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Apple Computers switching to Intel chips

Melensdad

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Many Apple computer users got all bent out of shape in the middle of last year when Apple announced it was switching from the PowerPC chip platform over to the Intel platform. I'm not sure why people got bent about it but many felt betrayed. The whole thing seems silly to me, because the new Intel Apple computers will still run the same operating system, and still run the same software. But faster.

I just placed my order for a new 15" laptop to replace my 12" PowerBookG4. I'm looking forward to the upgraded backlit keyboard, automatic brightness control for both the screen and keyboard that senses the ambient light conditons in the room and adjusts the screen/keyboard brightness. I'm also looking forward to even greater screen size and greater resolution (although mine is excellent on the 12" screen now). I do realize that I'm paying a bit of a premium by pre-ordering and taking a bit of a risk too, but so far Apple has been good to me with service and performance so I'm willing to play the gamble that the new machine won't be a dog.

Click the link to see the new APPLE laptop
 
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OregonAlex

New member
B_Skurka said:
I just placed my order for a new 15" laptop to replace my 12" PowerBookG4.
Hey Bob,

its called a 15" MacBook Pro. Wow.. takes some time to get used to that name.

let us know how you like it and what you think about having Dual Processor in your Laptop. :eek::eek::eek:

I know I find Dual Processors in my PowerMac G4 tower to be a very good thing. No one App can eat up all of your CPU cycles (hog the machine) and as a result the machine is always responsive to the user.
 

OkeeDon

New member
Looks good. However, even if I could get over my deep-set prejudice against Apple, I couldn't spend that much. I could get 3 laptops like mine for the price of one of those.
 

Dargo

Like a bad penny...
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OkeeDon said:
Looks good. However, even if I could get over my deep-set prejudice against Apple, I couldn't spend that much. I could get 3 laptops like mine for the price of one of those.

Don't worry Don, Bob is going to send us each one just so he can prove to us that they are superior. I'm up for it, you? :thumb:
 

Melensdad

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Don, no question the up front cost of an Apple carries a premium price, typically about $300. This one is $380 more expensive than a similarly configured Gateway so the price gap is even higher, but then again, the pattern with Apple is to reduce their prices a few months after introduction so I expect the price to drop about $200, leaving a price gap of about $200, give or take.

Now I don't know how you configure your computers, but when I bought some Dell and some IBM laptops earlier this year, they priced out, without the Bluetooth feature, at around $1700. So I don't see the Apple premium to be too steep given the ease of use and ease of set up and ease of integration of an Apple. In fact, I see the total cost of ownership as lower.
 

XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

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I'm just waiting to see how hackable they are. I'd love a multi-boot machine that can boot all the different OS's.

Actually, I'll just do what I always do - whine to my employer and get them to buy me one. ;)
 

Doc

Bottoms Up
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PB we think alike. I wonder if we'll be able to load the 386 based OS on any 386 machine? That would be cool.
One of apples strengths was they had a different chip and no one had reason to produce one for anything but apple OS. 386 compatible could open up a who new set of users for the apples OS. That also would open of the support nightmare of supporting all the peripheral cards and such. This should be interesting.
(I did not read the link, so I hope all this was not answered there :eek: )
 

DaveNay

Klaatu barada nikto
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OkeeDon said:
Looks good. However, even if I could get over my deep-set prejudice against Apple, I couldn't spend that much. I could get 3 laptops like mine for the price of one of those.

<SARCASM>

Don, why are you worrying about the price of the Apple computers? They are always more than the WinTel ones. They were more expensive 15 years ago, and last year, and this year and next year. Quit whining about them and just buy one for gosh sake. :whistle:

</SARCASM>
 

OkeeDon

New member
Betsy and I have identical Toshibas, around 14" screen, 1.7 ghz, 512K memory, 40 meg harddrives, CD burner/DVD player. They're two years old, and cost $750 each after rebates. The same level of laptop today is slightly bigger, faster and have 60 meg harddrives and some have DVD burners, and run about $100 less on sale (which is the only way I buy things). So far, I haven't found anything I want to do that they can't do. I still have almnost 19 gb free on the harddrive after 2 years of downloading and installing all kinds of software. I do have a Dell desktop with a bigger harddrive to serve as the photo repository, but I haven't really needed it.
 

Melensdad

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My wife has an iBook, 14", with WiFi, CD burner/DVD player, it is almost 3 years old, it cost about the same as your Toshibas when we bought it. Her processor is comparable to yours. For my office computer I typically by a power users computer, not the very top of the line, but generally very well outfitted to handle large PowerPoint presentations, graphic files, rendering video and graphic, etc. The Windows laptops are typically outfitted about the same way.

I would not even begin to suggest that a typical home user needs a top of the line Apple, nor would I suggest a home user needs that caliber Windows laptop. But I also would not compare a power user system to a home user system in capabilities or in cost.

For folks who want a lower priced, but still well equipped laptop, an iBook is a great choice.
 

OkeeDon

New member
Oh, yeah -- about the deep-seated prejudice. Many, many years ago I started out in PCs with a TRS80 Model I, which used a Zilog Z80 chip, which was very similar in architecture to the Intel 8088. The Apple II used a Motorola chip. The Intel was perfect for business, text and database work; the Motorola was an "artistic" chip, supporting color, graphics, etc. I was never artisitic. The lines were drawn back in those days; you were either an artistic type or educator, neither one of which had a clue about technology, or you were a hard-core programmer or database creator. One way went Apple, the other way went Zilog or Intel. Of course, IBM was primarily a business computer company, so when they came out with a PC, they naturally went with Intel.

In addition to the artistic nature of the Apple, most of the Apple programmers used Pascal as a language. I looked down on Pascal because it was easy to use and not very flexible. It wasn't a smart compiler; you had to end every line with a semi-colon because the compiler wasn't smart enough to find the end of the line otherwise. Similarly, the Apple computers grew into machines that were easy to use; real computer nerds looked down their noses at them. Who wanted a silly mouse when there was that fantastic DOS command-line interface? :whistle: Further, while Apple gained a reputation that all software worked the same, it was at the expense of creative thinking -- Apple set strict rules and embedded the interface into the operaing system; programmers couldn't break the rules if they wanted to. In my opinion, this stifled innovation.

Ever since then, the division has stayed about the same. Intel PCs can do art and music, but the Apple stuff was better at it. Apples can do math and business, but the Intel stuff was better at it. Programs like Photoshop and Midi sequencers were developed on the Apple stuff and later ported, often poorly, to Intel PCs. Database programs and Word Processors and such were created on the Intel PCs and ported, sometimes with less than success, to Apple machines.

In case I didn't say it before, I am not an artist. I might be the resident liberal on this forum, but I'm a hard-core, conservative, right wing computer user, not one of the wussy art or academic types that favor Apples. I have been continuously amused by the fact that Bob S uses an Apple, yet thinks he's so right-wing!:moon:

I was into these silly PCs at a really early stage, and got completely involved. I taught myself BASIC, Pascal, Cobol, DBase, and enough assembly language to write subroutines. I wrote my own database program and created a mailmerge program back in the days when there was very little canned software. I had a real estate business that solicited listings for Florida lot resales by mail. I converted our County's tax records from EBCDIC 9-track tape to ASCII 8" floppy disks and mail-merged the owner data with my solicitation letters on a daisy wheel printer.

That led to a computer consulting business and, for a long time in those early years, I was "the" PC guru for our area. I became a certified independent rep for Radio Shack PC clones and later started building my own clones from Taiwanese parts. That led to the second reason I'm prejudiced against Apples. Apple kept tiptoeing into the independent rep scenario and then pulling the rug out. Three times I attended regional seminars where Apple, with great fanfare, promised that this time it would be different, they were really committed to the Independent sales rep idea. Twice I invested in equipment, software, etc., primarily to break into the school market, and the programs were cancelled in a short time. The third time, I wised up, went to the seminar, unloaded and let them know exactly what I thought of the idea, and walked out (I was younger then; it created quite a stir). Sure enough, 6 months later Apple cancelled that program, too.

So, there's a long-held snobbery that causes me to look down my nose at wimpy, liberal Apple users who need things to be easy and at Apple programmers who are willing to be forced to follow the rules. At the same time, there is still residual resentment at Apple for wasting my professional time and resources.

Oops, and you all thought you knew me, right? :tonguewit

By the way, if Apple has gone to Intel, then I guess all my prejudices are a bit out of date...
 

Melensdad

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OkeeDon said:
In case I didn't say it before, I am not an artist. I might be the resident liberal on this forum, but I'm a hard-core, conservative, right wing computer user, not one of the wussy art or academic types that favor Apples. I have been continuously amused by the fact that Bob S uses an Apple, yet thinks he's so right-wing!

By the way, if Apple has gone to Intel, then I guess all my prejudices are a bit out of date...

I never considered Apple to be a computer of left and Windows to be a computer of the right. When I looked into the politics of Windows I saw all sorts of liberal causes being supported, in fact I choose not to by HP products if a similar item is available from any other manufacturer due to the politics of David Packard. But to me, an OS is simply a tool, not a political statement. I guess I just looked at both of them and chose to use what works for me. I do think Apple is the superior platform but I am very proficient with both systems and teach people how to better use their Windows computers while I choose to use my Apple. I have my preference but I use both systems and understand the advantages of each. I think many of the so-called advantages claimed by Windows users are, in fact, misguided in the same way that people think Hybrid cars are cheaper to operate than similar gas cars. For many people Windows is the better platform. For many the Apple Mac OS is the better system, but many simply don't realize it.

Feel free to choose your platform. But I didn't start this thread to argue Windows ~ Apple. I started it to discuss the INTEL chips that are now being put into Apples.
 

OregonAlex

New member
Yes, it rains all the time here in the Pacific Northwest and it is a miserable place to live. -Stay Away

Yes, Macs suck because they are way too expensive and are for people that are too stupid to use real computers... and you can't run Windows on it. -Stay away.


Sorry folks, this just gets old. When I bought my first Mac (a laptop), it was the most money I had ever spent on a computer in my whole life and my wife thought I was nuts. I believe it was around $1500. Since then I have gotten rid of all the PCs in my house minus the PC laptop my company has provided me and my wife has claimed the Mac laptop I bought as hers. She absolutely loves it and has never enjoyed working on computer till now. I now have 6 Macs throughout my house. They are a pleasure to work on and we love them. I could never say that about my PCs, they were just a pain in the ass.

My in-laws and other relatives have also converted over, after lots of procrastination and making excuses, similiar to what I see here. They all love their machines too and are doing things on their computers they never felt confident enough to do on their PCs.

If you don't have any issues with your PC and LOVE your computer, then stay with what you got. If it ain't broken and you are happy with it, why fix it? right. If you all you have ever had was a Chinese tractors, and it does what you want and you feel it is reliable, why look elsewhere. right?

Bob and I don't tell you about our experiences with Macs to justify our "expensive" purchases. Nor do we feel doing so builds up our Egos. We both use Mac AND PC every day. We both have a lot of experience using both platforms.. not just casual observers. We have seen both sides and the difference is obvious after a few weeks of continued use. If you have never used a Mac for an extented period of time then you will never understand why there are so many Mac fans and why people feel so strongly after owning one that they say they will never buy another PC. Its kind of like using a Tivo. Those that use them for an extended period of time, would never want to get rid of it. Those that look on, don't know what the fuss is all about and feel that their live is complete and they have done without a Tivo all their life and so life is just fine the way it is.

These machine are something that you just need to experience for an extended period of time and once you give it a chance, you wonder why you have been torchering yourself for so many years. We are just sharing our experiences with you. If you don't want to have any open mind and feel that your PC experience is just fine and is not worth investing a few more dollars in something you use EVERY SINGLE DAY.. then good for you. Just keep trucking and pay no attention to the crazy Mac fans.:tiphat: We are just out of our minds and don't know what we are talking about.




Bob,

What a difference 9 years make. I found this video of the 1997 MacWorld expo really interesting. This was at a time that Apple was at their worst and could not do anything right until Apple bought Steve Job's company NeXT computer. The 1997 Mac Expo immediately followed the purchase of NeXT computer and here Steve comes back to leading Appling laying out a change to become healthly again. The first thing he does is remove everyone on the board of directors except for 2 gentlement and then proceeds to cancel all of the licenses with third party companies to build Mac Clones. It is really interesting and inspiring to watch this and see them execute successfully on this vision Steve help lay out 9 years ago.
Hope you have the time to watch it.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4436710013736446644
 
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OregonAlex

New member
B_Skurka said:
I never considered Apple to be a computer of left and Windows to be a computer of the right.

Actually Bob, I hate to say it but Apple has been very left since Steve Jobs took over. This was evident in the 2000 elections when Apple publically endorsed Al Gore.

Then again, considering their customer base of Artists, Photographers, Filmakers and Teachers this is not a stretch.
 

OregonAlex

New member
Doc said:
PB we think alike. I wonder if we'll be able to load the 386 based OS on any 386 machine? That would be cool.
)
PC HW has evolved by leaps and bounds over the last 3 decades.. yet modern HW in a PC is still "PC" compatible. How can this be? I will tell you in one word.

BIOS

This is what makes a PC a PC.


This is the one piece of software which runs when you computer is first started and it is responsible for creating that legacy compatiblity on HW which is very different and has evolved over the decades. As with many legacy software layers, it has a downside to it also. It keep bringing along with it all of the wierdness and shortcomings of a PC because modern HW still has to be configured to look like a computer architecture from the 80's.

Apple choose NOT to use a BIOS for its Intel Macs. Apple does not have any legacy PC software or PC operating system to worry about and it was a decision that was easy to make and makes the HW platform looks a bit simpler and more sane. You also skip the licensing costs and development costs required to maintain a BIOS to make your custom HW look like a PC. Believe me, the PC BIOS is not a fun thing to maintain, it is complex to maintain and develop. I was a BIOS engineer for many years. I developed using the Award and Phoenix BIOS for my companys' single board custom computers. a BIOS is a piece of sh*t worse then your worse software programming nightmare. It is written in all assembler and you are very constrained in what you do and how you go about doing it, all the time working in 16 bit real mode.

It is possible to boot Windows on an Intel Mac, but you would have to figure out a way to reconfigure the Intel Mac so that it may run something equivelent to what a BIOS does prior to loading Windows. This is a lot of work because the Mac firmware has already configured the HW so that it can load Mac OS X and most likely it does NOT look like a PC. Out of reset, the hardware in a modern PC, is NOT PC compatible. This is a VERY important point to understand. I will say it again. Out of power on reset, the HW in a modern PC, is NOT PC compatible. A BIOS is required to be run to make it look like a PC compatible and to provide BIOS SW API calls to allow a PC compatible OS to be boot strapped. The easiest way to do this is to take over and reprogram the bootrom/flash in the computer with a BIOS, replacing Apple's firmware with a PC BIOS. This will most likely require desoldering a surface mounted part with a pretty high pitch, solderiing on a socket and then trial and error reprogramming of a flash part and placing it in and out of the socket.

I would argue that this is not worth doing or spending time on this effort as you can go out a buy a cheap PC and run Windows if that is what you really require. Also, It is my belief that Microsoft will offer Virtual PC for Mac OS X/Intel which will run just as good and fast as a PC running native Windows running as an application under Mac OS X.
 

OregonAlex

New member
btw, for runing Windows Apps I can generally get away with using Microsoft Remote Desktop client to control my PC laptop from my Macs. That way I use the Mac and run Windows Applications in a Mac Application Window without worried about Windows compatibility. It really is a Windows box inside of a Mac Application. This has the added advantage that as I move from Mac to Mac, I pick up where I left off on the PC no matter if I am sitting in front of my desktop Mac or my laptop Mac. Or sitting in front of the actual PC that I am controllering. Did I mention how much I like Microsoft Remote Access in XP Pro?? :thumb:
 

XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Master of Distraction
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Good points on the BIOS Alex. Apple just changed the hardware spec on the new intel machines so even the earlier developer hardware now has to be updated.

I hope VMWare comes out with a good virtualization package as that would be nice. I'm not a big fan of Virtual PC.

Apple does make some of the nicest hardware around. They generally make a fairly solid and aesthetically pleasing machine.

IMO, this is one of those changes that is best holding off on until version 2 if you can afford it. But I'm not a realy tech nut anymore so if you have to have the latest then you better run out and get one.

PB
 

Melensdad

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OregonAlex said:
Actually Bob, I hate to say it but Apple has been very left since Steve Jobs took over. This was evident in the 2000 elections when Apple publically endorsed Al Gore.

Then again, considering their customer base of Artists, Photographers, Filmakers and Teachers this is not a stretch.

What I meant by my statement is that I don't consider one platform of computer to be any more or less political than the other. Both lean considerably to the left in what they endorse. I did not mean to imply that one was the platform of choice for the radical right, just that I don't consider them to be political eventhough the owners of the respective companies are.
 

OregonAlex

New member
PBinWA said:
I hope VMWare comes out with a good virtualization package as that would be nice. I'm not a big fan of Virtual PC.

Nice VMWare might be a good possibility. I generally dislike Virtual PC emulation also.. but this would a little different as you would be running Virual PC on the same architecture without any machine code emulation.
Not sure how many people have had a chance to ever do this with Virtual PC. I have but that was under NeXTSTEP running on x86. It was pretty much the same thing as running Windows natively on that x86 box. Not much emulation at all other then allow the resources of the computer to be shared by two operating system running at the same time like VMWare does.

Apple does make some of the nicest hardware around. They generally make a fairly solid and aesthetically pleasing machine.

PBinWA said:
IMO, this is one of those changes that is best holding off on until version 2 if you can afford it. But I'm not a realy tech nut anymore so if you have to have the latest then you better run out and get one.

PB
I agree 100%. I wish Bob good luck on his purchase and hope that Apple is getting as good at building new generation computers as Toyota is at cars.
It sounds like Intel helped Apple quite a bit on the motherboard design and rumor has it that Intel will be designing AND building the next generation "Pro" Desktop for Apple. Not sure how many people know that Intel builds a good percentage of the x86 servers in the world. Same computer designs with custom customer casing.. for IBM, Dell, Gateway, HP/Compaq. These companies differentiate themselves through branding.
 

XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Master of Distraction
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Interesting insight from Bob Cringley's 2006 Predictions:

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20060112.html

3) But Apple WILL make some inroads against Microsoft. The new Intel Macs will run Windows XP unofficially, and Apple Support acknowledges that they are only days from running XP officially, too. So Apple finally has a solid argument why Windows-centric companies and homes should consider trying a Mac. The best case, though, says that Apple sells an additional million units, which aren't enough for Steve Jobs, so I see him going into a kind of stealth competition with Microsoft.
Here's how I believe it will work. Apple won't offer versions of OS X for generic Intel hardware because the drivers and the support obligation would be too huge. But just as you can buy a shrink-wrapped copy of 10.4 for your iMac, they'll gladly sell you a shrink-wrapped Intel version intended for an Intel Mac, but of course YOU CAN PUT IT ON ANY MACHINE YOU LIKE. The key here is to offer no guarantees and only limited support, patterned on the kind you get for most Open Source packages -- a web site, forums, download section. and a wiki. Apple will help users help themselves. With two to three engineers and some outreach to hackers and hardware makers, Apple could put together an unofficial program that could easily attract two to three million Windows users per year to migrate their old machines to the new OS. Imagine the profit margins of three engineers effectively generating $300-plus million per year in sales.
 

OregonAlex

New member
Not sure how running "hacked" versions of Mac OS X on a generic PC are going generate revenue for Apple. I wouldn't hold by breath that people are going to run out and buy a retail boxed version of Mac OS X if they already have a hacked version floating around on the net with hacked drivers.

If I was in Apple's shoes and was thinking about providing some kind of unffocial hack, then be by providing a App to allow people to run XP as an application under Mac OS X.. simliar to Virtual PC but without machine code emulation as that is not necessary. This would still encourage people to go out an buy the retail boxed version of Mac OS X and continue to buy Mac HW.

getting a hacked version of Mac OS X itself which runs on Generic HW will do nothing for them except hurt them.
 
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Doc

Bottoms Up
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I like the idea of being able to try out the Mac OS on my current i386 hardware. If it wasn't to expenssive I'd buy it. Not sure if Apple really wants to sell their OS this way but I could see them making huge inroads on Microsoft if they did.
 

XeVfTEUtaAqJHTqq

Master of Distraction
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It also gives developers access to the OS that might not otherwise be willing to invest in the proprietary hardware. If I can just load a VM of Mac OSX and port my code in that then I'm more likely to do it. As it stands I'm not planning to develop software for the Mac if I leave my current employer. The market is just too small to justify buying a seperate machine. However, if I can boot a virtual machine then I'd probably do it.

Apple Corp is worth more than Dell because of the iPod not the Mac OS. The iPod is where Apple is making their money at the moment.
 

OregonAlex

New member
something else to consider. IMHO the Mac OS X user base is more likely to buy the software instead of pirate it.
 

Melensdad

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The new Apple MacBookPro arrived this morning. It took less than an hour to move all may programs, data, settings, etc from the old computer to the new one. I was amazed, just connect a FireWire cable from on to the other, click a couple buttons and everything happened automatically. I've been out of the office all day so I didn't get much chance to play with it yet, but so far it seems very fast and responsive on the couple of things I've played with.

The WiFi is more sensative giving me greater range from the base station, that I can already see as a positive difference. The screen is MUCH brighter too.
 

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Melensdad

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Actually both were turned on in the photograph, but they had different images on the screen. I took the photo while I was transferring the data. But even if both screens were displaying the same image, the new screen is at least 50% brighter. While I was running my little 12" PowerBook at 100% brightness, I actually turned down the brightness on the MacBookPro laptop.
 
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