On Tuesday, June 07, 2005, at 08:57AM, simon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Thinking about it, he has done this before. when NeXT computer stopped >making hardware and NeXTSTEP became Openstep, they switched also from >motorola to intel (or from black hardware to white.. ) before, NeXTSTEP >could run on 4 different platforms, NeXT hardware (motorola black >hardware), Sun supersparcs, HP 9000 series and intel pc's so the >knoledge to make cross-platform software was in their hands. So Intel compatibility was already there. It always has been. I suspect Steve Jobs may even have planned to use Intel at Apple long before now, but couldn't get the deal straight with Intel, or was encouraged by PPC development to stick with PPC. >and when >apple took over NeXT (actually Apple sold itself to NeXT... :-) you saw >Openstep develop into Mac OS X, running on just one platform (but don't >forget DARWIN) > >so the knoledge is there > >they must be testing intel hardware now for years, so there must be a >Mac OSX around for intel... There has been a Mac OS X for Intel as long there has been Mac OS X. What is more is goes back further. The Rhapsody project, which was Apple's development of OpenSTEP, was Dual Platform and ran on Intel PCs (with limited hardware support) and PPC Macs alike. The project continued publicly as a dual platform development right up until OS X Server 1.0 (note that's not 10.x) when it went Mac only. From there I suspect the Intel development went inside Apple but continued in parallel with the Mac PPC development. I sat down after the Keynote and had a long hard think about all this and realised it all makes rather a lot of sense, really. Suspiciously so, in fact. Steve Jobs purportedly vetoed the move to Intel in 2000 sighting too much disruption to developers. That reason was they were still on OS 9 at the time and no structure was in place for the move. All the time we have been lapping up OS X on PPC hardware, they have been developing the transitive systems necessary to make PPC and Intel software cooperate on one machine with an Intel CPU. -- Mark Benson http://homepage.mac.com/markbenson -- Vintage Macs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Vintage Macs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[email protected]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/vintage.macs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com
