Apple using Intel processors

[Benjamin Gawert]

Yousuf Khan wrote:
^

Apple suffers from the exact same curse and blessing that Microsoft
suffers from -- it has locked its users into a proprietary operating
system, and the applications are therefore also proprietary. It's a
blessing because it allows it to charge huge amounts to its userbase.
It's a curse because you're stuck on one platform forever.

And this is in what respect different to every other platform? No matter
if Mac, Win or anything else, if You want to run applications for a
certain platform You're stuck with it (except if You want to use
emulators of course)...

In theory, OS X is portable, in reality it is not.

No? MacOS X is based on FreeBSD. Isn't FreeBSD portable? And You
obviously miss that the MacOS X Base "Darvin" (which is MacOS X except
the Aqua desktop) runs on x86 for over five years now. Everytime a new
MacOS X version comes out there also is a new Darvin - for PPC and
x86...

Similarly, Windows
NT and its offspring are also theoretically portable. Windows was
ported to everything from Alpha to Itanium, but in the end the only
architecture that it's going to evolve with is x86-64.

But this is purely a market decision, not a technical reason....

OS X can
similarly be ported to many architectures, but in the end it's only
the PowerPC that's going to matter to it. The reason being that
nobody bothers to port to the other architectures. Just having a
ballfield there doesn't mean that players will come.

You want to have a look here:
http://developer.apple.com/darwin/

This is MacOS X except the code Apple can't and/or doesn't want to make
Open Source...

Solaris is finding a similar situation. It's finding that it's
installed base of Solaris for Sparc aren't all that interested in
Solaris on x86.

Certainly not. SPARC sales are dropping like hell. Sun invests more and
more of its ressources in Opteron-based systems, and these machines run
(You guess it) Solaris x86... ;-)

Solaris x86 once really was just a niche for Sun but today it is as
important as Solaris SPARC - probably even more. And traditional Sun
customers are happy that they can use x86-64 hardware which is a)
cheaper b) more powerful than even the fastest UltraSPARC and c) doesn't
need to be from Sun or the few OEMs like Axil...

Benjamin

 

[Tony Hill]

AFAIK OS-X is open source, although the graphical manager isn't. It's

Perhaps just semantics here, but OS-X is NOT open source at all.
Darwin is an open source OS licensed under the BSD license. OS-X is a
closed source OS that is built on top of Darwin. The GUI is the most
obvious difference between Darwin and OS-X, but it's not the only one.

FWIW though, Darwin HAS been ported to x86 and somewhat actively
maintained.

based on BSD, and I think it was ported to Sparc as a proof of concept
(by two students on a one week break if I recall). And you can run (at
least) freeBSD and Linux on Mac, although I've only seen it on a laptop.

Darwin probably has been ported to a few different architectures,
though PowerPC and x86 are the only two that are actively maintained.

To the best of my knowledge, OS-X has never been ported to any
architecture other than PowerPC.

If you buy hardware to be compatible it's okay, although the install was
painful last time I saw it. But Sun hardware has come down in price, why
bother?

Thought: Sun went to SPARC because they couldn't get Motorola to push
the 68k fast enough. I wonder if you could port OS-X to Sparc, which is
made by multiple vendors? How's that for a rumor starter?

Makes a bit more sense than switching over to IA-64, though still
seems like a pretty dumb idea IMO. Sun's processors aren't well
suited to desktop or workstation applications. Fujitsu's chips do
better, though they haven't been keeping up with x86 or PowerPC.
Pretty much everyone else has got out of the SPARC chip market or are
focusing at the low-end/embedded market, and even that seems to be on
the out as ARM chips replace most others.

 

[Scott Moore]

Well, yes Apple has been a lot more successful at pushing its userbase
around than Microsoft has in the past. But back then, the installed
userbase of Macs was a lot smaller than it is now too: a few million vs.
about 25 million now. The last major change really was the switchover
from 68xxx to PowerPC -- that was a hardware switchover. The switchover
from MacOS to OS X is trivial by comparison -- it's just software. In
the hardware switchover, Apple had to come up with hardware emulators
and stuff, whereas in the OS software switch, the majority of
applications worked between the OSes, with a few odd men out.

Microsoft's userbase in the 100's of millions, possibly approaching the
billion mark. Microsoft's userbase was already in the 100's of millions
when Mac made the jump from 68xxx to PPC. So really the size of the
transition that you can force down your locked-in users' throats is
inversely proportional to the size of your userbase. Apple couldn't hope
to make the 68xxx to PPC transition today, with its userbase as large as
it is today.

Humm. Apple ported from 68xxx to PowerPC, and ported from one operating
system to a completely different one. The processor move was long, but
not that long. Apple provided an emulator, and most vendors simply
recompiled around that limitation. Carbon did the rest.

I would assert the opposite. If apple changed CPUs again, their user
base and vendors would switch faster this time, because they are used to
it. If Apple switched once a year, then it would still work out. Vendors
would simply get used to changing CPUs with version numbers.

The OS API is far more important than the CPU type. That's as it should
be, high level languages were supposed to make that possible.

Now onto Microsoft. They have stayed put ? No. The move from 16 bit
windows to 32 bit windows was huge, both in terms of virtually recoding
everything, and ALSO in terms of changing the API, since they not only
widened everything, but 32 bit flat mode changed the way memory and
programs were handled entirely.

Then Microsoft went from Windows to Windows NT, a complete, from scratch
recoding of the operating system.

Now Microsoft is going from 32 bits to 64 bits, on the very same
processor. If they are "entrenched", there is a hell of a strong
current running through that trench !

It does not have to be. Only the API has to be stable, and the API is
evolving into a collection of APIs. OpenGL is in common to both Windows,
Apple and even Linux. Windows used to be WOW for 16 bit to 32 bit,
now its WOW32 for Windows 32 bit to 64 bit.

The Unix section is open source. Everything else is not. Thats like saying
that the statue of liberty's base is free for the taking. Try moving it.

The reality is that Mac OS X is not portable, and it's got nothing to do
with what programming language it was written in, or if its close
relatives are running on other platforms. It's not portable, because its
userbase won't let it be ported. It's too entrenched. Everytime an OS
port is made, doesn't necessarily guarantee that the userbase will
follow into the new platform. HP-UX exists on PA-RISC and Itanium, the
PA-RISC crowd isn't easily following HP-UX into Itanium for HP. For Sun,
Solaris exists on Sparc and x86/x64, the Sparc crowd doesn't necessarily
adopt Solaris on x64 just because it's there.

All true, and who cares. Apple and Microsoft don't port operating systems,
they recode them entirely, and emulate the old API. Why ? Because by the
time it became necessary to move, the code was obsolete anyways.

 

[Bill Davidsen]

You mean M$ really does err, sandwiches for "lunch"... or do you have to
pay for your own?

The next para, after "bizarre", is an interesting one too, especially for
these NGs: 25 x64 servers to replace 250 32-bit ones - something for the
x64 Luddites to gnaw on! Jeez I wonder if the new MSN servers are all
AMD x64s??

Brings to mind several things, among them why 64 bit makes much of a
difference in an application typically dominated by i/o rather than
anything CPU, if the new servers come with new software which would run
faster on any CPU, and if the 250 servers (what were they DOING?) were
loaded to capacity.

Servers and workstations have had 64 bit capability for a decade in the
RISC vendors, and I don't think there's much sales volume in this
market. I'd love to know more details.

 

[George Macdonald]

Brings to mind several things, among them why 64 bit makes much of a
difference in an application typically dominated by i/o rather than
anything CPU, if the new servers come with new software which would run
faster on any CPU, and if the 250 servers (what were they DOING?) were
loaded to capacity.

Well we have to count that some of those 32-bit servers were old - say
800MHz (dual) Xeons. Even so a 10x reduction is impressive. As to 64-bit
making a difference, AIUI, there is less I/O since the 32-bit processes can
be >2GB of application space and the total memory can be >4GB so processes
can sit around in memory instead of being paged in & out. IOW the only I/O
is real transaction I/O.

Servers and workstations have had 64 bit capability for a decade in the
RISC vendors, and I don't think there's much sales volume in this
market. I'd love to know more details.

If you go here http://72.3.250.42/amd_05e1/index.html (AMD bumph but be
patient) and look at the MS_Treasury article under Enterprise Success
Stories there's a user perspective which has some interesting info.

 

[keith]

On Mon, 06 Jun 2005 19:36:49 GMT, Bill Davidsen


Well we have to count that some of those 32-bit servers were old - say
800MHz (dual) Xeons. Even so a 10x reduction is impressive. As to 64-bit
making a difference, AIUI, there is less I/O since the 32-bit processes can
be >2GB of application space and the total memory can be >4GB so processes
can sit around in memory instead of being paged in & out. IOW the only I/O
is real transaction I/O.

Don't forget virtual addressing. Most forget this little point. 2GB may
indeed be enough real, but when you're out of virtual, you're dead.

<snip>