Moving to Intel by 2007 is true

[Graeme Nattress]

Actually, it’s utterly irrelevent. Processors are currently more than fast enough for most uses. Assembly language is not used any more for anything, and I’m speaking as someone who used to hand code Z80 and 68000 assembly. Abstraction is the current state of programming, not hitting the hardware. Properly abstracted code is hardware agnostic.

If code is vectorisable, then it’s not to bad to convert between vector processors. But if you use the abstractions that Apple already have in place, then no work is needed at all, really.

At least, that’s my take on it. Have a read of the Apple pdf on converting over and see what you think. Remember GCC produces better intel code than it does ppc code.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP

[Kelly]

They are all pretty old units, but occassionally there is the odd G5 at:

usedmac.ca

Also Vistek has a demo and used Mac section

TV is called a medium, because it is neither rare, nor well done (He..he…)

[Kelly]

I’ve posted this other places, and only some of it applies, but I like the Cow and want to give my 2 cents.

The time to do this is now. Hardware sales will inevitably take a dip in the year ahead, but NOW Apple is insulated by having 6.5 billion dollars in the bank. And NOW, Apple is no longer solely a computer company. It has a second revenue stream with the iPod to hold them over. Plus it’s starting to make real money from iTMS sales as well. Apple folks are loyal (some would say to a fault). How successful do you think Microsoft would be if Longhorn wasn’t backwards compatible with XP? If they said, “Man were having all sorts of security problems, let’s just chuck our codebase and start from scratch with Longhorn”. They could never do that. But that’s what Apple did with OS X. And it worked because 1) they had OS 9 emulation and 2) because Apple folks are loyal. Microsoft folks are not that loyal. The hard transition for Apple has already taken place.

The computer is the operating system and software, not the CPU. I bought an iBook (500Mhz G3) when 10.1 came out. If it had been a choice between XP or OS 9, I would have gone Wintel. I chose Apple because it has the best Operating System, I couldn’t care less what CPU that OS is running on.

And on the topic of hardware sales, don’t worry about buying a G5 now. If you buy a new PowerMac tomorrow, it’s going to be supported until it’s not a viable computer anyway. Re-read that last sentence: by the time the next “killer app” comes out and you need new hardware to run it, you will have had to buy a new computer and programs anyway. If that’s 2 years from now, you’re still supported. If it’s 5 years from now, give your head a shake. Did you really think you were going to be wirelessly streaming 4D 16 Megapixel HD holography on your 5 year old machine? So you buy the new G86 Apple laptop (that runs for 8 hours on a charge) and keep your old G4 Mac mini for web-surfing (aaah the web. An OS that runs on any CPU. What a concept!). Most of the people on this forum can’t wait to buy a software upgrade anyways, to get the new cool features.

And once you have universal binaries up and running, who’s to say that you HAVE to discontinue PPC development. If IBM gets it’s “stuff” together, or has some incredible PPC breakthrough, Apple is ideally situated to move back or keep both.

That probably won’t happen though for the following reason (but it’s always nice to have a fall-back position). If you’re a new computer buyer in 2007, here’s two scenarios for you. SCENARIO #1: you buy an Apple/Intel. You get a well designed box, it’s got the most modern 64 bit OS out there (Leopard), it’s immune to viruses, and given that Apple designs some custom chips (they currently have have a much higher front side bus than any PC machine for instance) it may even be the fastest Intel machine you can buy. And then for another $200 dollars you can add Windows to that machine and dual-boot. SCENARIO #2: for about the same money you buy a Dell. Fairly shoddy, might have Longhorn but even if it does, backwards XP compatibility will probably mean it still has virus problems, may not be as fast as the Apple/Intel with custom hardware, and can’t dual-boot. Which are you going to buy? No contest.

And regarding the Cell, it was never envisioned as a main CPU anyway as I understand it. Perhaps Apple could use it as a sub-proccessor to do h.264 decoding?

To sum up: 2 year transition. Think about it. That’s only the timeframe back to Jaguar. That seems like Yesterday!! And in the mean time, no real downside other than somewhat slow machines compared to the competition. And we were going to have to live with those slow machines going forward if NONE OF THIS HAD HAPPENED!

TV is called a medium, because it is neither rare, nor well done (He..he…)

[Annaël Beauchemin]

[Graeme Nattress] “However, Apple can’t just stop at moving to Intel processors – we need PCI Express, better graphics cards with better GPUs etc. etc.
“

We’ll see PCI-E for sure, but i’m not sure about better graphics card except the usual consumer Nvidia or ATI cards. I remember having read a fxguide.com article where it was said they considered the OS X platform when they switched from SGI, but after some discussion with Apple they considered the platform not viable for one reason. Because of what? Because Apple *refused* to make room for higher end, professionnal video cards like Nividia Quadros or 3D labs wildcats.

to quote…: “It apears that there are two technical limitations that limit discreet’s use of an Apple solution, the first is the number of expansion slots and the second is Apple’s decisions on graphics cards. Discreet generally requires driver support for the highest-end graphics cards such as the NVIDIA 3000G and 4000SDI

[Joslyn]

well, i took the plunge and just purchased a dually 2ghz G5(pci-x, 8 gig max ram) for $1699 shipping and tax free…=) couple that w/ 3 years applecare…can’t wait to load this baby w/ 8gigs of crucial ram, an ati x800, and a seagate or ibm 400 GB sata drive!

just a few more left if anyone’s interested…

https://www.macconnection.com/ProductDetail?Sku=5243263

[Mitchji]

Hi Graeme,

I agree that the chip architecture is not that big a deal, I just thought I would point it out.

I think Apple wouldn’t have done this unless they are pretty sure that in the future that they are going to be able to get more powerful and/or cheaper chips from Intel. In the long run this will be good for Mac users. In the short term there will probably be some bumps in the road for power users.

Best Wishes,

Mitch

[Mitchji]

[Nick Westbridge] “I’m not even sure whereabouts to look for refurbished machines in my area. I live up in Vancouver (in Canada). The apple.ca store doesn’t sell refurbs, and I haven’t been able to find a local store with a good deal. Any suggestions at all? :)”

Hi Nick,

Barefeats has a list of the most desireable models here:
https://www.barefeats.com/quick.html

You might want to consider the Macconnection deal posted by Jaser below. One thing to be aware of is with Apple refurbs there is a 12 month waranty. With third party refurbs the 12 month’s starts the first time the system was sold (if it was sold and returned) so you would probably have a little less waranty coverage.

Amazon has a $150 rebate good on some Dual G5’s that expires tomorrow.

Expercom, Smalldog and Powermac sell Apple refurb’s but Powermac Apple refurbs are rare from sources other than Apple.

Apple stores sometimes sell demo models (fully waranty). Sometimes the prices are better than Apple online refurb prices and sometimes they are worse. You can call all the stores within driving distance.
Several places to check:
https://dealmac.com/categories/44.html

https://www.macprices.com/powermactracker.shtml

https://www.zones.com/cgi-bin/zones/site/list/?id=-17845

https://www.macmall.com/macmall/promotions/custom4.asp?p=blowout_deals&AID=5837831&PID=691165

https://www.clubmac.com/clubmac/promo/custom.asp?s=blowoutdeals&i=1

Best Wishes,

Mitch

[Mitchji]

Hi,

https://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20050606145053232

excerpt:
The move to Intel will inevitably be a major headache. To know that this is true, all you have to do is look at any recent MacFixIt home page. It is filled with reports of problems related to the release of Mac OS X 10.4.1, a minor upgrade to Tiger. True, most of the reported problems are not serious and many do not affect all users. But this is just for a minor bug-fix update after all. A move to Intel processors is an exponentially larger change. Similarly, the move from 680×0 processors to PowerPCs was successful, but the road got very bumpy at times. The move to Intel is an even greater leap; I expect the road to be even bumpier.

Best Wishes,

Mitch

[Graeme Nattress]

I keep hearing that Apple won’t do the drivers, and that the card manufacturer won’t do the drivers. I don’t know which is true though….

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP

[Graeme Nattress]

I personally think an architecture change, in this case, is less of a bother than a change in OS. The major problem with bugs is changes in the API. In this case, the API remains the same.

Graeme

– http://www.nattress.com – Film Effects for FCP