[Wolves] Apple moving to Intel?

[Jon Masters]

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chris procter wrote:

<cut bit about embedded processors, etc.>

> making them slooow :-) 

Nope. By designing an architecture which lends itself towards great
pipelining and ripping through instructions via many logic units.

> MHz aren't everything of course, but lets face it
> neither IBM or Freescale really gave a damn about the
> desktop, really nice processors, but all the wrong
> compromises for what Apple Marketing needed to compete
> with Wintel.

Apple are increasingly all about great laptops. Yes, they sell desktop
systems but even there - it's not all about the MHz since the average
computer is massively more powerful than necessary already.

> Its too early to tell but Apple give Intel a
> manufacture that isn't tied to legacy designs (except
> the x86 ISA) so they may care more then it seems.

/maybe/

> I do think an Intel/Apple merger/buyout is interesting,

I think Intel will be considering it. I also expect to see wine support
on Mac OS X using Cedega and probably Crossover too.

> Apple get to beat MS and could even keep their iPod
> business and go their own merry way into consumer
> electronics.

Intel can supply the parts for the iPod too - they don't need
PortalPlayer to do it any more.

> it will be as far from whitebox trash
> that it is possible to be while using x86, the boxes
> will be brushed metal or something. 

It'll still be whitebox trash, akin to the "News Of the World" compared
to what they used to make. I just noticed they dropped OF too :-(

>>I hope they keep OpenFirmware

> No. "Macintosh computers using Intel microprocessors
> do not use Open Firmware"
> http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/universal_binary/

Indeed. That /sucks/. They're idiots for doing that but then, the last
senior tech I spoke to about this kind of stuff didn't know his PDR from
a BAT register so I'm not surprised they seem keen to drop using a
superior architecture for something inferior and crap :-)

>>>I cant really explain why the ppc is so important

>>I can. I like writing code on ppc.

> I've never written ppc assembler, done a bit of x86
> stuff though. Still undergoing therapy.

PowerPC gets right:

	* Memory Management. Very easy. Very extensible even allowing for funky
designs with entirely soft TLBs. x86 gets this wrong.

	* Atomic intructions. PowerPC has reservations and handles out of order
memory access ordering properly. x86 is a bodge.

etc. etc. x86 is and always has been a giant bodge and Apple just
contributed to the delinquency of modern Compsci asm classes :-)

> Oh well, rumours of a Cell workstation, 
> http://genesi.pegasosppc.com, and the hope for a
> better future will just have to sustain us untill the
> world comes to its senses.

Rumour is that Linux already runs on that.

Jon.
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