no kidding whats worse is I just baught this a few weeks ago if they ditch
intel lines of macs I am screwed and stuff won't be conpatible
73
hank smith
amateur radio call sign:
KE7IEF
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hanksmith5
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hanksmith5
----- Original Message -----
From: "Travis Siegel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "General discussions on all topics relating to the use of Mac OS X by
theblind" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, August 03, 2006 2:14 PM
Subject: Re: mac may be switching platforms from intel to spark
Just my two cents worth, based on nothing but observation and guesswork.
Will apple switch to sparc? Could be, if they do, they'll probably go
back to ppc and wrok the conversion from there. It would have made sence
for them to make this switch in the first place instead to intels, since
as the article mentions, sparc archetecture is much closer to ppc than is
intel. This is why the intel announcement took so many folks by
surprise.
The sparc one really doesn't surprise me, though it does beg the
question,
Why waste all that time porting to intel just to throw it away and go
where they should have gone in the first if they really were looking for
a processor switch?
I'm thinking Apple is feeling a bit lost. Their performance gains
weren't what they expected for the switch to intel (thus all the dual
core chips put into the macs, to bring performance up where they wanted
and expected it to be in the first place)
Will sparc give apple more bang for the buck?
Well, yes and no.
Sparc processors certainly will help the speed of the machines, but the
price of the sparc processors is probably a considerable chunk more than
intel processors of similar speeds. This isn't going to make macs any
cheaper, and in fact, will probably close to double prices.
Add the memory used in sparc machines (I don't remember what kind it is,
but it won't fit in a pc running an intel motherboard) and you've got a
price crunch waiting to happen.
It may be the right thing to do, but I don't believe it's the smart thing
to do at this point.
Apple should hang on to the intel crowd for a couple years, to boost
confidence in it's product lines. Give it 3-5 years first, then make the
sparc transition.
This won't help apple become the undisputed leader in quality graphical
processing they've had for years, but it will bring them a lot closer to
the mainstream, and probably win them a large number of converts. Then
when the new switch happens, a nice segment of the new converts will be
happy to come with them. Making such a change now is going to alienate a
*lot* of users who were looking forward to the intel compatibility side
of macs.
This is a very poor business decision on apple's part at this point in
time.
I have more to say, but I'll cut off the rant here, to prevent
elaboration that really isn't necessary anyhow. The essential points
have been covered.
--
No virus found in this incoming message.
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Version: 7.1.394 / Virus Database: 268.10.5/406 - Release Date: 8/2/2006
