OSX on PC

[silis]

The better fight would be work done per clock cycle IMO.

haha, it would indeed be a better fight.. - at least bad marketing wouldn't be a factor....

but you can't really argue with quantative data.. (unless your really, really good) It's more of a slap in the face that makes you go ooooh! you're right!

 

[ignipotentis]

I didn't mean that the computer is Analog. It is digital like I said. Information is recognized as zeros and ones which translate into binary coding that the machine can understand. I was actually talking about how the signals are handled physically by the system. In the case of the PC, analog methods are used to create digital signals. In the case of the Mac, it's a three step process (almost like how a video card works).

I recommend staying out of the techincal aspect of this conversation. The following is quoted from the Apple Site:

Darwin on x86

Q: I must say that Apple is doing a really good job with their open-source strategy, and I'd like to congratulate you for trusting in the power of the community.

It would be great if you could give more attention on the porting of Darwin for the x86 platform (don't let the guys who are doing that alone!), as it will help a lot on the rapid growing of the developer base, helping the development of the system and (of course) the development of new drivers, filesystems and other important components that could be modified to work also on the PPC side.

A: Thanks. Much of Darwin is processor-independent BSD code. We're using the x86 platform as an integrity-check to help us make sure that the architectural underpinnings function just as well in Darwin as in the BSD code. This is important to maintain compatibility with the ever-evolving BSD software base, and also helps us to maintain a high-quality code base through the benefits of designing for software portability. We welcome new drivers and other components to help test Darwin on the x86 platform.

Q: Will Mac OS X be ported to the PC?

A: There are no plans to make Mac OS X available on any non-Apple platforms. We're simply making Darwin, the underlying operating system of Mac OS X, a better system by using x86 as a test bed to ensure architectural soundness and to reap the benefits from applying portable software coding practices.

Darwin (the underlying core of OS-X) is already availible on the PC. Porting the rest is a simple matter of writting a new compiler. The reason this is not seen as hapening in the near future is because Apple is a hardware company.

I would be the first to get into line if they did port the system. Right now, Apple's prohibative hardware costs are what keeps me from running OS-X at home; although I am seriously looking at a power book.

 

[penguin]

Yes the hardware costs more but that is not a bad thing. Apple hardware in general is of a much higher quality than that of an x86 machine. On there X-Serves they return approximately 80% of the drives back to the manufacturer because they don't meet Apple's requirements. Another reason is that the hardware lasts much longer. You can run OS X on a machine that is 7 years old and it will still perform decently. Load XP on an x86 of the same age and you are going to be very unhappy with its performance. Resale is also much higher on Macs than PC's.

 

[ignipotentis]

Yes the hardware costs more but that is not a bad thing. Apple hardware in general is of a much higher quality than that of an x86 machine. On there X-Serves they return approximately 80% of the drives back to the manufacturer because they don't meet Apple's requirements. Another reason is that the hardware lasts much longer. You can run OS X on a machine that is 7 years old and it will still perform decently. Load XP on an x86 of the same age and you are going to be very unhappy with its performance. Resale is also much higher on Macs than PC's.

1) Apple's QA Sucks. I hate to break it to you, but if you buy something from them, you better buy the Apple Care Protection Plan because you are going to need it. We have had to get 4 motherboards on G3 Towers replaced becuase they went bad. We've had 2 replaced on G4 Towers. I don't recall 1 PC Motherboard going bad. If i had to compare Apple's QA to another large company, it would have to be the mobile division of Dell. We have had the same laptop go back 3 times becuase they have an issue w/ docking. Dell's solution: replace the mother board.

2) Good luck getting OS-X to run on a machine 7 years ago. Here are the minimum requirements for OS-X. I find it humors that apple doesn't even give you the tech specs, just nice pretty pictures instead.
This was the machine that was introduced 7 years ago. Interestingly enough, its pretty little picture does not show up on the requirements page.

3) Resale doesn't mean crap. While it may be higher, who actually wants to run it. [personal opinion on] Untill OS-X, MacOS was ****. Resale on DoDo bird **** is high, but it is still ****. [personal opinion off]

 

[Xie]

2) Good luck getting OS-X to run on a machine 7 years ago. Here are the minimum requirements for OS-X. I find it humors that apple doesn't even give you the tech specs, just nice pretty pictures instead.
This was the machine that was introduced 7 years ago. Interestingly enough, its pretty little picture does not show up on the requirements page.

I don't mean to start a war but good luck trying to get XP running on a machine from 7yrs ago. Also isn't this tech specs enough?

Mac OS X Version 10.3 requires a Macintosh with a PowerPC G3, G4, or G5 processor, built-in USB; at least 128MB of physical RAM and a built-in display or a display connected to an Apple-supplied video card supported by your computer.

 

[ignipotentis]

The major reason that OSX, like all of the mac OS's do not port to the PC is that major portions of the I/O and processing functions are ROM based, and not coded in the OS, except as a function call.

I hope you can provide documentation for this as I am rather intruiged. That would require a rather large chunk of flash, or something similar to be added to the motherboard, or smack dab right there on the processor die itself.

Read this. New World Machines have a boot rom [BIOS to PC users]. The rest of the Toolbox you refer to are loaded into RAM. ROM was used before becuase it was cheaper, and allowed the mac to "just work" with lower system requirements. This is no longer the case, and also made upgrading a pain in the ass.

The reason that OSX will not show up on x86 architecture anytime soon is because Steve Jobs is running Apple. Its his baby, and he will not let it go.

 

[ignipotentis]

I don't mean to start a war but good luck trying to get XP running on a machine from 7yrs ago. Also isn't this tech specs enough?

No, it is not enough. As you can see from my Mac History link, the G3 is not all encompasing. Perhaps if the requirement said "New World G3" it would be better. I never made the claim that XP would run on a 7 year old machine, I'm not niave
.

 

[ignipotentis]

Anyone think that if this thread stays going long enough Jobs might get the message?

 

[Xie]

Anyone think that if this thread stays going long enough Jobs might get the message?

Doubt it

 

[NetRyder]

http://www.osnn.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3712

It just gets better and better with each new release.