8900eec3   
   XPost: comp.sys.mac.advocacy, alt.os.linux.mandrake, comp.os.linux.advocacy   
   XPost: alt.os.linux.redhat   
   From: randyhoward@FOOverizonBAR.net   
      
   In article , reply_in_group@mouse-potato.com says...   
   > In article ,   
   >  Randy Howard  wrote:   
   > > > 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.   
   >   
   > How do you get those developers to produce that port?   
      
   I think it's usually driven by demand.  YMMV.   
      
   In the case of Apple migrating wholesale to Intel or AMD, it would   
   be real simple for the mac developer.  Port, or go out of business.   
      
   BTW, if it's written well, the port involves typing 'make' and   
   pressing once on the enter key.  If it's not, you'll never make   
   that mistake again as a developer.   
      
   > Think back to Windows NT.  The NT 4 CD had x86, PPC, Alpha, and MIPS   
   > versions on it.  However, down at the CompUSA, there was maybe one or   
   > two NT app that had anything other than x86 binaries included (or even   
   > available for order).   
      
   Supply and demand.  It's quite easy to find 64-bit software for a   
   number of different CPU architectures today.  Probably not at   
   CompUSA, but since when has that determined anything important in   
   relationship to advanced technology?   
      
   > The only cases I can think of where a platform has had real success on   
   > different CPUs is when almost all the applications used on that platform   
   > are open source, so the users can compile them, rather than depending on   
   > the developer to make them available.   
      
   A number of commercial database products support a wide variety of   
   CPU and OS targets.   
      
   --   
   Randy Howard (2reply remove FOOBAR)   
   "Making it hard to do stupid things often makes it hard   
    to do smart ones too." -- Andrew Koenig   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
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