13 May
2013
13 May
'13
10:39 a.m.
On 05/13/2013 01:27 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
I don't think that's what the OP meant. I really don't think anyone is
unaware that the PPC (and POWER) is a rather substantial commercial success.
There were definitely quite a few PPC-based macs. The XBox 360 is PPC-based
and the playstation 3 is (I think) POWER-based...might be PPC though. So
yes. I'd think most people would know it's a success.
Macs, routers (real grownup routers, not so much plasic consumer crap that
people call "routers" these days), ethernet switches (ditto), game consoles,
embedded processors in most everything, a few decades' worth of RS/6000s,
ditto on AS/400s..
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Not having
seen the PPC source, but the 86/286/386 monster of OS/2-kernel
source (3.x), I can only agree. I consider it almost impossible, without
a complete rewrite and then only - as in the PPC implementation - with
largely different APIs to port this thing to anything else, including
PDP-11. Given the 386 ring architecture, it would be more likely to
transfer a look-alike to a VAX, but not to a PDP with MMU. But even then;
the question is: what benefit would there be? DEC systems were already a
dying platform at the time of OS/2, and lack of any compatibility to the
original x86-based system would gain nothing. Even the PPC was not a
success, not only because of the obscure CHRP architecture no other
vendor used, but also because of the lack of killer application or
migration path. Apple those days did it better in providing an emulator
to run older 68K apps on the PPC.
I dunno, I think the PPC was a success, just not as much on the desktop.
There are LOADS of PowerPCs running high-end embedded stuff in cars and
telecom systems, and all three of the previous generation of game
consoles used a PowerPC of some sort as the CPU.