[rmendis]

With the transition to Mac OS X nearly complete and the lackluster performance of the PowerPC architecture, one wonders if Apple is indeed pondering a move to Intel?

Recently Intel CEO was Steve Job's VIP guest at Macworld and Ken Case (Omni) has in a public interview remarked that Apple is moving to Intel.

Mac OS X on Intel is a no brainer.
Darwin has been ported to Intel and so the technology is ready and able.

The issues are business ones.

I would think that Apple's best bet is to purchase a company (like SGI) and release Mac OS X servers running on Intel Itanium (therefore a 64-bit OS not compatible with IA-32 and not in a direct threat to MS Windows).

However, have the apps and third party software compiled to IA-32. My guess is that with time, Itanium IA-32 performance will improve dramatically and there will be a 'convergence' between the two processor architectures.

This way Apple can gradually encourage Mac OS app developers to compile 'fat' (PowerPC, IA-32) applications and there can be a smooth transition (over 3-4 years) to Intel. Itanium will improve and Pentium may get IA-64 compatibility?

By releasing first a Mac OS X Server for Intel on its own hardware (SGI say) it would only need the support of a few high end apps.

The hardware must be attractive enough to warrant Mac OS X for Intel in the first place! Hence a high end SGI server/supercluster unlike the Xserve racks that Apple ships.

Finally, after a few years, once most developers have ported/compiled their apps fat, Apple will be in a position to ship it's own Intel based Macs if it so wished.

[Millennium]

May the day never come that Apple moves to that piece of junk architecture. Better to move to something that's not a motley collection of bolted-on hacks to a piece of junk chip that was never designed for computers in the first place, and was in fact chosen because it was so terrible.

I will not deny that the things Intel has done with that archaic, outdated architecture are little short of miraculous. But in the end, it's nothing more than a very large house of cards.

[I Bent My Wookiee]

Ya developers will LOVE the fact that all the apps they just took 2 years to port to OSX as carbon apps will have to be totally re-writen from scratch as Cocoa apps.

LOVE IT!

[MindFad]

Originally posted by Millennium:
May the day never come that Apple moves to that piece of junk architecture. Better to move to something that's not a motley collection of bolted-on hacks to a piece of junk chip that was never designed for computers in the first place, and was in fact chosen because it was so terrible.

I will not deny that the things Intel has done with that archaic, outdated architecture are little short of miraculous. But in the end, it's nothing more than a very large house of cards.

I kinda figured everyone would tear his ideas down. Care to elaborate as to why the architecture is so crappy? I'm genuinely interested in it all. I know some minor stuff about both architectures, how they work, and what not, but not a real history of it all. If you could elaborate, that'd be cool.

I also don't think a transition should be made. I think G4s are really awesome chips if you look at them more closely and understand why they don't quite perform up to current x86 Intel offerings. One of the main things being that pesky castrated bus. I'm much more excited about the power of the 970 and the throughput it will have with its bus.

Of course, whatever Apple goes with we'll buy. I've no desire to use any other OS for the things I do.

[snotnose]

i think ibm has more of a chance with the 970

[Pikeman]

Even Steve Jobs isn't stupid enough to move his systems onto that unstable of a foundation...

[wataru]

Gah! This crap just won't die!

[fireside]

RISC > CISC. its that simple. power pc = RISC.

intel = CISC. go read more about each if you want more info about 'em

[Mr. Blur]

how original...an "apple to go intel" thread......isn't that just sooooo 2002?

[scottiB]

rmendis wrote:
Recently Intel CEO was Steve Job's VIP guest at Macworld and Ken Case (Omni) has in a public interview remarked that Apple is moving to Intel.

He said no such thing. From here

Speaking with OS News yesterday, former NeXT developer Case added: "I'm sure Apple is keeping its options open, and will introduce support for another CPU architecture."

His comments fuel speculation that Apple is considering adopting processors from manufacturers other than Motorola.

The other manufacturer is IBM and its 970 chip.

[Saetre]

Ummm, he was talking about the IA64. That's a modern architecture with a solid base...like the PowerPC, only more modern with an even more solid base. Not enough to justify a switch though...

[Nimisys]

Originally posted by fireside:
RISC > CISC. its that simple. power pc = RISC.

intel = CISC. go read more about each if you want more info about 'em

may i suggest you do the same?

the g4 is more cisc than it is risc and the x86 platfrom is now more risc than it is cisc.

ALL major cpus decode ops into smaller risc ops for execution. in fact both the athlon (k7) and the P4 run cisc ops in emulation. however the g4 chip while it will not run the cisc ops it has to tear down its extened risc instruction set and decode it as well into the smaller risc chunks for processing. it has litterally taken the small simple and light risc concept and has applied more and longer instructions to it, making its execution much more cisc like.

furthermore i would suggest you go read arstechnica's excellent write up on the comparison arectecure of the G4 vs the P4 and the G4 vs the K7. you will be surprised to see just how common AND similar the K7 and the G4 are too each other.

as for the x86 platform being a bunch of hackjobs, i disagree. while it still uses the same instruction sets from before both intel and amd have done complete core redesigns, but have kept the old instructions sets along with new ones. while it makes for a bigger fatter chip, future generation chips can continue to run old software without a complete recode of it. that is something the PPC platform can not do.

[Saetre]

Originally posted by fireside:
RISC > CISC. its that simple. power pc = RISC.

intel = CISC. go read more about each if you want more info about 'em

Intel calls their architecture EPIC. There really isn't much difference between the two anymore anyways. They all stole eachothers ideas and stuff...or so I hear.

[Mac Zealot]

Originally posted by Millennium:
May the day never come that Apple moves to that piece of junk architecture. Better to move to something that's not a motley collection of bolted-on hacks to a piece of junk chip that was never designed for computers in the first place, and was in fact chosen because it was so terrible.

I will not deny that the things Intel has done with that archaic, outdated architecture are little short of miraculous. But in the end, it's nothing more than a very large house of cards.

My feelings exactly!

[rmendis]

Originally posted by fireside:
RISC > CISC. its that simple. power pc = RISC.

In reality it boils down to simple economics not philosophy.

Intel Pentium chips are cheaper + faster and have been for awhile.
Not only is there a performance gap between Wintel and Mac but there is also a (huge) price gap.

I do say that porting Mac OS X to IA64 (that is Itanium) is the most strategic route for Apple instead of IA32.

I think in a few years time there will only be two platforms left: Intel (IA32+64) and POWER. Perhaps as long as 4-5 years maybe but MIPS, PARISC and Alpha are legacy systems that will continue to be produced only as a stop gap until IA64 matures. SPARC days are numbered.

There is no reason why Apple might not choose to broaden it's market by as i say puchasing a company like SGI and releasing high end SGI-branded Mac serves and superclusters (for renderfarms, imaging, etc..) based on Mac OS X on Intel. See: http://www.sgi.com/altix

IBM PowerPC 970 will most likely make it's first appearance in a PowerMac G5 later this year, but still by then who knows how much further Intel Pentium or even the Itanium architecture will be?

[rmendis]

Originally posted by I Bent My Wookiee:
Ya developers will LOVE the fact that all the apps they just took 2 years to port to OSX as carbon apps will have to be totally re-writen from scratch as Cocoa apps.

No.

Carbon (just like Cocoa or J2SE) is a portable API.
So it will most certainly be part of a Mac OS X on Intel.
(What won't is a Classic environment).

In fact porting a classic app to Carbon is a whole lot more work (and a much greater/trickier transition) than going from one chip architecture to the next.

Apple did it once pretty successfully and smoothly (68k -> PowerPC) and NeXT has done it too (68k -> Intel, PARISC, SPARC).

So technically this isn't really as much of a do as carbonising an app. It will require more than just a recompile that is for sure, but not a great deal more. In the NEXTSTEP days developers reported taking 2-3 days to recompile their apps.

Microsoft Office for exmaple may take much longer than that but the MacBU is a large enough engineering team to acomplish that in no time...besides MS already has considerable expertise on Intel.

Also my suggestion is for bi-fat (PowerPC, Intel) binaries/apps. That is for developers to ship apps that run on both architectures.

That way Apple can transition when it makes sense to do so.

[Mac Zealot]

I really don't know why people want to see apple use x86 processors. REALLY.

Chances are, EVEN if they do, you won't be able to build your own mac nor run the OS on a pc.

*shrug*

It won't have any advantage at all, either. The processors required to have competetive systems cost about the same as powerpc processors, if not more.

You won't see a price drop, nor a performance increase.

[I Bent My Wookiee]

Most members here thing they need a 3 GHz intel to show off how good their porn looks to their friends.

[Spliffdaddy]

porn does look better with a 3GHz+ processor.

and with Pentium4's HyperThreading, you can watch TWO hardcore mpegs simultaneously - without lag or glitches.

[Mediaman_12]

The other problem with moving to Intel is the that it would be that much harder for Apple to sell Mac's at the price it does now. Mac's wont magically become cheaper just because the CPU is from a different manufacturer, and Apple would still probably design it's own motherboards, cases etc. so there would be no 'legal*' way to run OSX on 'off the shelf' X86 parts, still no way for you to home build a mac.
What would happen is the difference between (expensive) Apple Computers and the cheaper Wintell 'commodity market (Dell's Etc) would become more clouded in the consumers mind. Making The choice between the 2 more difficult.
Remember Apple is a Software company that uses Hardware to subsidise the R&D.

[rmendis]

Originally posted by Mediaman_12:
The other problem with moving to Intel is the that it would be that much harder for Apple to sell Mac's at the price it does now. Mac's wont magically become cheaper just because the CPU is from a different manufacturer, and Apple would still probably design it's own motherboards, cases etc.

That is right.

However, subsidiary or supporting chipsets etc for x86 is a whole lot cheaper. Besides AMD also produce inexpensive but powerful/fast x86 chips...using HyperTransport as well i may add :-)

By standardising on commodity processors and components Apple should be in a position to bring down the costs further. But no, i don't think that Apple would allow/fascilitate Mac OS X for Intel to run on other computers (by use of custom firmware for example).

And secondly the 'transition' will be just as much business as it will be technological.
Hence the suggestion to first limit Intel Mac OS X machines to high end servers...then gradually introduce them to the desktop then possibly the entire line of machines.

In that timeframe, Apple should have reduced it's dependency on PC hardware. Already Apple produces a substantial number of software packages: iLife, WebObjects, FinalCut, Shake, .Mac iTools (iChat, Mail, AddressBook, iCal). Not to mention a broader hardware product line that includes iPod, Xserve and Xserve RAID.

Apple will sooner or later have to play catch up with the rest of the PC industry in terms of price as well as performance - especially if it is to keep the Mac platform alive.

[clebin]

What the Mac needs is stability. In 1995 they changed the processor, in 2000 they changed the OS... I'm not sure the Mac is strong enough to withstand another change.

We all had to buy new software that works with OS X, and in order to make that software run faster on our next Mac upgrade we'd have to buy it all over again for Intel. That would be absurd - it's already destroyed the supposed longevity of Apple machines...

Chris

[scottiB]

Chris, while I, on a purely selfish level, would love Apple to purchase SGI (my employer's hardware and A|W support checks would go to Steve), I don't see it happening.

Bring up this topic again one year from now, and see how Mac performance is.

[GoGoReggieXPowars]

It's the topic that won't die!

[typoon]

Originally posted by wataru:
Gah! This crap just won't die!

I'm with you on this one. I think there must be a million and one posts about this already in these forums.

[Superchicken]

It's funny how everyone thinks apple makes macs just for them and their particular needs. It ain't gona happen people the 970 will make comparable profformance a reality and 3Ghz P4 systems arn't exactly cheap either so what the heck is your problem. To buy a Mac with a PPC 970 once they're out will probably be comparable to buying a Dell with a P4 whatever the top of the line is, and their speed should be comparable. Of course you'll be paying maybe a hundred or two hundred more for the Mac... why? Cuase you will have an OS that doesn't suck.

Yeesh get over it already.

[daimoni]

.

[rmendis]

Originally posted by scottiB:
Chris, while I, on a purely selfish level, would love Apple to purchase SGI (my employer's hardware and A|W support checks would go to Steve), I don't see it happening.

Well, i'd say the time is getting close.

That is by mid year (around release of AMD Athlon 64, next rev to Itanium2 and Pentium4/Xeon and the PowerPC 970) it would be an excellent time for Apple to pick up SGI.

SGI is only a measely $250 million (1/20 of Apple marcket cap.) and once Apple is back in black, it should make an excellent purchase.
In particular to produce and market high end SGI branded Mac OS X servers and superclusters for use as renderfarms/visualization systems for Shake, RenderMan, etc...the next step from Apple's own Xserve boxes.

What chip architecture SGI/Apple would choose is not clear yet, though my guess is that IA-64 would be a safe bet?

[vmpaul]

Originally posted by rmendis:
In reality it boils down to simple economics not philosophy.

Intel Pentium chips are cheaper + faster and have been for awhile.
Not only is there a performance gap between Wintel and Mac but there is also a (huge) price gap.

Yeah, but how much of that is related to the processor chip price? Are they that much apart in cost?

I think the difference is do to Apple's profit margin not cost of one chip.

So far, Apple is unwilling to lose the great margin they have on their hardware. Not to deride them, a company should try to get whatever the market will bear, but isn't that the big stumbling block here?

[Eug]

Originally posted by vmpaul:
Yeah, but how much of that is related to the processor chip price? Are they that much apart in cost?

I think the difference is do to Apple's profit margin not cost of one chip.

So far, Apple is unwilling to lose the great margin they have on their hardware. Not to deride them, a company should try to get whatever the market will bear, but isn't that the big stumbling block here?

Having to put dual PPCs in every mid to high-end PowerMac certainly can't help the pricing structure. That adds a couple of hundred right there.

[capuchin]

Originally posted by Mr. Blur:
how original...an "apple to go intel" thread......isn't that just sooooo 2002?

This one's been doing the rounds for longer than that. Remember the Star Trek project?

I got $20 says Apple won't go to Intel this year. Who wants some of this sweet action?

[wdlove]

I hope that Apple doesn't go to the dark side of Intel, much prefer IBM!

Even if Carbon is just an API, it's not just a simple recompile.

Has everyone forgotten about endianness? Inetl is big-endian, Moto/IBM is little-endian.

There's a lot of stuff optimized for that in Carbon APIs and in the third-party developer's code. It'll be more than just Apple porting Carbon to Intel and having third parties recompile.

That's just the technical aspect. The economics simply aren't there. As soon as Apple releases an Intel box (which will be more expensive than competitors) Connectix will release a kick-ass VirtualPC. So kick-ass that many third parties will see little reason to produce a Mac version of their apps because the user base isn't there and the Mac users will be content with VPC.

So in the end, you would end up with MacOS X running VirtualPC running all of your software. So what's the point of even running MacOS X in that case?

[Mac Zealot]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
porn does look better with a 3GHz+ processor.

and with Pentium4's HyperThreading, you can watch TWO hardcore mpegs simultaneously - without lag or glitches.

And with the G4's altivec engine I can watch FOUR hardcore mpegs simultaneously - without lag or glitches.

Oh yeah, and with a cinema display you can see it up close too

[Mr. Blur]

Originally posted by capuchin:
This one's been doing the rounds for longer than that. Remember the Star Trek project?

that's true too....but it was just last year that we seemed to get a new thread about it just about every day.

[rmendis]

Originally posted by hayesk:
As soon as Apple releases an Intel box (which will be more expensive than competitors) Connectix will release a kick-ass VirtualPC. So kick-ass that many third parties will see little reason to produce a Mac version of their apps because the user base isn't there and the Mac users will be content with VPC.

How come developers are porting apps to Linux on Intel?

The argument is exactly the same.
Also i should imagine that if Apple were to port Mac OS X to Intel it would be for a specific market.

High end servers and superclusters for example would only require a small handful of software packages...then with time more developers will update their software to be bi-fat (Intel, PowerPC) binaries. At that point Apple will be able to make a choice.

So to begin with a Mac OS X/Intel platform should be isolated...even sold on non-Apple hardware. Hence the suggestion for Apple to purchase say SGI to produce SGI branded Mac OS X boxes...that means it won't compete directly with Apple's own and Apple would still only sell PowerPC machines (at least until many developers support both architectures)

Btw, the NEXTSTEP guys had to face this endian-ness problem many years back and really it is not such a huge technical stumbling block.

Also what you said is an argument for compiling onto IA64...i reckon that with time Intel Pentium will also migrate to IA-64 (leaving Itanium as a server oriented version of the IA64 architecure). By that time, Apple's Mac OS X developers would have supported Mac OS X on Intel/IA64 and so Apple would be able to make that transition if it so wished.

[Mac Zealot]

But that's why NeXT almost went down the toilet.

edit: The censor didn't catch that. Oops.

[iNub]

Let's ignore the fact that a G4 only takes a fraction as much power to operate at full speed as a P4 or Athlon. Let alone the Itanic line. We'll also ignore the primary reason for using the G4, Altivec.

Performance of a platform is often a different number than the speed of said platform. A business really *could* buy about twice as many cookie cutter Intel boxes as Macs. But they'd also be forced to hire about 10 times as much support staff.

Besides, why would we want to move to Intel? Even they are admitting that the P4 line is ineficcent. 100 watts from a chip the size of a quarter? Yeesh. Hibachi's got nothin on them...

Athlons aren't much better, I have a video where P4 without a heatsink would continue to run, but an Athlon literally started smoking.

(Oh, and Chimera's crappy text input is really infuriating. Just thought I'd stick that in. It's still on "just" right now.)

[anarkisst]

A picture says a thousand words...



THIS will NEVER happen.

IF it does, it will be the END of Apple.

Nuff F@ckin' Said.

[Nimisys]

Originally posted by iNub:
Let's ignore the fact that a G4 only takes a fraction as much power to operate at full speed as a P4 or Athlon. Let alone the Itanic line. We'll also ignore the primary reason for using the G4, Altivec.

Performance of a platform is often a different number than the speed of said platform. A business really *could* buy about twice as many cookie cutter Intel boxes as Macs. But they'd also be forced to hire about 10 times as much support staff.

Besides, why would we want to move to Intel? Even they are admitting that the P4 line is ineficcent. 100 watts from a chip the size of a quarter? Yeesh. Hibachi's got nothin on them...

Athlons aren't much better, I have a video where P4 without a heatsink would continue to run, but an Athlon literally started smoking.

(Oh, and Chimera's crappy text input is really infuriating. Just thought I'd stick that in. It's still on "just" right now.)

don't kid yourslef... the g4's put out and consume considerable wattage themsleves, look at the heatsink size and the extra fans apple is using now. that and the P4 were 77watt chips. as for the size of a quarter thing, you'll get it as well once you guys finally see .13micron

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by Nimisys:
don't kid yourslef... the g4's put out and consume considerable wattage themsleves, look at the heatsink size and the extra fans apple is using now. that and the P4 were 77watt chips. as for the size of a quarter thing, you'll get it as well once you guys finally see .13micron

According to Motorola (Page 15), the MPC7455 (G4) at 1GHz averages 15 watts.

Pentium 4s have fans ON the processor or they're encased in a thermo-insulating box. Apple is avoiding CPU fans and relying more on circulation. That's why Apple is only using heatsinks and larger case fans to move the hot air out.

Don't let the heatsink size and extra fans kid yourself, the G4 draws 5 times less power than a Pentium 4.

[rmendis]

Originally posted by Mac Zealot:
But that's why NeXT almost went down the toilet.

The NeXT 'experiment' was a very important lesson.

That mistake will not be repeated.
Certainly not by Steve Jobs anyway :-)

No. I am certain Apple will never licence Mac OS X (on Intel or any other platform) to anybody. So no Mac OS X on a Gateway or Dell machine ever :-)

However, this does not mean that Apple will rule out the possiblity of supporting another chip architecture or even migrating to one if the need arises.

What is not out of the question is Apple producing their own Mac OS X on Intel in a specific market that (ideally) it isn't already in.

Hence the suggestion to buy say SGI and release SGI branded Mac OS X high end servers and superclusters - a market Apple is not in and probably should not persue and a new/emerging market at that - for Mac OS X servers that is. See SGI's single-image Linux Itanium servers: http://www.sgi.com/altix which are very different from Apple's Xserve boxes.

If successful, SGI/Apple could release SGI branded Mac OS X for Intel workstations as well. This would encourage more developers to support the dual-architecture Mac OS X.

Once those platforms/machines/market is established (that is many developers support it by shipping bi-fat apps) Apple will be in a position to choose between IA64 (be it a Pentium derivative by then) or PowerPC for it *own* hardware.

[Mac Zealot]

rm, you, and many other people make me laugh.

Tell me apple has a good build of OS X ready for PC AFTER you've installed and messed with darwin_x86 on a pc.

IF you can find a PC it'll work on.

Believe me, I'd be amazed if they even had a 10.0.0-like build of X for PC

[MindFad]

I thought it was already know -- and not just rumor -- that Apple had an internal build of OS X for x86. And not just Darwin, or what have you, but actual OS X? Ciph will come in here and agree, if he hasn't already.

[rmendis]

Originally posted by wdlove:
I hope that Apple doesn't go to the dark side of Intel, much prefer IBM!

As an ASIDE:

I have to say that popular american ideas on 'good' and 'evil' make me laugh.

I mean Sept 11 was 'evil'.
Terrorism is 'evil'.
Hitler, Sadam, Bin Laden are 'evil'.
I'd say racism, homophobia and chauvanism is 'evil'.
Perhaps even corruption, bigotry and treachery are 'evil'...

Microsoft and Intel?
Windows and x86?
Evil empires? Dark sides?

:-)

Originally posted by rmendis:
How come developers are porting apps to Linux on Intel?

Uhm... they're not. Well, a few are, but for the most part, Linux apps began as Linux or other UNIX apps. Very few mainstream commercial apps make it to Linux.

High end servers and superclusters for example would only require a small handful of software packages...then with time more developers will update their software to be bi-fat (Intel, PowerPC) binaries. At that point Apple will be able to make a choice.

I agree there. Apple could port MacOS X Server to Intel, but they would have to raise their price and take out Carbon. Right now, hardware is still funding software development.

Btw, the NEXTSTEP guys had to face this endian-ness problem many years back and really it is not such a huge technical stumbling block.

Because OpenStep developers stuck to the APIs. If you do that, you're fine. There's a lot of hand-optimized Mac code out there. Stuff that is tied to endianness. Even in the Carbon APIs there are structs that have specific information in specific locations within the words.

It wouldn't be easy and would require Apple's developers to go back and redo a lot of code. They've pushed for that quite a few times over the years - pretty soon the developers are just going to give up.

[rmendis]

Originally posted by hayesk:
Apple could port MacOS X Server to Intel, but they would have to raise their price and take out Carbon.

Mac OS X for Intel would be dead in the water without Carbon.

And if Apple releases it on it's own hardware (SGI or another branded) the cost would be part of the system/hardware. I don't think Apple should licence the software to anyone...that won't work i don't imagine.

Also there is no need to coax developers to port apps. Well, not in the same way it was essential to Carbonize apps.

Mac OS X (Server) for Intel would be a new market...in this case i guess high end servers (a market i don't think Apple would ever get into or should. In fact Apple has not long ago claimed that it would 'never' produce servers).

Hence only developers who have an economic incentive to port to the server would do so. PIXAR RenderMan, Apple Shake, WebObjects spring to mind.

[olePigeon]

Just so you know, the majority of RISC processor (inluding the PowerPC) can understand both little and big endien.

[rmendis]

Originally posted by olePigeon:
Just so you know, the majority of RISC processor (inluding the PowerPC) can understand both little and big endien.

Do you know if IA-64 supports both as well?

One interesting thing to note is that Intel's IA-64 architecture (EPIC or VLIW as most people know it) is very similar to Transmeta Crusoe.

In fact , the main difference appears to be the way legacy instruction sets are supported. Intel uses hardware (simply by sticking in a pentium core onto the Itanium chip as well as one for PA-RISC...stupid?) while Transmeta uses software "code morphing" which means smaller, cooler, cheaper chips.

See: http://www.fool.com/portfolios/rulem...aker000225.htm

I wonder if in the future Intel Itaniums will employ this superior method to achieve IA32 and PA-RISC compatibility?

One reason Intel may have done what it did was to focus resources on getting an implementation of IA64 out the door which seems fair enough.

Another reason may be business: to not steal the Pentium's thunder on the desktop....Intel planned Itanium to conquor the enterprise/server market....MIPS, SPARC, Power, Alpha were it's competitors.

If the Transmeta Crusoe is anything to go by, i suspect IA-64 evolving into a very compelling architecture.

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by rmendis:
Do you know if IA-64 supports both as well?

No, it's still little endien only. Apparently this was quite a problem since the only 64-bit versions of Linux were using big endien byte order. There was a discussion on making a kernel compile on an Itanium.