thus Davide Zanon spake:
> On Tuesday 07 June 2005 15:40, przybyls@engr.arizona.edu wrote:
> 
>>I'd like to add something else to this also. Most probably already knew
>>this, but I'm just putting it into perspective. Mac OS X = Darwin + Aqua.
>>Darwin has already been strongly supported on x86 platform with very
>>little security issues. Many use Darwin x86 as their server platform also.
>>I believe this switch to Intel is rather triggered by the support of x86
>>systems by Darwin. For awhile now x86 has only been supported as a
>>reference implementation. I think that it has come along so well that
>>Apple is now in the position where their x86 support of Darwin is as good
>>as the PPC support. A full-blown Mac OS X for x86 is something the Darwin
>>community has been advocating for a long time. I think deep inside they
>>all new that it would come at the cost of PPC support.
>>
>>Anyway, I believe the biggest hurdle would be porting Aqua to x86. A
>>proof-of-concept must have been completed before the proposal, so I also
>>believe that they'll have it in release-candidate state very easily. OS
>>users will probably not see any difference between the OS X they knew
>>before and whatever is released on x86.
> 
> 
> Fantastic - maybe for Apple, not for me. Then what will separate a "normal" pc 
> from an Apple pc?

a hand full of ASICs. at best.

> Only the fact DRM will be built in the processor so Apple 
> computers won't run any other OS and the other computers won't run OS X? (The 
> latter is not an issue for me - I can't stand Aqua and all its bells and 
> whistles and how it's hard to make a window fullscreen ;-) ).

you're not alone on this.

> Then there will 
> be absolutely no difference between macs and non-macs... Why should I buy a 
> mac (I'm asking this to me, as I bought a PowerBook to use NetBSD on it... 
> I'll never have WiFi nor DRI on my stupid geforce - and I'll never use OS X :
> ( ) ? 
> 
> 
>>I am not happy about the move from PPC to x86 either. I believed PPC RISC
>>was a remarkable balance of performance and stability. I was especially
>>excited at the possibility that Apple might use the new Cell PPC. Instead,
>>they are going to Intel and who knows if they'll ever see the dual-core
>>Intel.
> 
> 
> I totally agree. It's a sad thing, but I hope PPC can still go on...

it will. IBM actively developes and advertises (!) POWER/PowerPC.

> Too many 
> good architectures seem to be dying right now...

yes, MIPS dead (besides embedded), HP-PA, Alpha, and SPARC... dunno. Sun
seems to be more active in mergers & acquisitions (financial stuff,
that's what counts on this world!!) than in technology.

what's left and the only alternative to x86? Power.

and i bet not even the dumbest business management guy will drop this.

it's a shame only Linux runs on them besides AIX right now.

> It can't be... Let's hope at 
> least someone will release some docs on Cell and the consoles... I'd like to 
> have a 2 Tflops NetBSD workstation :)

i'm thinking about selling some NeXT stuff (as it reminds me of the guy
that killed Apple ;) and donate a RS/6000 to the foundation -- if
someone's able and willing to work on that.

because when you draw a big conclusion from the architectures dying
since years now there's only ia32/64 and POWER left...

>>Leo Przybylski
> 
> 
> david

timo