Steve jobs hints at a switch to x86

By Dazzla
in Apple (macOS)

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Grand Master

Dazzla Veteran

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This could be a hint, or it could be a scare tactic for Motorola to get their thumbs out of their asses:

Some analysts have also urged Apple to move to microchips from Intel Corp. INTC.O from those made by Motorola Inc. MOT.N and International Business Machines Corp. IBM.N to cut costs.

Asked about that possibility, Jobs said that first the company had to finish the transition to the OS X operating system, expected around the end of this year.

"Then we'll have options, and we like to have options," he said.

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Guest deadzombie

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Even if Apple did switch to another chip manufacturer, it wouldn't insure a transition to an X86 line of chips. Almost every major chipmaker has different chip departments for different chip types. Intel is known for it's Pentium line up, but makes more than X86 chips.

Grand Master

Dazzla Veteran

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Plus, a vast majority of applications won't run. Photoshop 7 for example.

Only cocoa apps will be able to be easily converted, Photoshop 7 and the majority or major apps are Carbon.

This is done to scare Motorola, there are plenty of other Chip manafacturers out there that can supply custom desktop chips to Apple.

IBM's Power 4 chip is a possibilty and it's a beast.

Guest deadzombie

Posted
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Originally posted by Dazzla

Plus, a vast majority of applications won't run. Photoshop 7 for example.

Only cocoa apps will be able to be easily converted, Photoshop 7 and the majority or major apps are Carbon.

This is done to scare Motorola, there are plenty of other Chip manafacturers out there that can supply custom desktop chips to Apple.

IBM's Power 4 chip is a possibilty and it's a beast.

I'd sell every PC I own and jump on Apple if they switched to the Power4 chip...those things are awesome!

For those that don't know, it's a powerPC based chip with even shorter pipes, insane clock speeds, better floating point and beats the living crap out of almost any other chip available...The Power4 is to G4 as Pentium4 is to Pentium2.

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cerbero

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I'm sure chaning from Motorola to Intel does not mean a change to x86. Intel's manufacturing the G3 chips right now for Apple from what I understand... And the license for the PowerPC CPU architecture is owned by Apple, Motorola and Intel together.. Correct me if I'm wrong though. I just read an article a couple of days ago about this, can't remember where though..

Grand Master

Wickedkitten Veteran

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lmao you PC people are hilarious. Just because Intel is making the chips that doesn't mean they are going to be x86. They can just drum up a deal so they give Intel the technology to make powerpc chips. lol you poor people getting your collective knickers all in a twist.

Grand Master

Dazzla Veteran

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Originally posted by cerbero

I'm sure chaning from Motorola to Intel does not mean a change to x86. Intel's manufacturing the G3 chips right now for Apple from what I understand... And the license for the PowerPC CPU architecture is owned by Apple, Motorola and Intel together.. Correct me if I'm wrong though. I just read an article a couple of days ago about this, can't remember where though..

The G3 is produced by IBM and Motorola. IBM far exceeds Motorola in this, it's capable of scaling it's version of the G3 to 1.5GHz. Their top end G3 will outperform the high end G4 from Motorola.

The G4 though has Altivec, this is owned by Motorola and if Apple wanted IBM to produce G4 chips (which would be a good thing) they would have to buy the rights from Motorola.

Here's some specs:

IBM G3

Motorola's limited G4

The fabled G5

This looks pretty appealing

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cerbero

Posted
Posted
Originally posted by Dazzla

The G3 is produced by IBM and Motorola. IBM far exceeds Motorola in this, it's capable of scaling it's version of the G3 to 1.5GHz. Their top end G3 will outperform the high end G4 from Motorola.

The G4 though has Altivec, this is owned by Motorola and if Apple wanted IBM to produce G4 chips (which would be a good thing) they would have to buy the rights from Motorola.

Here's some specs:

IBM G3

Motorola's limited G4

The fabled G5

This looks pretty appealing

Ah yes. I confused IBM with Intel.. Sorry about that :)
Grand Master

Dazzla Veteran

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Originally posted by johnqpublic

just as with the mmx extensions, altivec doesn't offer as significant of an advantage when there's about 500mhz more of raw processing power ... let's give it up IBM!

Agreed, Motorola can only ship 1GHz G4's atm but IBM can ship G3's at 1.5 GHz.

Apple doesn't mean **** to Motorola.

Grand Master

DrunkenMaster

Posted
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Yeah, it would be nice to have OSX on Intel but thats only because we, presumably, wouldn't have to buy new hardware. There is no way I can see Mac making only the OS as a source of revenue. Can't make enough money on it. They are really a hardware company in the end. The only reason I think MS was able to pull off what it did is the enrollment of large companies upgrading Office, OS desktop and server and other major apps every year or so.

I think Apple is trying to consider AMD as the next runner up. I don't know if AMD would make a complete switch to MAC or still make PC hardware. Of course, the system has to remain proprietary to some degree which isn't bad as long as the hardware is good. I'm always annoyed at the low-quality crap hardware you see on the PC.

Lets make this interesting though. What if Apple went with SPARC (which SUN uses), Alpha or MIPS (which SGI uses) based processors instead? All are completely different architectures than X86 and have had a lot of money dumped into research for them and all are proven performers. While SUN and SGI don't manufacture their own chips, my argument is that there are other fab plants in the world other than AMD, Intel and Motorola and other processor technologies.

Dazzla, consider that while Motorola isn't really desparate for money right now (they sell a lot of Communications and semiconductors), I recall reading sevarl months they really screwed up on some major contracts for the US military (I think they were for satellites). While Apples' business may not be a huge chunk, they might want to reconsider since they probably are going to lose some businness from the military.

Experienced

Cowpie

Posted
Posted

Well if Jobs wanted to take MS head on, he would get together and do a few things:

1. Make Mac OS run on x86(and make it so current cpus could handle it)

2. Write drivers for the majority of hardware out there, that doesnt of course, have drivers for mac already there.

3. Make a nifty utility that allows u to transfer ur docs and saved pics and **** from Windows to ur nifty new Mac Os-PC.

Just my thoughts....Heck, I would repartition some space for mac os on Pc

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