apple moving to x86

[Erich Dollansky]

Hi,

Nicole wrote:
> On 07-Jun-05 My Homeland Security "observers" reported that Erich Dollansky
> said:
> 
Yeah, Homeland Security.

This gives NSA a lot of e-mails to scan.

>>Claus Guttesen wrote:
> 
>  It seems a shame that they could not have at least gone with AMD processors
> instead of Intel. No matter how closely they are tied to IBM.
> 
Intel has a strong point where Apple will start: Pentium M.

It would be real dumb not to start with machines have this CPU in there 
as Apple has none to compete with it.

There is a but, a huge but. Apple told the world it has to be 64 bits.

So, even if Apple takes Intel, but with the 64 bits, AMD gets its share 
out of the deal via license fees.
> 
>  Could this be a move by Apple to move away from building hardware at all?

Do you know of a single Apple product not based on hadware which is a 
success?

>  If they use intel chips it seems logical it will have/suffer from the same
> periferal needs as normal PCs. Thus could OS XI run on all hardware? Thus

Why?

Apple has the chance now to build a machine without all the problems a 
PC has.

If Apple is clever, they will build a well designed machine, running 
with a x86 CPU but without any support for things earlier known as 8259, 
8253 plus the completely screwed DMA.

Apple will need different chipsets to connect the PCI, USB ... devices 
to the CPU which will make the machine different.

As there is FreeBSD port to the PowerPC and its peripherals, this 
machine will make a very interesting target for FreeBSD: combine the x86 
code base with the PowerPC drivers and get a real hot machine.

At least for now, there is a dream.

Erich