Apple to dump PCC processor

[winterkoninkje]

For some inexplicable reason Apple has decided to drop IBM PPC line for Intel chips. Now I'm not sure whether that means they're just changing manufacturers or if they're entirely ditching PCC for IA32 (or whatever 64-bit family that turned into). The article seems to imply the latter, though it's not very specific. Unless the 64-bit Intel processor has finally done away with the legacy of backwards-compatibility that IA32 maintained, I can't see how the extreme dearth of registers is going to help a platform that has long been the de facto platform for graphical manipulation. Given how a number of IA32 programmers complain about only having eight general purpose registers, I don't think those used to having 32 of them will enjoy it much.

See also this article on Rosetta:

Apple introduced Rosetta, a technology that will translate PowerPC-based applications to the new platform — a process that is immediate and transparent to the user. Each time the application is run, Rosetta will translate the code — while this is not as fast as recompiling the code to run on the new Intel processor, Jobs characterized it as being “Fast (enough).”

Somehow I can't help but think this is a step backwards for one of the dominant OSes out there. Also:

Apple also confirmed that they would not stop customers from running Windows on the Intel-based Mac, although the Mac OS will not run on another PC.

In other news, It looks like Microsoft's coveted Xbox 360 is running on PPC chips, and Microsoft's developers for that console are using Macintosh computers for development. See the article here[1]. Given that Bill Gates own the majority of stock in Apple Computers, Inc.[2] one can't help but wonder about the connection between these two events. But then, the processor industry has always been a bloody one, much worse than the OS or application markets.

[1] For more info about the insides of the Xbox 360, check out this blog.

[2] One source is Bill Gates buys $150 Million Apple Stock:

On August 7, 1997 the computer world was stunned by the news that Bill Gates had infused new life into Apple Computer Corporation by agreeing to a $150 million non-voting investment in the troubled company. A fascinating aspect of the story was the fact that Steve Jobs, one of the original co-founders of Apple had asked Gates for the favor. Jobs left Apple in 1985, and was recently brought back to help reorganize the company. The announcement was made at the Macworld trade show in Boston, amid boos from Apple loyalists who have been conditioned over the years to consider Microsoft's co-founder, Bill Gates, their enemy.

Admittedly it's "non-voting" investment, and was done to keep Apple afloat so Microsoft maintains a competitor and hence won't get broken up for monopoly reasons; but it still makes one wonder.