I've been pretty bummed out about this whole thing but I'm finally coming to terms with it. Reading John Siracusa's article over at Ars really helped.
As much as I romanticized the PowerPC and its future, the time has come for Apple to give up on it. They really don't need to be worrying about CPU yields and stuff like that. That's not what they do best. They put the parts together elegantly, and make insanely great software. That's what they need to focus on.
So yes it still stings. The transition is going to be irritating. But on the bright side, we never really have to worry about CPU speeds again. Intel and AMD have that covered. And in the meantime, I'm still going to be enjoying my dual G5.
"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die."
You haven't "shown" anything either. Quit this derogatory nonsense.
Given that the Cell requires quite the underlying architectural change in terms of hardware design as well as operating system magic to deal with parallelism, threading, etc, then yes, the OS would likely require significant work. However, you continue to fail to present any reason why a run-of-the-mill Mac OS X application could not run without a recompile if a standard PowerPC instruction set were available, as early Cell specs seem to indicate. If you wan't to inform me exactly why that wouldn't work, please do, otherwise cut out the baseless posturing.
This is entirely meaningless. What does this have to do with running PPC binaries without recompiles? Sony would not be talking about building workstations based on Cell if it weren't a viable desktop architecture.
Which would be Apple's internal problem and not a transition issue.
No, it wouldn't. That would only include programs that are specifically trying to take advantage of parallelism/threading. There's no reason why single-threaded or even traditionally multi-threaded applications couldn't run on the PPE.
And what is that supposed to mean? I should discard the article because some anonymous guy on the AI forum said he doesn't "know anyone who is impressed" with it?
A traditional G5 processor could serve as the core as well.
Who said anything to that effect? How do you know what Apple's research efforts in other directions have been? Moreover, my entire comment was predicated on the assumption that if we were to be actually in the process of a Cell transition, these issues would have been resolved somehow. In which case, no, a Cell transition would not be "more disruptive." Or do you really think Apple would float some half-baked, slow alpha-level prototype crap into the market?
You continue to fail to mention why current code wouldn't be able to run on this technology, if it were properly factored for desktop use.
So that's what this entire rant and arrogant posturing has been about? About something I never even said? All I've said is this has potential, and that if the technology were currently in a state where it were actually a viable option for Macs that it would not be "more disruptive" than an x86 move. And I continue to maintain that. Adding VMX to the G4 didn't stop software from working, utilizing the GPU for image/video processing didn't stop software from working, and there's no reason to believe that a Cell processor with a PPC core couldn't run current software. Nothing would force a developer to refactor everything into cells, in fact that wouldn't even make sense for all software.
Those who say something is going to work are the ones responsible for showing how. If you said instead that you hope it were possible, that's different.
"quite the architectural change" is the point I was making. I'm not sure how after admitting that, you can go on to say "standard PowerPC instruction set".
While the PPE is compliant, it does not support re-entry code. You cannot simply ignore that. Without supporting that ( something that all modern processors support), a processor would continually drop instructions as it flushed its cache an inordinate amount of times. If the pipeline is short enough for this not to happen, that would be fine. But slow. The key is the "two issue, IN ORDER," part. All PPC's, as well as all other cpu's anywhere, support (and rely upon) out of order instructions.
The PPE can handle game code which is not that complex, because it can hand off the difficult parts of the program to the spe's.
But the part it's handing off are graphically oriented. For the most part, the spe's work as dsp's, even though they can do more.
If Sony and IBM want to make a workstation out of this other than the one they have made to use to program games for the PS3, they have to come up with a new OS and a set of API's that are written specifically for the Cell.
Apple was able to get OS X working on x86 because despite their differences, they are more alike than different.
The Cell is more different than alike.
You can't after all that (even in your rebuttal) say that it's "Apple's internal problem and not a transition issue." and dismiss it. That's the problem I'm talking about here. It's a big problem, and Apple, if they did think about it, no doubt agreed.
Why is there no reason that multi threaded apps wouldn't run? This only supports two threads. Some apps have more than that. Some now have several per cpu. The OS hands those threads off from one processor, when present, to the other depending on how busy it is.
Now we are getting to some more interesting things. If we used a G5 core, then we wouldn't have a Cell, because that concept is in direct contradiction to the idea of using a complex cpu like the G5. The concept was to strip the PPE down to its essentials so that the power usage would better fit a game console. The G5 surely doesn't do that.
Another problem is that the Cell uses Rambus technology for its memory and another Rambus technology for its I/O. Neither have any counterpart in Apple's equipment. They are both vastly different. The way the memory is implemented isn't used in the PC world either where they have flirted with Rambus. The entire memory architecture in Apple's OS and any program that runs on it would have to be completely reworked.
Insofar as Apple's research goes, we know that Next ran on x86. I suppose you could say that they had other things going at the same time, and you could be right. But the Cell is too new. They haven't even gone to silicon yet. Just a few prototypes. The PS3 itself won't be out until late spring or early summer.
How much time do you think it would take Apple to get their OS working on it? A year? Two? The OS works now on x86, and it will still take between one and two years to get machines and 3rd party software out the door in viable numbers. How many of these developers would want to make this switch?
And what about support chips? There aren't any out yet. We don't know what form these workstation will take. The industry is skeptical that they will be a success because no one is going to write to a whole new set of API's.
I haven't "failed" to show why current programs won't be able to run. You don't want to listen. you can't go by any one article. Especially as it goes against pretty much everything else being written.
Again, I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it's so difficult that it's not practical unless IBM decides to make it easy, which we know they won't.
I'm sorry about the last sentence. It wasn't directed specifically towards you. I should have made that clear. But if you have been following the posts on the threads, you would see what I mean.
I tried to present enough information to be useful. If you want to debate it further that's fine.
I tried to present enough information to be useful. If you want to debate it further that's fine.
Otherwise, personal truce.
OK. You've presented some excellent points I hadn't considered. So I'll just leave it at that I think Cell is certainly something to keep an eye on for the future.
"quite the architectural change" is the point I was making. I'm not sure how after admitting that, you can go on to say "standard PowerPC instruction set".
Uh... because it does use the standard PPC ISA (including VMX) and will executing existing PPC/VMX application code (and most of the OS code, except those portions dealing with specialized supervisory registers).
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While the PPE is compliant, it does not support re-entry code. You cannot simply ignore that. Without supporting that ( something that all modern processors support), a processor would continually drop instructions as it flushed its cache an inordinate amount of times. If the pipeline is short enough for this not to happen, that would be fine. But slow. The key is the "two issue, IN ORDER," part. All PPC's, as well as all other cpu's anywhere, support (and rely upon) out of order instructions.
"re-entry code"? What the heck are you talking about? I don't know where you are getting your information about the PPE, but it sounds like an inaccurate source.
And the G3s and G4s are in-order processors as well. The dual issue isn't as big a deal as you might think because wider issue often cannot be used because the instructions don't match the order necessary to accomplish it.
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The PPE can handle game code which is not that complex, because it can hand off the difficult parts of the program to the spe's.
Not that complex? Ha! You haven't looked at much modern game code, have you? And since you don't know anything about the SPEs, how do you know what is appropriate to hand off to them?
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If Sony and IBM want to make a workstation out of this other than the one they have made to use to program games for the PS3, they have to come up with a new OS and a set of API's that are written specifically for the Cell.
Linux is already up and running on the Cell. The same Linux that runs on all the other processors.
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Apple was able to get OS X working on x86 because despite their differences, they are more alike than different.
The Cell is more different than alike.
The SPEs are unique, but to bring the OS up does not require any use of them. They can be addressed by adding features to the OS (like the above mentioned Linux port is doing).
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You can't after all that (even in your rebuttal) say that it's "Apple's internal problem and not a transition issue." and dismiss it. That's the problem I'm talking about here. It's a big problem, and Apple, if they did think about it, no doubt agreed.
The problem is solveable, the issue here is that Apple decided they wanted to go in a different direction that IBM is going. We don't know what IBM's direction is because that information isn't public.
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Why is there no reason that multi threaded apps wouldn't run? This only supports two threads. Some apps have more than that. Some now have several per cpu. The OS hands those threads off from one processor, when present, to the other depending on how busy it is.
The PPE has 2 hardware threads which is more than the 970 has. The same time slicing technique that is used on any other processor can be applied to the PPE.
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Now we are getting to some more interesting things. If we used a G5 core, then we wouldn't have a Cell, because that concept is in direct contradiction to the idea of using a complex cpu like the G5. The concept was to strip the PPE down to its essentials so that the power usage would better fit a game console. The G5 surely doesn't do that.
The Cell is about the bus, and any core can be modified and mated to that bus. They might not be able to sustain the overall chip's clock rate, but there is nothing to say that a given core couldn't be operated at a divided clock rate.
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Another problem is that the Cell uses Rambus technology for its memory and another Rambus technology for its I/O. Neither have any counterpart in Apple's equipment. They are both vastly different. The way the memory is implemented isn't used in the PC world either where they have flirted with Rambus. The entire memory architecture in Apple's OS and any program that runs on it would have to be completely reworked.
Apple moves to new memory architectures on a regular basis. Moving to this one would actually be easier since the memory controller is built into the Cell. The virtual memory architecture could be adapated without exposing the changes to the applications. Alternatively a different Cell implementation could have a different IMC module.
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Insofar as Apple's research goes, we know that Next ran on x86. I suppose you could say that they had other things going at the same time, and you could be right. But the Cell is too new. They haven't even gone to silicon yet. Just a few prototypes. The PS3 itself won't be out until late spring or early summer.
More than "a few prototypes". A lot more.
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How much time do you think it would take Apple to get their OS working on it? A year? Two? The OS works now on x86, and it will still take between one and two years to get machines and 3rd party software out the door in viable numbers. How many of these developers would want to make this switch?
A month or less. And applications would work from the first day the OS did. They wouldn't use the SPEs until the OS subsystems were modified to do so, but porting code to the SPEs clearly isn't such a huge labor given the demos presented at E3 mere months after the developers got prototype hardware.
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And what about support chips? There aren't any out yet. We don't know what form these workstation will take. The industry is skeptical that they will be a success because no one is going to write to a whole new set of API's.
Apple needs to adapt their chipsets for x86 anyhow -- not a huge difference there. The same old APIs will still work, you seem to be under some serious misconceptions.
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I haven't "failed" to show why current programs won't be able to run. You don't want to listen. you can't go by any one article. Especially as it goes against pretty much everything else being written.
Again, I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it's so difficult that it's not practical unless IBM decides to make it easy, which we know they won't.
I'm sorry about the last sentence. It wasn't directed specifically towards you. I should have made that clear. But if you have been following the posts on the threads, you would see what I mean.
I tried to present enough information to be useful. If you want to debate it further that's fine.
You've presented a bunch of fictions and misconceptions, under which any discussion is pointless.
It is clear that Apple won't use Cell (or other future Power processors, at least post near-term 970 derived chips already in the pipeline) -- the reason for that is not technical feasibility, it is a choice based on the roadmaps presented to them by IBM and Intel from late-2006 forward. There are varying schools of thought in terms of what will be more effective hardware architectures going forward, and Apple has chosen to follow Intel's path. That doesn't mean (for technical reasons) that they could not have chosen IBM's path.
my biggest fear is that Apple will now only be an operating system. no longer will they have unique hardware and the advantages over the PC world, it'll all be the same. only the operating system will differ. while its intriguing to be able to dual-boot windows, it kind of seems like taking the easy way out and making the Mac less of the "different" computer it is. yes, the switch will probably make faster computers, and compatibility will probably benefit, but i just don't feel right about it. well, i'll see how i feel tomorrow. i have finals. grr...
no longer will they have unique hardware and the advantages over the PC world, it'll all be the same.
Hmm... IBM chip, AMD chipset, ATA HD, standard SDRAM memory... you call that unique? Sounds pretty mainstream to me there and lots of stuff carried over from middle-of-the-road PCs.
And what advantages over "the PC world" are you talking about?
Hmm... IBM chip, AMD chipset, ATA HD, standard SDRAM memory... you call that unique? Sounds pretty mainstream to me there and lots of stuff carried over from middle-of-the-road PCs.
And what advantages over "the PC world" are you talking about?
There is nothing unique about most of the hardware in the G5 Power Mac that I have now. The uniqueness about the system is the way that it is designed with no cables to be seen. Everything is clean and smooth... kind of like... well, nevermind.
There is nothing unique about most of the hardware in the G5 Power Mac that I have now. The uniqueness about the system is the way that it is designed with no cables to be seen. Everything is clean and smooth... kind of like... well, nevermind.
There is nothing unique about most of the hardware in the G5 Power Mac that I have now. The uniqueness about the system is the way that it is designed with no cables to be seen. Everything is clean and smooth... kind of like... well, nevermind.
One has to wonder if Cocoa (or Yellow Box) for Windows is also lurking in Apple labs.
This is also what I was wondering. If it's going to be as easy as some say to get Windows apps running at native speed alongside Mac apps on Macintel boxes (eg some variant of WINE or a new VPC), then Apple will need to keep developers from jumping ship and developing only for the larger Windows world.
But if they can hold out the prospect of adding a third checkbox to XCode, "Yellow Box for Windows", alongside Mac PPC and Mac x86, then that might keep developers developing for OS X.
I wonder if they have an iTunes variant that runs on the Cocoa frameworks on Windows as a proof of concept...
You've presented a bunch of fictions and misconceptions, under which any discussion is pointless.
Thanks for that. I was gonna reply myself but I've given up trying to correct such posts - lots of work for little reward. I am continually surprised by the pure technical fiction people post - and God help you if you dare to contradict them!
I don't have that quote from Feynman as a sig for nothing - I prefer to doubt what I know and go out and find the truth instead of just waving around pseudo-knowledge.
There is nothing unique about most of the hardware in the G5 Power Mac that I have now. The uniqueness about the system is the way that it is designed with no cables to be seen. Everything is clean and smooth... kind of like... well, nevermind.
Hmm... and well made PC also has all the cables in harnesses to make sure the airflow is good. The only difference is that, inlike MAC, even a higher end PC only has 3 fans - PSU, CPU, case. Makes it VERY quiet regardless of load.
Hmm... and well made PC also has all the cables in harnesses to make sure the airflow is good. The only difference is that, inlike MAC, even a higher end PC only has 3 fans - PSU, CPU, case. Makes it VERY quiet regardless of load.
Hmmm.. obviously you've never looked inside (or heard ) a dual Xeon. The HP DL380 I just put a fibre network card in has about 6 fans and sounds like a jet taking off... ok it IS meant to be used in a server room.. but come on.. get real...
I think overall this is a good move for Apple, sure it is going to cause some problems in the short/medium term, but I for one am in the market for a new Mac and if another speed-bumped Dual G5 comes along shortly I will purchase, otherwise I wait for the first Dual x86 box next year.. don't care... its the OS & the Apps that I use.. and I LOVE them both - are they going to change??? no.
Why would you think that way? Mac OS X will not run on a vanilla PC you know, no way in hell! What is the difference if they both have Intel inside or not.
The difference is that until now you could not install windows on a Mac. The only solution was VirtualPC. However, Apple said that with the move to Intel, they will do nothing to prevent the user to install Windows on an Intel-Mac. They will not support it of course, but they will do nothing to prevent it.
Now, I expect that an Intel-Mac will be more expensive than a common Windows PC. So, no one would buy such a Mac in order to run Windows on it. But those who will buy it, will always have the option to revert to Windows for whatever reason something does not work as expected. It is obvious to me that this possibility will harm badly the software development for the Intel-Macintosh platform.
Apple just should not have opened the new machines to Windows. If the machines were locked and prevented Windows from being installed on them (as will do OS X on generic PCs), then you can say that nothing changed in the Macintosh experience. Unfortunately it will not be so. In the worst case scenario, expect for Apple total collapse. The one who has nothing to lose (and only to gain), is Intel.
Comments
Originally posted by melgross
No, it wouldn't.
That's your opinion and you are entitled to it.
Previous post mostly silly, but the shock is real.
I still have real doubts that Apple may be doing the wrong thing... time may tell.
As much as I romanticized the PowerPC and its future, the time has come for Apple to give up on it. They really don't need to be worrying about CPU yields and stuff like that. That's not what they do best. They put the parts together elegantly, and make insanely great software. That's what they need to focus on.
So yes it still stings. The transition is going to be irritating. But on the bright side, we never really have to worry about CPU speeds again. Intel and AMD have that covered. And in the meantime, I'm still going to be enjoying my dual G5.
"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die."
Originally posted by AppleRISC
You haven't "shown" anything either. Quit this derogatory nonsense.
Given that the Cell requires quite the underlying architectural change in terms of hardware design as well as operating system magic to deal with parallelism, threading, etc, then yes, the OS would likely require significant work. However, you continue to fail to present any reason why a run-of-the-mill Mac OS X application could not run without a recompile if a standard PowerPC instruction set were available, as early Cell specs seem to indicate. If you wan't to inform me exactly why that wouldn't work, please do, otherwise cut out the baseless posturing.
This is entirely meaningless. What does this have to do with running PPC binaries without recompiles? Sony would not be talking about building workstations based on Cell if it weren't a viable desktop architecture.
Which would be Apple's internal problem and not a transition issue.
No, it wouldn't. That would only include programs that are specifically trying to take advantage of parallelism/threading. There's no reason why single-threaded or even traditionally multi-threaded applications couldn't run on the PPE.
And what is that supposed to mean? I should discard the article because some anonymous guy on the AI forum said he doesn't "know anyone who is impressed" with it?
A traditional G5 processor could serve as the core as well.
Who said anything to that effect? How do you know what Apple's research efforts in other directions have been? Moreover, my entire comment was predicated on the assumption that if we were to be actually in the process of a Cell transition, these issues would have been resolved somehow. In which case, no, a Cell transition would not be "more disruptive." Or do you really think Apple would float some half-baked, slow alpha-level prototype crap into the market?
You continue to fail to mention why current code wouldn't be able to run on this technology, if it were properly factored for desktop use.
So that's what this entire rant and arrogant posturing has been about? About something I never even said? All I've said is this has potential, and that if the technology were currently in a state where it were actually a viable option for Macs that it would not be "more disruptive" than an x86 move. And I continue to maintain that. Adding VMX to the G4 didn't stop software from working, utilizing the GPU for image/video processing didn't stop software from working, and there's no reason to believe that a Cell processor with a PPC core couldn't run current software. Nothing would force a developer to refactor everything into cells, in fact that wouldn't even make sense for all software.
Those who say something is going to work are the ones responsible for showing how. If you said instead that you hope it were possible, that's different.
"quite the architectural change" is the point I was making. I'm not sure how after admitting that, you can go on to say "standard PowerPC instruction set".
While the PPE is compliant, it does not support re-entry code. You cannot simply ignore that. Without supporting that ( something that all modern processors support), a processor would continually drop instructions as it flushed its cache an inordinate amount of times. If the pipeline is short enough for this not to happen, that would be fine. But slow. The key is the "two issue, IN ORDER," part. All PPC's, as well as all other cpu's anywhere, support (and rely upon) out of order instructions.
The PPE can handle game code which is not that complex, because it can hand off the difficult parts of the program to the spe's.
But the part it's handing off are graphically oriented. For the most part, the spe's work as dsp's, even though they can do more.
If Sony and IBM want to make a workstation out of this other than the one they have made to use to program games for the PS3, they have to come up with a new OS and a set of API's that are written specifically for the Cell.
Apple was able to get OS X working on x86 because despite their differences, they are more alike than different.
The Cell is more different than alike.
You can't after all that (even in your rebuttal) say that it's "Apple's internal problem and not a transition issue." and dismiss it. That's the problem I'm talking about here. It's a big problem, and Apple, if they did think about it, no doubt agreed.
Why is there no reason that multi threaded apps wouldn't run? This only supports two threads. Some apps have more than that. Some now have several per cpu. The OS hands those threads off from one processor, when present, to the other depending on how busy it is.
Now we are getting to some more interesting things. If we used a G5 core, then we wouldn't have a Cell, because that concept is in direct contradiction to the idea of using a complex cpu like the G5. The concept was to strip the PPE down to its essentials so that the power usage would better fit a game console. The G5 surely doesn't do that.
Another problem is that the Cell uses Rambus technology for its memory and another Rambus technology for its I/O. Neither have any counterpart in Apple's equipment. They are both vastly different. The way the memory is implemented isn't used in the PC world either where they have flirted with Rambus. The entire memory architecture in Apple's OS and any program that runs on it would have to be completely reworked.
Insofar as Apple's research goes, we know that Next ran on x86. I suppose you could say that they had other things going at the same time, and you could be right. But the Cell is too new. They haven't even gone to silicon yet. Just a few prototypes. The PS3 itself won't be out until late spring or early summer.
How much time do you think it would take Apple to get their OS working on it? A year? Two? The OS works now on x86, and it will still take between one and two years to get machines and 3rd party software out the door in viable numbers. How many of these developers would want to make this switch?
And what about support chips? There aren't any out yet. We don't know what form these workstation will take. The industry is skeptical that they will be a success because no one is going to write to a whole new set of API's.
I haven't "failed" to show why current programs won't be able to run. You don't want to listen. you can't go by any one article. Especially as it goes against pretty much everything else being written.
Again, I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it's so difficult that it's not practical unless IBM decides to make it easy, which we know they won't.
I'm sorry about the last sentence. It wasn't directed specifically towards you. I should have made that clear. But if you have been following the posts on the threads, you would see what I mean.
I tried to present enough information to be useful. If you want to debate it further that's fine.
Otherwise, personal truce.
Originally posted by melgross
I tried to present enough information to be useful. If you want to debate it further that's fine.
Otherwise, personal truce.
OK. You've presented some excellent points I hadn't considered. So I'll just leave it at that I think Cell is certainly something to keep an eye on for the future.
Originally posted by MiMac
Anyone think we'll see Apple offload PPC hardware at ridiculously low prices in the near future?
Nope.
Originally posted by melgross
"quite the architectural change" is the point I was making. I'm not sure how after admitting that, you can go on to say "standard PowerPC instruction set".
Uh... because it does use the standard PPC ISA (including VMX) and will executing existing PPC/VMX application code (and most of the OS code, except those portions dealing with specialized supervisory registers).
While the PPE is compliant, it does not support re-entry code. You cannot simply ignore that. Without supporting that ( something that all modern processors support), a processor would continually drop instructions as it flushed its cache an inordinate amount of times. If the pipeline is short enough for this not to happen, that would be fine. But slow. The key is the "two issue, IN ORDER," part. All PPC's, as well as all other cpu's anywhere, support (and rely upon) out of order instructions.
"re-entry code"? What the heck are you talking about? I don't know where you are getting your information about the PPE, but it sounds like an inaccurate source.
And the G3s and G4s are in-order processors as well. The dual issue isn't as big a deal as you might think because wider issue often cannot be used because the instructions don't match the order necessary to accomplish it.
The PPE can handle game code which is not that complex, because it can hand off the difficult parts of the program to the spe's.
Not that complex? Ha! You haven't looked at much modern game code, have you? And since you don't know anything about the SPEs, how do you know what is appropriate to hand off to them?
If Sony and IBM want to make a workstation out of this other than the one they have made to use to program games for the PS3, they have to come up with a new OS and a set of API's that are written specifically for the Cell.
Linux is already up and running on the Cell. The same Linux that runs on all the other processors.
Apple was able to get OS X working on x86 because despite their differences, they are more alike than different.
The Cell is more different than alike.
The SPEs are unique, but to bring the OS up does not require any use of them. They can be addressed by adding features to the OS (like the above mentioned Linux port is doing).
You can't after all that (even in your rebuttal) say that it's "Apple's internal problem and not a transition issue." and dismiss it. That's the problem I'm talking about here. It's a big problem, and Apple, if they did think about it, no doubt agreed.
The problem is solveable, the issue here is that Apple decided they wanted to go in a different direction that IBM is going. We don't know what IBM's direction is because that information isn't public.
Why is there no reason that multi threaded apps wouldn't run? This only supports two threads. Some apps have more than that. Some now have several per cpu. The OS hands those threads off from one processor, when present, to the other depending on how busy it is.
The PPE has 2 hardware threads which is more than the 970 has. The same time slicing technique that is used on any other processor can be applied to the PPE.
Now we are getting to some more interesting things. If we used a G5 core, then we wouldn't have a Cell, because that concept is in direct contradiction to the idea of using a complex cpu like the G5. The concept was to strip the PPE down to its essentials so that the power usage would better fit a game console. The G5 surely doesn't do that.
The Cell is about the bus, and any core can be modified and mated to that bus. They might not be able to sustain the overall chip's clock rate, but there is nothing to say that a given core couldn't be operated at a divided clock rate.
Another problem is that the Cell uses Rambus technology for its memory and another Rambus technology for its I/O. Neither have any counterpart in Apple's equipment. They are both vastly different. The way the memory is implemented isn't used in the PC world either where they have flirted with Rambus. The entire memory architecture in Apple's OS and any program that runs on it would have to be completely reworked.
Apple moves to new memory architectures on a regular basis. Moving to this one would actually be easier since the memory controller is built into the Cell. The virtual memory architecture could be adapated without exposing the changes to the applications. Alternatively a different Cell implementation could have a different IMC module.
Insofar as Apple's research goes, we know that Next ran on x86. I suppose you could say that they had other things going at the same time, and you could be right. But the Cell is too new. They haven't even gone to silicon yet. Just a few prototypes. The PS3 itself won't be out until late spring or early summer.
More than "a few prototypes". A lot more.
How much time do you think it would take Apple to get their OS working on it? A year? Two? The OS works now on x86, and it will still take between one and two years to get machines and 3rd party software out the door in viable numbers. How many of these developers would want to make this switch?
A month or less. And applications would work from the first day the OS did. They wouldn't use the SPEs until the OS subsystems were modified to do so, but porting code to the SPEs clearly isn't such a huge labor given the demos presented at E3 mere months after the developers got prototype hardware.
And what about support chips? There aren't any out yet. We don't know what form these workstation will take. The industry is skeptical that they will be a success because no one is going to write to a whole new set of API's.
Apple needs to adapt their chipsets for x86 anyhow -- not a huge difference there. The same old APIs will still work, you seem to be under some serious misconceptions.
I haven't "failed" to show why current programs won't be able to run. You don't want to listen. you can't go by any one article. Especially as it goes against pretty much everything else being written.
Again, I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it's so difficult that it's not practical unless IBM decides to make it easy, which we know they won't.
I'm sorry about the last sentence. It wasn't directed specifically towards you. I should have made that clear. But if you have been following the posts on the threads, you would see what I mean.
I tried to present enough information to be useful. If you want to debate it further that's fine.
You've presented a bunch of fictions and misconceptions, under which any discussion is pointless.
It is clear that Apple won't use Cell (or other future Power processors, at least post near-term 970 derived chips already in the pipeline) -- the reason for that is not technical feasibility, it is a choice based on the roadmaps presented to them by IBM and Intel from late-2006 forward. There are varying schools of thought in terms of what will be more effective hardware architectures going forward, and Apple has chosen to follow Intel's path. That doesn't mean (for technical reasons) that they could not have chosen IBM's path.
no longer will they have unique hardware and the advantages over the PC world, it'll all be the same.
Hmm... IBM chip, AMD chipset, ATA HD, standard SDRAM memory... you call that unique? Sounds pretty mainstream to me there and lots of stuff carried over from middle-of-the-road PCs.
And what advantages over "the PC world" are you talking about?
Originally posted by skatman
Hmm... IBM chip, AMD chipset, ATA HD, standard SDRAM memory... you call that unique? Sounds pretty mainstream to me there and lots of stuff carried over from middle-of-the-road PCs.
And what advantages over "the PC world" are you talking about?
There is nothing unique about most of the hardware in the G5 Power Mac that I have now. The uniqueness about the system is the way that it is designed with no cables to be seen. Everything is clean and smooth... kind of like... well, nevermind.
Originally posted by kwsanders
There is nothing unique about most of the hardware in the G5 Power Mac that I have now. The uniqueness about the system is the way that it is designed with no cables to be seen. Everything is clean and smooth... kind of like... well, nevermind.
Shit you just made me spill my coffee! Ha ha!
Originally posted by kwsanders
There is nothing unique about most of the hardware in the G5 Power Mac that I have now. The uniqueness about the system is the way that it is designed with no cables to be seen. Everything is clean and smooth... kind of like... well, nevermind.
Originally posted by Dave K.
One has to wonder if Cocoa (or Yellow Box) for Windows is also lurking in Apple labs.
This is also what I was wondering. If it's going to be as easy as some say to get Windows apps running at native speed alongside Mac apps on Macintel boxes (eg some variant of WINE or a new VPC), then Apple will need to keep developers from jumping ship and developing only for the larger Windows world.
But if they can hold out the prospect of adding a third checkbox to XCode, "Yellow Box for Windows", alongside Mac PPC and Mac x86, then that might keep developers developing for OS X.
I wonder if they have an iTunes variant that runs on the Cocoa frameworks on Windows as a proof of concept...
Originally posted by nathan22t
Darth Stevious: The time has come.. Execute plan x86.
Originally posted by Programmer
You've presented a bunch of fictions and misconceptions, under which any discussion is pointless.
Thanks for that. I was gonna reply myself but I've given up trying to correct such posts - lots of work for little reward. I am continually surprised by the pure technical fiction people post - and God help you if you dare to contradict them!
I don't have that quote from Feynman as a sig for nothing - I prefer to doubt what I know and go out and find the truth instead of just waving around pseudo-knowledge.
There is nothing unique about most of the hardware in the G5 Power Mac that I have now. The uniqueness about the system is the way that it is designed with no cables to be seen. Everything is clean and smooth... kind of like... well, nevermind.
Hmm... and well made PC also has all the cables in harnesses to make sure the airflow is good. The only difference is that, inlike MAC, even a higher end PC only has 3 fans - PSU, CPU, case. Makes it VERY quiet regardless of load.
Originally posted by skatman
Hmm... and well made PC also has all the cables in harnesses to make sure the airflow is good. The only difference is that, inlike MAC, even a higher end PC only has 3 fans - PSU, CPU, case. Makes it VERY quiet regardless of load.
Hmmm.. obviously you've never looked inside (or heard
I think overall this is a good move for Apple, sure it is going to cause some problems in the short/medium term, but I for one am in the market for a new Mac and if another speed-bumped Dual G5 comes along shortly I will purchase, otherwise I wait for the first Dual x86 box next year.. don't care... its the OS & the Apps that I use.. and I LOVE them both - are they going to change??? no.
Originally posted by Rhumgod
Why would you think that way? Mac OS X will not run on a vanilla PC you know, no way in hell! What is the difference if they both have Intel inside or not.
The difference is that until now you could not install windows on a Mac. The only solution was VirtualPC. However, Apple said that with the move to Intel, they will do nothing to prevent the user to install Windows on an Intel-Mac. They will not support it of course, but they will do nothing to prevent it.
Now, I expect that an Intel-Mac will be more expensive than a common Windows PC. So, no one would buy such a Mac in order to run Windows on it. But those who will buy it, will always have the option to revert to Windows for whatever reason something does not work as expected. It is obvious to me that this possibility will harm badly the software development for the Intel-Macintosh platform.
Apple just should not have opened the new machines to Windows. If the machines were locked and prevented Windows from being installed on them (as will do OS X on generic PCs), then you can say that nothing changed in the Macintosh experience. Unfortunately it will not be so. In the worst case scenario, expect for Apple total collapse. The one who has nothing to lose (and only to gain), is Intel.