Talie's Page - Archives June 2005

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** Archives June 2005 **

Dealing With Apple on Intel

Are you unsure how to deal with the recent announcement that Apple computers will soon run on Intel Chips? Already feeling nostalgic about your PowerPC? According to The Joy of Tech, there are five stages of dealing with Intel Macs.

You can view the comic strip illustrating those stages on their website. Presently, I think I'm still in the "anger stage". I love my PowerBook G4 and was looking forward to a PowerBook G5 on a PowerPC chip. It sure won't happen now! What stage are you in?

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 16:02:57 -0400 by Talie

4 comments

by Jet 7 @ 08 Jun 2005 04:37 pm

Acceptance, I've skipped the first 4 stages. It's not like every PC will be able to run Mac OS, from what I read, it still won't be x86 compatible. Mac OS will still run on their own little box, whether it's a Power PC or an Intel ! wink

Seriously though, I still don't get it. Why aren't they making Mac OS compatible with x86 CPUs ? From what I read, it's a kick ass OS, but I just can't use it because of compatibility issues.

by Olivier @ 08 Jun 2005 05:52 pm

Hey Jet 7!

The main reason why Mac OS X won't run on a "clone PC" is because of lawsuits.

Microsoft in their EULAs doesn't permit uninstalling Windows once it is installed on a machine. This might not be exact, but they do have some rights on some machines (much more when it's from a major vendor like Dell or HP)

If you follow what happened to BeOS, you will understand why Steve Jobs won't release true x86 Mac OS X. If I recall correctly, Microsoft sued BeOS to their knees.

What's sad is that BeOS was a true multi-platform OS and a simple recompile was necessary to port between PC and Mac. But Billy doesn't like too much competition when it comes to PC.

by Olivier @ 08 Jun 2005 11:06 pm

Ohhh... and I forgot something.

I'm betting IBM is going to put much more efforts on cooling down the G5 and making faster Power processors from now on.

Capitalism states that if you have big bucks to loose, you will invest in more R&D. If that happens, maybe Apple will keep the Power architecture running, while having an option to switch to x86 if every application is built using a flat binary format.

But I guess switching to x86 is following the market trend. 98% of personnal computers are based on x86 after all... angry

by Talie @ 09 Jun 2005 12:08 am

Let's hope you're right Olivier. Unfortunatly, I think the Intel switch is going to happen. crying