Apple to use Intel chips

[Indra]

http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/06/06 ... /index.php

The above link provides some neat info, especially for mac fans.

[TroutMask]

I don't care if they user peanut butter for their new chip as long as the stability, excellent user experience and BSD Unix underpinnings remain the same.

Regardless of what chip they use, I believe that OS X will continue to run only on Apple-built hardware (or with PC Mac emulator software.) Just because they're using Intel chips doesn't mean that OS X will run on the $199 PC from Wal-Mart. IMO, Apple needs to continue to maintain it's firm control over what internal hardware components are or are not supported so that they can maintain the relative freedom of hardware issues in Apple computers.

-TM

[winder]

Other chips go into the computers besides the processor, memory, clock, etc. so I imagine it is easier to get a wider selection working with Intel than Motorola or IBM.

Motorola has not had a great record over the last several years - Anyone need a satellite? - too bad, they fell down.

[Indra]

Though I surely dont know for certain, but I imagined that once OS X is running on an X86 chip, and available to the public, that code could be exploited so that OS X runs on any PC, regardless of steps Apple takes to prevent doing so.




(commas followed by birds)

[TroutMask]

Other vendors use the same chip as Apple does in their computers today, yet none of them are OS X compatible.

Apple controls the operating system, therefore they control what machines it will or won't run on. Just like Windows.

-TM

[Indra]

First, let me say, I'm not trying to start an argument by any means, so I hope you dont take it as such TM.  I'm just exploring possibilities.

That said, I'm not familiar with the other computers that use the same IBM PPC chip.  Such hardware is obviously obscure, and is not something in the home of the average computer user.  As such, nobody is going to spend the time to get OS X working on them.  

Apple can certainly take plenty of steps to prevent allowing OS X to run on anything other than Apple computers, just like Microsoft took steps to prevent any OS from running on the Xbox except their own.  Over time, and with a little tenacity, this protection was circumvented.  Now you can run any X86 OS on an Xbox.  For example.

Though, I guess we will find out for sure soon enough

[TroutMask]

You could easily be right. I'm no hardware guru. According to thinksecret.com:

"Sources have indicated that Apple will employ an EDID chip on the motherboard of Intel-based Macs that Mac OS X will look for and must handshake with first in order to boot. Such an approach, similar to hardware dongles, could theoretically be defeated, although it's unknown what level of sophistication Apple will employ."

Who knows?

-TM

[Green2Herman]

So which operating system is the most psychedelic?

[TroutMask]

Indra was right, at least for the first developer's release of OS X for Intel. It's already been hacked and runs on many different PCs.

My gut feeling is that Apple actually wanted people to hack the developer release so that they could see how the first version works on myriad different Intel PCs. It will be interesting to see if Apple can pull off a final version of OS X on Intel that only runs on Apple Intel Macs. Ugh, never thought I'd type that phrase. :-)

-TM