new powermacs will have hypertransport!!

geekmeat

the reason for o/s 9 not being supported is simple.

its not the processor chip that will be different,but the motherboard.

it will be based on hypertransport and will utilize a graphics card that communicates with the motherboard via hypertransport.

im speculting here (as always) but if i were a betting man id say nvidia's nforce chipset will be built in.

just letting you know.

stagflation steve

Uhh No,



The reason to Apple dropping Mac OS 9 support is to quote "Give our users a benevolent push into the future of the Macintosh platform"



Apple is dropping Mac OS 9 support from existing products, not only any new G4's

chucker

No, also wrong Future Macs are planned not to have a ROM any longer, but only the OpenFirmware. Mac OS X - just like Linux, any BSD, etc. - never needed the ROM. Only Mac OS 9 still does. As OS 9 is regarded as cruft at Apple, they'll eventually remove the ROM and whether you want it or not, new Macs won't boot OS 9 - in its current way - any longer.



I suspect there'll be an updated OS 9 (9.3?) that can only boot from within OS X as a rootless Classic.

stagflation steve

[quote]Originally posted by Chucker:

<strong>No, also wrong Future Macs are planned not to have a ROM any longer, but only the OpenFirmware.</strong><hr></blockquote>



Dude, welcome to 1998!



And the next generation of Power Macs will be bootable into Mac OS 9 via a special 'diagnostic mode' that can be enabled thru open firmware

programmer

[quote]Originally posted by Chucker:

<strong>Only Mac OS 9 still does. As OS 9 is regarded as cruft at Apple, they'll eventually remove the ROM and whether you want it or not, new Macs won't boot OS 9 - in its current way - any longer.</strong><hr></blockquote>



That's been true since the first of the "New World" technology Macs -- which was the very first bondi blue iMac, IIRC. The ROM was placed in a file in the system folder and the OpenFirmware (which has been in the machines since the '95 Tsunami series, IIRC) loaded it into memory.



The use of HyperTransport, in and of itself, should not break MacOS 9 support. Any change in the hardware's register set and control mechanisms which Apple doesn't create a new MacOS 9 enabler for will cause the machine to be non-bootable.

scott

Could someone put Hypertransport in context for us motherboard dummies. How does it relate to PCI and AGP? Replace? Extend? Facilitate?

stagflation steve

Open Firmware was is in all the PCI Power Macs except for the 7200 and Performa 5400 Class.



However, it wasn't good for an awful lot until the modern New World macs came along,

mark- card carrying fanaticrealist

[quote]Originally posted by Scott:

<strong>Could someone put Hypertransport in context for us motherboard dummies. How does it relate to PCI and AGP? Replace? Extend? Facilitate?</strong><hr></blockquote>



Scott,



Most of what you seek is probably <a href="http://www.hypertransport.org/faqs.html"; target="_blank">here</a> at the HyperTransport FAQ page.



But, for the lazy, here are some direct lifts from that page; firstly..



[quote] Question:

What buses and technologies is HyperTransportÂ? technology compatible with?Â*



Answer:

HyperTransportÂ?Â* technology is designed to interface with today's I/O throughput including AGP, PCI, PCI-X, IEEE-1394, USB 2.0, PL-3, SPI-4.2, and Gigabit Ethernet as well as next generation buses including AGP 8x, Infiniband, PCI-X 2.0, PCI Express, SPI-5, and 10 Gigabit Ethernet among others. In traditional architectures, multiple devices share a single bus whereas with HyperTransportÂ? , each device receives its own I/O connection, reducing data bottlenecks and boosting performance. This is accomplished through bridge chips and tunnel chips that can be daisy-chained, giving the opportunity to connect multiple HyperTransportÂ?Â* input/output devices to a single channel.

<hr></blockquote>



and this one...



[quote] Question:

Why is HyperTransportÂ? technology compared to PCI technology?



Answer:

PCI technology is more than a connection technology for PC cards and peripherals. The PCI bus is typically used to connect the processor's memory controller to I/O devices that include PCI slots, hard drives, USB and IEEE-1394 peripherals, printers, etc. In fact, PCI is the most pervasive bus in personal computing and is widely used in networking applications and servers. HyperTransportÂ?Â* technology preserves the large investment that has already been made in PCI while paving the way for the future.

<hr></blockquote>



Hope this helps!



[ 01-01-2003: Message edited by: Mark- Card Carrying FanaticRealist ]</p>

nevyn

I thought the person talking above was talking about the _file_ 'Mac OS ROM', which is where the ROM removed from NewWorld machines ended up. A removal of that file would seem to prevent booting 9 (duh), but I'd think it would also be a problem for Classic.



I keep reading the 'no 9 booting' threads as: If we make new hardware, there's _always_ something different - sound chips go from rev 1.2.3 to 1.2.5 or whatever, lots of pieces that get _slightly_ tweaked. We're done testing all of our hardware on both Mac OS 9 _and_ Mac OS X -&gt; we won't certify the new hardware as 'supported' under Mac OS 9. This will save us an entire quality control workgroup -&gt; large cost reduction. It will still work under Classic - because Classic doesn't use the original(9) hardware drivers - it uses Mac OS X's hardware drivers.



Now, that doesn't mean that there won't be a large hardware shift - just that it really isn't required. And third parties will probably figure out how to boot 9 for any small to medium hardware change pretty quick.