the high-performance side of the equation faltered when the Core2K failed to materialized, but now IBM promises to change this with the 970. This does not invalidate the need for the 7457RM.
The 7457RM takes the existing G4 core, process shrinks it to at least 0.13, brings the memory controller on board (thus taking this functionality out of the chipset), and moves to a new interconnect scheme designed for low-cost high-speed implementations (RapidIO). It will probably be at least 20% smaller/cooler than the 970 on a given process, and should be able to achieve at least 1.8 GHz on the 0.13 process. The cache and memory controller improvements should improve performance significantly. This should be a terrific processor for use in portable applications in the timeframe when (and if) it becomes available. The main question is whether Motorola has enough wherewithal to still build the thing.
"The 7457RM takes the existing G4 core, process shrinks it to at least 0.13, brings the memory controller on board (thus taking this functionality out of the chipset), and moves to a new interconnect scheme designed for low-cost high-speed implementations (RapidIO). It will probably be at least 20% smaller/cooler than the 970 on a given process, and should be able to achieve at least 1.8 GHz on the 0.13 process. The cache and memory controller improvements should improve performance significantly. This should be a terrific processor for use in portable applications in the timeframe when (and if) it becomes available. The main question is whether Motorola has enough wherewithal to still build the thing."
I think if these processors change conusmer/prosumer lines mid-flight. ie IBM hits the 'power'Macs and Moto' hit the consumer lines. ie 2 970 hits the 'power'Macs mid 2003 and the Rio 1.8 gig G4 hits the iMac 2004 (given the pace of updates...) then that would, within the space of a year put Apple lightyears ahead of the rather mundane and dispiriting last few years re: cpu.
7457RM. ... This should be a terrific processor for use in portable applications in the timeframe when (and if) it becomes available. The main question is whether Motorola has enough wherewithal to still build the thing.
"Options, we like to have options."</strong><hr></blockquote>
The part I keep hanging up on is that RIO or HT are both switched fabrics -> this keeps screaming 'Please don't stop as just _2_' to me. RIO & HT aren't really aimed at being slot-interconects, but both seem to have ways to do it -> If I've got the CPU, the memory controller, and a link to the outside world all on the one 7457RM chip, the only thing we need to be a blade is RAM, right? RIO's limit is 256 devices... Suddenly the 7457RM's claim to fame (low heat) becomes an important part of 'How many?'
ALl idle speculation of course. I do think Pixar would buy more than one.
<strong>The part I keep hanging up on is that RIO or HT are both switched fabrics -> this keeps screaming 'Please don't stop as just _2_' to me. RIO & HT aren't really aimed at being slot-interconects, but both seem to have ways to do it -> If I've got the CPU, the memory controller, and a link to the outside world all on the one 7457RM chip, the only thing we need to be a blade is RAM, right? RIO's limit is 256 devices... Suddenly the 7457RM's claim to fame (low heat) becomes an important part of 'How many?'
ALl idle speculation of course. I do think Pixar would buy more than one.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Absolutely, and the 970 is built with SMP in mind as well. IBM, at least, plans on building N-way 970-based machines where N is a rather large number. We'll probably seen multi-core and multi-threaded versions of the 9x0 processors eventually as well.
The reason that computer "speed" has to increase rapidly is that application demands increase.
(i.e.: 64K was plenty to run WordStar on the Zilog Z-80 inside a Kaypro II in 1984, and that version of WordStar still fulfills 90% of the functionality of 2003 word processors - mailmerge, typography effects, etc; so... why doesn't anyone still use the Kaypro II? Because things like GUIs came along, and WYSIWYG, and multitasking, and on, and on - ALL software demands placed on hardware makers)
Why do Ad Agencies buy hundreds of iMacs for print design work instead of PowerMacs? The iMacs do the job, and do it well. They are more powerful than the print applications need, when total cost of ownership is applied to current technology.
Sure, the PMs are better at video, animation, rendering, science calculation, etc - but these are NOT print design.
Here's the biter:
InDesign 3 and Xpress 5.5 (6.0?) may demand more than the iMacs can provide. This would force yet another round of upgrades. Other apps will also help this along.
So these agencies, etc, might be buying computers with a two year life instead of 4-5 years -ASSUMING they want to upgrade applications.
Despite this being a FH thread, I'd like to ask: is cocoa suitable for cross-platform development?
Not YET is the correct answer, I think.
Objective C is a superset of C. Apple has been adding C++ compatibility into it in recent times (much of this exists in current versions of the frameworks).
So the key then is the operability of the frameworks on other hardware.
Think Darwin for X86/AMD.
Think Apple just has to make the frameworks,etc available. They've got X86-compatible frameworks if they have Marklar (OS X on X86/AMD), right?
Comments
<strong>
Apple dumped Display PS because of a not so nice license fee (PDF is free), and Adobe wasn't happy about Apple dumping Display PS.</strong><hr></blockquote>
As I remember it Adobe was developing DisplayPS attempting to make it a real display environment, not just a printing environment. MS approached Adobe about co-developing a display technology for what would be in XP. Adobe dropped development of DisplayPS to shift resources to this co-development project. Apple was at that time a few months from releasing OSX. They may not have been getting the licensing deal that they had hoped for as well. But this is all history, display PDF is much faster and has many more features. And like you point out it is free. I believe that the reason that Apple even looked at DisplayPS was because they had experience and the Foundation and AppKit were built around it and that was a big investment in both time and money. I think that in the licensing deal Steve thought that Apple would get a huge break on the fee or even get it for free, being that the Macintosh market is many times bigger than the NeXT market. It is interesting that MS chose not to use the technology that they were co-developing instead going inhouse. I think that Adobe would have been much more willing to deal on DisplayPS fees if they thought the MS deal would fall through.
<strong>
Those release dates may be for a "general" release of the 970. Certainly there could be a "private" contract between the two providing Apple with chips at an earlier date. </strong><hr></blockquote>
This was my thought the day the chip date was announced.
Lemon Bon Bon
<strong>This was my thought the day the chip date was announced.</strong><hr></blockquote>
But doesn't the 970 have an Altivec unit on board? Not too many other companies use SIMD/Altivec that I know of. I am guessing the 970 is the chip for Apple and the PPC9xx family is for the general population. And mid to late Feb, by my guess.
Short version: Moto's 7457 soon, higher clocked 7457s later, and much later 7457RM for the iMac around the time of the 970 for PowerMacs.
Screed
[ 12-30-2002: Message edited by: sCreeD ]</p>
Barto
Barto
<strong>Just another <a href="http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2002Dec/bch20021230017949.htm"; target="_blank">nail</a> in the "970 soon theory" (not necessarily the nail, mind you).
Short version: Moto's 7457 soon, higher clocked 7457s later, and much later 7457RM for the iMac around the time of the 970 for PowerMacs.
Screed
[ 12-30-2002: Message edited by: sCreeD ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
If I recall, the 7457RM is slated for early 04 delivery while the 970 should ship by Q3 of 03. Again Moto is a little too late, if they are able to live up to that timeline, and they havent had a good record of meeting projected ship dates since the initial release of the G4.
<strong>If I recall, the 7457RM is slated for early 04 delivery while the 970 should ship by Q3 of 03. Again Moto is a little too late, if they are able to live up to that timeline, and they havent had a good record of meeting projected ship dates since the initial release of the G4.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Since Motorola's avowed target market is the embedded space where low component counts, low costs, low power, and low heat are all very important it seems obvious that the rumoured 7457RM would have very different design goals than the 970. This is good for Apple -- the PowerPC was supposed to be (and is) a family of processors, not just one. Since processor design, like all engineering, is a set of tradeoffs and compromises there cannot be a single processor that is ideally suited to all uses. PowerPC, however, aims to put compatible processors into as many different product spaces as possible. In those terms it has been an outstanding success. PowerPCs are used in everything from small portable products, to network routers, to cars, to desktop computers, to notebook computers, to servers, and beyond. Back in '95 the PowerPC group at Somerset was designing the PC-class chips and they had 3 on the go at once: 603, 604, 620. These were aimed at the portable, desktop/workstation, and server markets respectively. The 603 emphasized low power, while the 604 emphasized performance. They stomped the Intel guys on both counts. Since then the high-performance side of the equation faltered when the Core2K failed to materialized, but now IBM promises to change this with the 970. This does not invalidate the need for the 7457RM.
The 7457RM takes the existing G4 core, process shrinks it to at least 0.13, brings the memory controller on board (thus taking this functionality out of the chipset), and moves to a new interconnect scheme designed for low-cost high-speed implementations (RapidIO). It will probably be at least 20% smaller/cooler than the 970 on a given process, and should be able to achieve at least 1.8 GHz on the 0.13 process. The cache and memory controller improvements should improve performance significantly. This should be a terrific processor for use in portable applications in the timeframe when (and if) it becomes available. The main question is whether Motorola has enough wherewithal to still build the thing.
"Options, we like to have options."
I think if these processors change conusmer/prosumer lines mid-flight. ie IBM hits the 'power'Macs and Moto' hit the consumer lines. ie 2 970 hits the 'power'Macs mid 2003 and the Rio 1.8 gig G4 hits the iMac 2004 (given the pace of updates...) then that would, within the space of a year put Apple lightyears ahead of the rather mundane and dispiriting last few years re: cpu.
"Options, we like to have options."
Yeah. Let's hope both deliver.
Lemon Bon Bon
<strong>
7457RM. ... This should be a terrific processor for use in portable applications in the timeframe when (and if) it becomes available. The main question is whether Motorola has enough wherewithal to still build the thing.
"Options, we like to have options."</strong><hr></blockquote>
The part I keep hanging up on is that RIO or HT are both switched fabrics -> this keeps screaming 'Please don't stop as just _2_' to me. RIO & HT aren't really aimed at being slot-interconects, but both seem to have ways to do it -> If I've got the CPU, the memory controller, and a link to the outside world all on the one 7457RM chip, the only thing we need to be a blade is RAM, right? RIO's limit is 256 devices... Suddenly the 7457RM's claim to fame (low heat) becomes an important part of 'How many?'
ALl idle speculation of course. I do think Pixar would buy more than one.
<strong>The part I keep hanging up on is that RIO or HT are both switched fabrics -> this keeps screaming 'Please don't stop as just _2_' to me. RIO & HT aren't really aimed at being slot-interconects, but both seem to have ways to do it -> If I've got the CPU, the memory controller, and a link to the outside world all on the one 7457RM chip, the only thing we need to be a blade is RAM, right? RIO's limit is 256 devices... Suddenly the 7457RM's claim to fame (low heat) becomes an important part of 'How many?'
ALl idle speculation of course. I do think Pixar would buy more than one.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Absolutely, and the 970 is built with SMP in mind as well. IBM, at least, plans on building N-way 970-based machines where N is a rather large number. We'll probably seen multi-core and multi-threaded versions of the 9x0 processors eventually as well.
The reason that computer "speed" has to increase rapidly is that application demands increase.
(i.e.: 64K was plenty to run WordStar on the Zilog Z-80 inside a Kaypro II in 1984, and that version of WordStar still fulfills 90% of the functionality of 2003 word processors - mailmerge, typography effects, etc; so... why doesn't anyone still use the Kaypro II? Because things like GUIs came along, and WYSIWYG, and multitasking, and on, and on - ALL software demands placed on hardware makers)
Why do Ad Agencies buy hundreds of iMacs for print design work instead of PowerMacs? The iMacs do the job, and do it well. They are more powerful than the print applications need, when total cost of ownership is applied to current technology.
Sure, the PMs are better at video, animation, rendering, science calculation, etc - but these are NOT print design.
Here's the biter:
InDesign 3 and Xpress 5.5 (6.0?) may demand more than the iMacs can provide. This would force yet another round of upgrades. Other apps will also help this along.
So these agencies, etc, might be buying computers with a two year life instead of 4-5 years -ASSUMING they want to upgrade applications.
Despite this being a FH thread, I'd like to ask: is cocoa suitable for cross-platform development?
Not YET is the correct answer, I think.
Objective C is a superset of C. Apple has been adding C++ compatibility into it in recent times (much of this exists in current versions of the frameworks).
So the key then is the operability of the frameworks on other hardware.
Think Darwin for X86/AMD.
Think Apple just has to make the frameworks,etc available. They've got X86-compatible frameworks if they have Marklar (OS X on X86/AMD), right?
Yeah, let's give the linux guys a leg up