Re: I hate Linux -- Apple is leading the standards charge on the

["Bryan J. Smith" <b.j.smith@ieee.org>]

On Sat, 2004-01-31 at 18:08, Mike Connor wrote:
> Were you around in the early '90s ?

Yes.  It was before Jobs came back.  Apple screwed up the company.
Now that Jobs is back, it's much better.

Yes, the clones are gone.  But it's much harder to have more than one
"industry standard" to clone from.  There was no way that Apple would
gain "economies of scale" by introducing a second architecture to clone,
and that was proven quite true.

The best bet for Apple is to stick with its "single hardware+software"
approach.  And that's what works.  It also works for Sun as well, but
more on the server end.**

At the same time, IBM has opened a new venue.  The PowerPC970 used in
the Apple G5 _is_ available outside of Apple.  Yes, Apple G5s still have
a proprietary firmware and computer organization, but the PowerPC970's
sale outside of just Apple will improve costs with an "economies of
scale" that is better than Apple had with the Motorola G3/G4.

And by now, _everyone_ should understand Motorola's 32-bit G3/G4 has
fallen behind _everyone's_ CPU designs.  IBM's PowerPC970 is based on
its Power4 _fork_ of the PowerPC.  It's 3x faster!

Long story short, IBM's first 64-bit processor design, the PowerPC 620,
_failed_, so IBM dropped 32-bit PowerPC compatiblity.  They released the
Power3 and left PowerPC for awhile.  The PowerPC970 is the _first_
64-bit Power to add back 32-bit PowerPC compatibility.  In a nutshell,
IBM figured out how to do it effectively without overcomplicating the
chip.

IBM is actually about to release its Power5 chip.  It has stated that it
will release a more commodity, PowerPC compatible version in 12-18
months.  IBM is now back to leading Apple's ICs, not Motorola.  Motorola
has lagged in performance for far too long.

[ **SIDE NOTE:  Sun _does_ allow SPARC clones.  SPARC is an IEEE
standard architecture.  One of the few OEMs who offer SPARC/Solaris
clones is Fujitsu/HAL.  IMHO, Fujitsu/HAL systems are _better_ than
Sun.  They are better designed and well ventilated, sometimes even
cheaper, although more spacious and not as pretty.  Fujitsu/HAL also
offers larger external (L2 or L3, depending on the model) caches on
their CPU modules, although you'll pay the premium for them.  Lastly, my
#1 reason why I like Fujitsu/HAL over Sun, they offer support options
which _include_ support of systems that have non-Fujitsu/HAL
hardware/software attached/installed.  Sun is mega-anal on not
supporting systems that have non-Sun hardware/software
attached/installed. ]


-- 
Bryan J. Smith, E.I. -- Engineer, Technologist, School Teacher
b.j.smith@ieee.org



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