XPost: comp.sys.mac.advocacy, alt.os.linux.mandrake, comp.os.linux.advocacy   
   XPost: alt.os.linux.redhat   
   From: znu@fake.invalid   
      
   In article ,   
    Randy Howard  wrote:   
      
   > In article ,   
   > Nowhere@spamfree.com says...   
   >   
   > > You're forgetting two major items:   
   > >   
   > > 1. Having the OS on x86 isn't any help at all. You also need all the   
   > > apps to be ported.   
   >   
   > Anyless they're written in assembly, that shouldn't be hard at all   
   > if they use any reasonable standard programming language, and one   
   > for which Apple migrates development tools.  They have gotten   
   > lazy in a few places and made assumptions about byte order or word   
   > size, but that's just bad code that they happened to get away with   
   > and should be fixed.   
   >   
   > Anything written at a reasonably high level and by competent   
   > developers will be quick to port, provided all of the underlying OS   
   > features are there on both CPUs.   
   >   
   > > 2. If OS X runs on x86, Apple has the problem of keeping their sales   
   > > level up.   
   >   
   > Not if they make it dependent upon Apple hardware.  Something as   
   > simple as putting in a proprietary set of I/O ports with magic   
   > features and having OS X look for them would be sufficient.   
      
   There's no particular reason to expect hypothetical Apple x86 hardware   
   to have much resemblance to other x86 hardware. They'd probably still do   
   some of their own ASIC design, and I can't imagine they'd want to adopt   
   the current x86 boot architecture. They might even just implement Open   
   Firmware.   
      
   There's still a certain danger in being on x86, though. For one thing,   
   Mac users would be able to run Windows software at full speed, in a   
   virtual machine environment. That initially sounds great -- until you   
   consider that a lot of vendors might figure they didn't need to write OS   
   X versions of their stuff, since Mac users could use the Windows   
   versions. I understand OS/2 had that problem.   
      
   --   
   "This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply   
   ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table."   
      -- George W. Bush in Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 22, 2005   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)