Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Macintosh on Intel Rumors
So we all should know by now that Apple is switching to Intel. There has been some speculation as to why Intel, with the latest speculations revoling around an upcoming move by Intel to video on demand over the Internet, perhaps to be branded (as Cringely did) as the "iTunes Movie Store."
Cringely brings up the notion that it's also possible that Apple may not intend to go forward with the changeover for their complete line of products. After all, in the high end arena, while Intel wipes the floor with the IBM G5 processor, for numeric computation the G5 rules Intel by a huge margin--so vendors who are interested in raw floating point computational power are going to get the short end of the stick.
There is some evidence for this possibility from Transitive Corporation, the people who created the QuickTransit technology that is at the heart of Apple's Rosetta, the technology that allows PowerPC code to run at 60% integer performance on an Intel processor. If we examine their web site's product map, we find that not only do they make QuickTransit for x86, but they also make QuickTransit for PowerPC, which allows PowerPC processors to run Intel code at around 60% integer performance.
This means if Apple decides to create a "split technology" lineup, with low-end systems running on Intel, and high-end workstations running on PowerPC, it would be a simple matter of licensing the technology from Transitive to allow Mac on Intel only software to run on PowerPC processors without having to build a "fat" application. And it would allow owners of older Macintosh systems to be able to do Mac on Intel development without having to upgrade their hardware, though I suspect Apple will more likely ask developers to fork out for a new, albeit inexpensive, low-end system. ¶ 9:51 AM
Cringely brings up the notion that it's also possible that Apple may not intend to go forward with the changeover for their complete line of products. After all, in the high end arena, while Intel wipes the floor with the IBM G5 processor, for numeric computation the G5 rules Intel by a huge margin--so vendors who are interested in raw floating point computational power are going to get the short end of the stick.
There is some evidence for this possibility from Transitive Corporation, the people who created the QuickTransit technology that is at the heart of Apple's Rosetta, the technology that allows PowerPC code to run at 60% integer performance on an Intel processor. If we examine their web site's product map, we find that not only do they make QuickTransit for x86, but they also make QuickTransit for PowerPC, which allows PowerPC processors to run Intel code at around 60% integer performance.
This means if Apple decides to create a "split technology" lineup, with low-end systems running on Intel, and high-end workstations running on PowerPC, it would be a simple matter of licensing the technology from Transitive to allow Mac on Intel only software to run on PowerPC processors without having to build a "fat" application. And it would allow owners of older Macintosh systems to be able to do Mac on Intel development without having to upgrade their hardware, though I suspect Apple will more likely ask developers to fork out for a new, albeit inexpensive, low-end system. ¶ 9:51 AM
