Universal Trinaries?
Just wondering what the feasibility is of developers making universal trinaries that will work on PowerPC, Mactel, and Wintel.
Why?
I like this idea that IBM has been working on where you can save your user session on a portable drive, take it to another computer, and *zap* all your applications and open documents are there just as you left them.
Of course, by the time this became widespread the power PC would be forgotten, so I guess I'm asking about Mactel/Wintel binaries.
Note: I'm aware that they are still actually binary instructions. Just wanted to quickly get people's attention.
Why?
I like this idea that IBM has been working on where you can save your user session on a portable drive, take it to another computer, and *zap* all your applications and open documents are there just as you left them.
Of course, by the time this became widespread the power PC would be forgotten, so I guess I'm asking about Mactel/Wintel binaries.
Note: I'm aware that they are still actually binary instructions. Just wanted to quickly get people's attention.
Comments
Originally posted by onlooker
WTF is a MacTel - Or a Wintel for that matter? Are you talking about one processor, Two Processors, or Three Processors? You could try using standard names. People might have some flipping clue WTF you were talking about.
MacTel = Intel-based Macs.
WinTel = Windows-based PCs.
I think where Universal Binaries work with PPC and X86, the Trinary would add the Yellow Box for Windows (Dharma). With that, you could make PPC, X86 Mac, and X86 Windows programs at once. All three.
I think that's what he's saying.
Originally posted by Nordstrodamus
Just wondering what the feasibility is of developers making universal trinaries that will work on PowerPC, Mactel, and Wintel.
Why?
I like this idea that IBM has been working on where you can save your user session on a portable drive, take it to another computer, and *zap* all your applications and open documents are there just as you left them.
Of course, by the time this became widespread the power PC would be forgotten, so I guess I'm asking about Mactel/Wintel binaries.
To follow-up on earlier posts in this thread, your coining of the term "Universal Trinary" is inappropriate. Let us examine first the term binary. The term binary refers to the fact that computers are composed of two-state instructions. They are either on or off. There are no commercial computers using three-state instructions. A precompiled computer machine language program is called a "binary." However, each family of processors has a different machine language. Each processor family requires a different "binary" to perform the same task.
MacOS X applications are bundles of binary instructions and other resources. Universal Binaries include the processor-specific machine code to run on Macintosh computers based on PPC processors and those based on Intel processors. MacOS X is based on OpenSTEP, which ran on several processor architectures, not just two. If Apple were to expand its support to additional processor architectures, its multiple-binary application bundles would still be called Universal Binaries because universal is as general as you can get. There is no prospect that Apple will port its OS to processors using more than two states per machine instruction.
There will never be a Universal Trinary.
No support for SPARC, IA64, ARM, MIPS, processors. Universal? I don't think so.
NeXT ran on four architectures, they're just getting back to that level of portability is all. Gives them a lot of flexibility and adaptability this way, without making people get all jittery about every little chip change.
"OMGWTF Apple is switching chips AGAIN?!? They're *dying*!"
One name change, and the marketing job becomes a lot easier. A Mac is a Mac is a Mac is a Mac, it doesn't matter what the chip is as long as the performance is good, but a lot of consumers are way too hung up on the CPU family when they shouldn't be.
Originally posted by Gene Clean
Apple's usage of the word 'Universal' is wrong as well. It only runs on two platforms, perhaps the dominant ones in terms of sheer numbers, but hardly the only ones in town.
No support for SPARC, IA64, ARM, MIPS, processors. Universal? I don't think so.
Oh come on, give me a break. You know they mean Universal for OS X.
"Code that runs on both Power PC and Intel Macs running OS X" doesn't really have the same ring, now does it?
What should they have called it instead?
You're being obtuse.
Originally posted by Mr. Me
To follow-up on earlier posts in this thread, your coining of the term "Universal Trinary" is inappropriate. Let us examine first the term binary. The term binary refers to the fact that computers are composed of two-state instructions. They are either on or off. There are no commercial computers using three-state instructions. A precompiled computer machine language program is called a "binary." However, each family of processors has a different machine language. Each processor family requires a different "binary" to perform the same task. Universal Trinary.
I was trying to be cute. Of course it will still be still be a binary. But as pointed out, "Universal Binary" is already incorrect. I suppose I could have said "Really Universal Binary", but I was trying to blend in the idea of supporting three processors. At any rate, even at that I should have said universal tertiaries.
Originally posted by Flounder
Oh come on, give me a break. You know they mean Universal for OS X.
"Code that runs on both Power PC and Intel Macs running OS X" doesn't really have the same ring, now does it?
What should they have called it instead?
You're being obtuse.
They used the term "fat binaries" for the switch from 68000 to PowerPC. Universal Binaries is a little grandiose and does sound like something that should run on any architecture, not just Mac hardware.
Originally posted by Kickaha
[B]Think ahead, Gene, they are.
Not really. If they don't run on *every* processor out there now, they're not. That's the meaning of Universal - encompassing all of the members of a group or class. In this case, the processor class.
NeXT ran on four architectures, they're just getting back to that level of portability is all. Gives them a lot of flexibility and adaptability this way, without making people get all jittery about every little chip change.
Yes, but NeXT is kinda different from OS X nowadays... the core remains the same, but new things have been added, old stuff taken out, and we don't know wether they kept that backwards compatibility with the other two architectures (which still doesn't make it Universal, since there are more than 4 architectures, though this is just a technicality).
One name change, and the marketing job becomes a lot easier. A Mac is a Mac is a Mac is a Mac, it doesn't matter what the chip is as long as the performance is good, but a lot of consumers are way too hung up on the CPU family when they shouldn't be.
The name is pretty cool indeed, kinda reaffirming the point that it runs on both platforms, to customers who may otherwise have doubts about the compatibility. Universal means... runs everywhere, doesn't it? Everywhere OS X runs, anyway. And so far, we know it runs on PPC and x86 only.
It was just an extension of this whole "trinary" debate and the usage of proper nomenclature. But you gotta admit that even the Universal Binary icon shows only 2 colors, 2 sides, 2 chips
I realize it's a copy of Yin-Yang, but still pretty funny.
You're being obtuse.
No, I'm just saying that Apple is using that term rather broadly and it is only loosely based on things we know to be true today; that OS X runs on 2 platforms, x86 + PPC.
What? No one can criticize Apple anymore, even if supported by facts and done in a constructive manner?
Literal man, literal man...
Takes everything as totally literal, man...
</parody>
Gene... come on... the point to the term 'Universal' is that the infrastructure allows for what is essentially a 'universal' and open-ended addition of architectures as they need them. You know that.
Besides, it's just a marketing term. Sheesh.
Why don't people address that, as opposed to parsing the language: could a single file contain the code to run on all three architectures?
Mandricard
AppleOutsider
Originally posted by Gene Clean
Apple's usage of the word 'Universal' is wrong as well. It only runs on two platforms, perhaps the dominant ones in terms of sheer numbers, but hardly the only ones in town.
No support for SPARC, IA64, ARM, MIPS, processors. Universal? I don't think so.
It runs on every Mac that has those processors in them.
The simple fact is that NeXT was a on OS that ran on a whole bunch of architectures. Mac OS, in the bad old Mac OS 9 days, ran on just the PowerPC.
For what ever reason (almost certainly related to the fact that *no* Macs ran x86) only a PowerPC version of NexT was was released when they renamed it Mac OS X and stuck some Apple logos in it ...
... but as we know, there was a paralel track for x86.
If Mr. Developer had followed the Apple advice about using Xcode, and (for example) using the Accellerate Framework instead of eking out more AltiVec performance by coding AltiVec by hand, then the change in architecture would have been even easier then it had been.
Adding a couple more architectures would have been easy.
However ... it seems that several years ago, the parallel builds of Mac OS for SPARC and others were stopped and code removed for everything but PPC and x86.
So the NICE answer to Nord is 'That would be a great idea. But it seems unlikely at this point.'
Originally posted by Anders
It runs on every Mac that has those processors in them.
There is the answer to end all answers. It's the universal OS X binary. It's designed for the Macintosh computer which is currently Driven on PPC, and Intel processors. Therefor it is universal.
I still don't understand what you mean about there being a difference between a Mac processor, and a Windows processor by calling them Wintels, and Macintel's as if that makes the processors different.
It would seem that there could be an application/development package that would allow for an 'instant' compile of Intel for Mac and Intel for Windows binaries, though I'm not sure how the UI elements could be handled.
Comments from the programming geeks?
Originally posted by Sport73
I agree with the other post. Why can't we debate the merits of the TOPIC rather than bantering about semantics?
....
Semantics, you sayf? Well, if you can't use a standard language, how do we know what the topic is? We have effectively killed the new term, trinary, which has no agreed upon meaning. I think that we have also clarified the term universal in that we know that Universal Binaries are universal to all new Macs on the market. Now, let us clarify the term Fat Binary. Fat Binaries ran on NeXT computers running OpenSTEP. They are also ran on OpenSTEP for Intel processors. However, fat binaries were not exclusive to OpenSTEP-native computers. They also ran on Win NT-based computers and computers sold by Sun Microsystems running that company's OS. Carry on.
Originally posted by Nordstrodamus
Just wondering what the feasibility is of developers making universal trinaries that will work on PowerPC, Mactel, and Wintel.
He clearly defines the term "universal trinaries" after he introduces the term. I'm going to have to reference the posting guidlines but I'm pretty sure that a poster has to have at least a thousand posts before he can coin a term without being beat to death by other posters who also have thousands posts of their own.
Originally posted by onlooker
WTF is a MacTel - Or a Wintel for that matter?
I think onlooker is just mad that no one ever answered his question of what a mactel is from two months ago and is still harboring hurt feelings and is using Nordstrodamus' use of the term to express himself. The term Mactel has been used in two dozen threads on this forum. Same goes for Wintel which is a commom term that has been used in a dozen threads on these forums.
Originally posted by Nordstrodamus
Just wondering what the feasibility is of developers making universal trinaries that will work on PowerPC, Mactel, and Wintel.
Why?
Of course, by the time this became widespread the power PC would be forgotten, so I guess I'm asking about Mactel/Wintel binaries.
Note: I'm aware that they are still actually binary instructions. Just wanted to quickly get people's attention.
It's not PowerPC, Mactel, and Wintel. It is PowerPC and x86.
PowerPC is the processor architecture used in most macs from the mid-90s up until this year.
x86 is the processor architecture used in Intel-Macs, and most Windows-compatible PCs.
Wintel and Mactel are fan-created terms created to mean "a Windows compatible PC with an Intel processor" or "A Macintosh computer with an Intel processor". They both generally use the x86 architecture.
To any particular piece of software, there is no real difference between a "Wintel" and "Mactel" computer. If you can get Mac OS X to run on a "Wintel" machine, the existing universal binaries will work fine.
However, Apple has made some effort to make it difficult to run OS X on a computer they did not make. That was done at the OS level, not the application level.
Also, there are other processor architectures out there besides x86 and PPC. Back when Mac OS X was called NeXt, I think it ran on four different processor architectures. Mac OS X could do that too if Apple had a compelling reason to move to a new architecture.