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How many times must Apple make such DRASTIC architecture changes?
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