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Thread: Apple nearly stuck with PowerPC

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    HEXUS webmaster Steve's Avatar
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    Apple nearly stuck with PowerPC

    It won't be much of a surprise to hear that Apple wasn't always going to switch to Intel. In fact, they had one option that none of us knew about. According to Reg Hardware, a relatively new company called PA Semi, containing a number of what you might call 'industry boffins', had a low-power PowerPC processor in the works for Apple. However, much to the surprise of PA Semi, who had their sights set on the deal with Apple, Intel were chosen instead.
    The two companies [Apple/PA Semi] shared software engineering work, trying to see how Apple's applications could be ported onto PA Semi's silicon. When word leaked out that Apple had signed on with Intel, it shocked the PA Semi staff, according to multiple sources.
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    awm
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    The switch was definitly unexpected but this even wierder. Personally I'm glad they did because of dual-booting. I know quite a few people who purchased MacBooks because of that.

    One question. You (Steve) mentioned porting software in your quote. Does that mean apple would have needed an emulator and seprate versions/universal binaries?

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    Senior Member UltraMagnus's Avatar
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    to be honest, PPC processors were what made apples good, especially the laptops.....

    the route they are taking now means that apples are now just normal pcs with a special OSX chip, hell, you can already run OSX on a far cheaper PC......

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    Wow

    Ultramangus, you really couldn't be more wrong. PPC chips weren't bad, really, but Motorola's ham-handed development meant that apple was constantly behind in various aspects of hardware. The last PPC-based laptop, in fact, was using a 160 Mhz memory bus. When everyone else's laptops are sporting at least 333mhz buses, that's NOT good. The g5 was a step in the right direction, but again, the processors did not scale to the speeds that were expected (remember steve's '3ghz by next summer' promise at the g5 intro? didn't happen, did it?) and they never were able to make a g5 that would work in a laptop.
    Now, about the ramifications of using Intel chips in current macs. Yes, OS X can (illegally) be installed on commodity PC hardware. The driver support is basically zilch, though, and will never actually get beyond zilch, so it's extremely misleading to imply that the experience of using OS X on unsupported PC hardware is equivalent to using an intel mac. Also, if you compare the laptops that apple's selling with the core duo's in them, the price difference is not very great at all to a comparable spec pc laptop. There is a price difference, yes, but it's not that great. A MacBook for $1099 is a pretty good deal. And you're getting the one computer on the planet that officially supports all three major OSes. Plus, if you've been paying attention, you've probably noticed that the MacBook Pro has already gotten 3 speed bumps since it's introduction, which is unprecedented in mac hardware history. This is entirely due to the switch to Intel chips.
    PPC's weren't what made mac's good, they were just want made mac hardware weird.
    Last edited by elvisizer; 26-05-2006 at 02:20 AM.

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    awm
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    PPC definitly had its advantages. But with Core coming and other nice improvements any lead that it may have had is getting lost the the cheeper standard PPC market. From the end userss perspective it shouldn't make any difference what processor you choose just so they behave similarly.

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