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Re: How many times must Apple make such DRASTIC architecture changes?

On 2005-06-08 23:47:01 +0300, "Bible John" <john.doggett@x-files.gov> said:


I believe this latest move to Intel was the 4th drastic change by Apple in
their history.  Correct me if I am wrong but the first MAJOR architecture
change was from the Apple II/IIgs or whatever to the Macintosh 68K.  I
believe at this time Apple II's and their software and possibly hardwrae
would not work on a 68000 Mac without a a) Emulator, or b) Processor card.
Today one can get a emulator (as I do on my ibook G4), but one cannot
install a Apple IIgs CPU in a Mac.

The second major architecture change came in 1994 when Apple moved from the
68000 CPU to the IBM PPC CPU.  Hardware would still work in the PPC Macs,
and over 90% of 68K apps would work on a PPC.  Even today I run many 68K
apps on my ibook G4.

The third major architecture change when they moved from their old World Mac
to their New World Mac with OSX.  The new world macs are way different, as
well as OSX.  OSX is based on Unix, and far more powerful than the classic
mac os. But I have to wonder if Apple originally wanted Unix to be their OS,
when the first Mac was designed. I have noticed that OS 8.1 can read Unix
formatted disks, but I wonder about OS 7.  Was a Unix os part of apples
original plan?

And the last major change happened recently with this move to the Intel x86.
Funny after all these years, PC's have remained x86, and  even a new PC
being sold today can run many DOS applications.  Granted they cannot use all
DOS apps, but certainly a much higher percentage of apps than what a OS
Tiger user can of Apple II apps.  And for those that cannot use a DOS app,
can crate a dual boot partition with DOS 6.22 or whatever on a newer Windows
XP PC.


John


(I couldn't find what to snip)
We all miss something, this type of transition from one CPU family to other has NEVER happened in IT history.
As everyone (old timers) knows, let me tell what this move means. Its like moving to i80386 (the REAL one) from Motorola 68xxx series! Lets go older, its like Commodore 64 moves to Z80 from 65xx CPU in a new model,
Or for ex amiga people out there: Moving from Amiga 1200 with Motorola to i386 (it looks like most impossible one)
PowerPC had Motorola involved, their engineers involved. There is no more IBM, no more Motorola in this thing. Only Rosetta.
The CPU "families" are different I mean. PPC is evolution of Motorola 68k series, look the new Amiga guys run PowerPC, they don't run a Pentium 

IMO We move from a bird to dinosaur here. *g* Darwin backwards
Also to give a clue how dramatic thing this is, I use Unison which uses System Spell checking framework, all pentiums are marked red. :) 

I better teach poor thing.

Ilgaz