7 Jun
2005
7 Jun
'05
5:54 a.m.
On 07/06/2005, at 9:47 PM, Cini, Richard wrote:
I for one am happy. I've wanted to Try OSX as a
replacement for
Windows but
I didn't want to spend the $$$ on Apple hardware...not because it's
better
or worse than PC-compatible hardware but because I have a ton of
current PC
stuff. I've toyed with buying a Mac Mini, but it's still $500.
I've dabbled with Linux but I would feel better if there was a
substantial
company behind it. OSX is better integrated and has a lot of right-
brain
features that my wife and kids would like.
For $129 I'd take a flyer and commit one of my spare PCs to it. I
couldn't
totally divorce myself from Windows but I would at least like some
options.
The problem here is that Apple have already said that you won't be
able to run OS-X/Intel on anything other than Apple's Intel hardware
- that is, whilst Apple will be using x86 as the CPU, the resulting
hardware environment will not be Windows compatible - as far as I'm
concerned this is a good thing - I don't want strange holes in my
memory map above 640K for BIOS and graphics.
Apple have made the difficult (but in my opinion correct) decision to
phase out PowerPC and move to x86. They've done this for several
reasons, including outright performance and also MIPS/W so that they
can have high performance, long battery life laptops.
Where Apple are going isn't new - Digital/Compaq/HP have already been
here with the VAX/VMS -> Alpha/VMS -> Itanium/VMS moves as well as
the Alpha/NT -> Intel/NT move as well. These decisions weren't easy
to make, and certainly hurt and surprised customers as well as Compaq
staff - I remember well hearing about the demise of Alpha. However
(donning flameproof suit now), Alpha had no future due to the overall
chip cost and Itanium at least looks (looked?) promising in terms of
price/performance - CPU cost per MIP.
Looking back in Computing history, lots of nice/desirable/kill for
architectures/software/operating systems have died as new paradigms
took over. Yes, losing something familiar hurts but in our industry,
standing still is usually fatal.
Huw Davies | e-mail: Huw.Davies at kerberos.davies.net.au
Melbourne | "If soccer was meant to be played in the
Australia | air, the sky would be painted green"