People Talk about Mac OS X on x86 all the time...but
What about Windows on PPC?
With the latest news of the XBOX2 using g5s that run an old version of NT that ran on the PPC...well, what's preventing Microsoft from developing windows for PPC?
Especially as there have been more and more reports of how IBM's PPC future looks great, and AMD and intel are really starting to struggle to put out more power, and they still have loads of other issues.
How is it that apple is the only major user of the PPC? Sure linux can run on a PPC, but apple is the only modern hardware you can get that is PPC(that I know of)
Apple couldn't have an exclusive deal with IBM or anything could they? if so, then how did microsoft get the right to use the g5 in the Xbox, or nintendo for that matter using the g3 variant in the Gamecube, or the PS3 which will reportedly use a PPC architecture.
any insight on this?
With the latest news of the XBOX2 using g5s that run an old version of NT that ran on the PPC...well, what's preventing Microsoft from developing windows for PPC?
Especially as there have been more and more reports of how IBM's PPC future looks great, and AMD and intel are really starting to struggle to put out more power, and they still have loads of other issues.
How is it that apple is the only major user of the PPC? Sure linux can run on a PPC, but apple is the only modern hardware you can get that is PPC(that I know of)
Apple couldn't have an exclusive deal with IBM or anything could they? if so, then how did microsoft get the right to use the g5 in the Xbox, or nintendo for that matter using the g3 variant in the Gamecube, or the PS3 which will reportedly use a PPC architecture.
any insight on this?
Comments
Originally posted by Wrong Robot
well, what's preventing Microsoft from developing windows for PPC?
One word:
Legacy.
"Windows on PPC" users would have the same major problem "Mac OS X on x86" users would have; they would have to throw away all of the apps that they've ever used or are currently using. All third party software would have to be (at best) recompiled or (at worst) rewritten from scratch.
That isn't going to happen.
Think it might? Just look at the back of any "modern" PC. Many of them today still have parallel and serial ports and are using a PS-2 mouse! What new hardware are consumers buying that requires a parallel port?? Oh, there's the omnipresent 1.44 MB floppy drive too.
The same legacy issues applies to software, but on a much larger scale. Whereas the demand for and use of legacy hardware has dropped dramatically, "legacy" software is still in very wide use. Many of those millions of Windows apps are from dead developers and will never be updated again. Many of them *can't* be upgraded because they are entrenched in hideous x86 assembly code.
This was one of the many problems that Intel's "Itanic" processor faced. It was partly doomed from the start because there wasn't any software for it!
Apple couldn't have an exclusive deal with IBM or anything could they?
Nope. Others are already selling PPC970 chips+mobos. I saw one for sale just a few days ago; though, it was prohibitively expensive.
Originally posted by Brad
One word:
Legacy.
"Windows on PPC" users would have the same major problem "Mac OS X on x86" users would have; they would have to throw away all of the apps that they've ever used or are currently using. All third party software would have to be (at best) recompiled or (at worst) rewritten from scratch.
Actually, Windows/PPC people would have it worse, because OS X's application development and deployment architecture has a cross-platform legacy - you can transparently support multiple platforms within an application bundle, and Cocoa's run on x86, and SPARC, and other architectures as well (68K, baby!).
DLL hell is bad enough with only one architecture.
Surely Apple could not claim the same reasons for the price gap?
Ah well I guess its all moot anyways as its not going to happen, Even if it did the conversion would take so long that Apple would even be further ahead of the game in software than they are now. And I am quite sure they would have enough time to develop a hardware plan to.
Bah.
Originally posted by Wrong Robot
How is it that apple is the only major user of the PPC? Sure linux can run on a PPC, but apple is the only modern hardware you can get that is PPC(that I know of)
PPC has always been an Apple / IBM / Motorola partnership. Motorola supplies plenty of PPC chips for embedded markets and IBM sell a lot of top end server kit including Power and PPC chips running Linux and AIX.
You already mentioned consoles, so I think you're actually asking why Apple are the only ones making desktop computer PPC machines and the answer is because everyone else is making Wintel compatible machines.
There has been only one instance where a x86 chip has been used and that was the xbox.
You are blowing this whole thing up to a big deal. Consoles have always used risc chips for the most part. The Dreamcast used and SH4 for example. Microsoft thought it was a good idea to use off the shelf pc hardware, and it turned out into a huge piracy deal, which wasn't unexpected.
Windows was on PPC. There wasn't a market for it.