If this is the case did Sony/Ibm just screw the pouch by coming out the revolutionary Cell processor(s) with no great OS to run it?
Or was Jobs not that impressed with the Cell?
The cell is a one trick pony designed for multimedia applications. Think of it like a NHRA top fuel dragster. It has very little practical use as a general computer processor. Program would take an immense amount of additional programming to take advantage of the SPEs. In the end, only the PPE would be utilized and that would be like running a PPC celeron.
I was thinking the same until I saw the graphics showing a complete transition not just to x86 CPUs but to Intel specifically. This is transition, not extension. Which means that the PowerPC goes to the trash can. But who in their right mind would believe now what S. Jobs says on stage? He tried hard the last years to train us to not have faith in his word .
I believe that for the foreseeable future, yes, they're going to drop PPC.
What I said they won't drop is *Universal Binaries*. That's the key piece. Get everyone onto them in the first place, then *keep* the bloody things. Make sure that they're just plain the default moving forward.
Then, as new chips come up, add new build options to Xcode, and voila - same as it ever was, but with more hardware choices.
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Originally posted by johnsocal
Does this mean Apple is black-balled from Cell?
If this is the case did Sony/Ibm just screw the pouch by coming out the revolutionary Cell processor(s) with no great OS to run it?
Or was Jobs not that impressed with the Cell?
The cell is a one trick pony designed for multimedia applications. Think of it like a NHRA top fuel dragster. It has very little practical use as a general computer processor. Program would take an immense amount of additional programming to take advantage of the SPEs. In the end, only the PPE would be utilized and that would be like running a PPC celeron.
Originally posted by PB
I was thinking the same until I saw the graphics showing a complete transition not just to x86 CPUs but to Intel specifically. This is transition, not extension. Which means that the PowerPC goes to the trash can. But who in their right mind would believe now what S. Jobs says on stage? He tried hard the last years to train us to not have faith in his word
I believe that for the foreseeable future, yes, they're going to drop PPC.
What I said they won't drop is *Universal Binaries*. That's the key piece. Get everyone onto them in the first place, then *keep* the bloody things. Make sure that they're just plain the default moving forward.
Then, as new chips come up, add new build options to Xcode, and voila - same as it ever was, but with more hardware choices.
Developers are awfully slow sometimes.