On Wed, 2005-06-08 at 11:52 +0800, James Devenish wrote: > Also, Martin Hill mentioned some reactions being "emotional", rather > than "logical". That's entirely true, but my own reactions are rooted in > logical problems, too. The contrast between the time I spend with > PC-type hardware vs other hardware (BIOS being the obvious show-stopper) > means my emotional reactions are based on bitter (perhaps overly) > experience.
Yeah... since it looks like Apple may use the PC BIOS, that's a worry. Modern PC BIOSes are much better, but nowhere near ENOUGH better. Personally, I was hoping they'd stick to OpenFirmware. If they're going to make their hardware incompatible (at least in that MacOS/X will require a mac), they may as well do it properly ;-) I guess they must want the option of dual-booting windows, or may want to reduce dev costs. I'd still be happier with OpenFirmware plus a BIOS compatibility layer, like what Intel did with EFI. I've inserted my comments below, in case my blather may be of some interest. > - My first question is: Do you think Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5 will be > installable as `fat' operating systems (i.e. a single disk image of > OS & Applications will work regardless of which platform it's used > with)? Likewise, will installers and updaters always give you the > option of installing `fat' (or will they always install fat)? I can't > remember the 68k/PPC transition clearly. If the only choice wasn't fat binary, you were usually offered "Fat binary" or "m68k only" then later "fat binary" or "ppc only". I don't recall running into many installers that didn't let you install a fat binary. A "fat OS" would definitely be interesting. You might want to say that louder, and in Apple's direction ;-) > - If we were to buy a set of Macs for a new deployment that would need > to last four years minimum, what prospects do we have that if a > computer breaks down in two years, we could actually find a drop-in > replacement? It is already hard enough to get three-month-old Mac > software to work with three-day-old Mac hardware. Aah, welcome to my personal hell. > - Will users' profiles and files works seamlessly regardless of whether > the user sits down in front of a PowerPC and Mactel box? In > *practice*, I mean. I.e. what is the level of risk that there's a > gap between Steve's theory and the real world. (Shock, horror.) I'd be very surprised if applications didn't make foolish endian assumptions about user profile data - "I won't need to byteswap this, it'll be the same endianness as the host CPU". I imagine some of that will get ironed out once users actually start migrating across, but the typical developer answer for "non-critical" data will probably be "delete your settings." > - I had a look at the Anantech article and Apple's migration guide. > Gems include: Mactel will not use OpenFirmware; Rosetta has a whole > heap of limitations in its support. Great, what are the prospects > that current Netboot, Office 2004, Adobe CS, and all the smaller apps > and utilities, are going to work in future? For Photoshop CS and Office 2004 - pretty good. I don't see anything in that list that precludes them working. As for netboot - nfi. > What is the likelihood > that publishers will release cost-free patches for their old apps to > enable them to run on Mactel if Rosetta cannot do the job? If it's like the m68k -> PPC days, some will do it for free, and some will require multi-thousand-dollar upgrades. Not that I'm looking at a particular DTP company with a name beginning with Q or anything. > Won't we > just get stuck in two year's time when we can't buy PowerPC? I doubt it, personally. m68k support hung on for a long while. I imagine support will remain until the user PPC base stops buying enough software ;-) . Even then, there's a decent chance some enterprising developer will come up with a Rosetta-lookalike based on something like QEmu to do x86->PPC. If Apple doesn't beat them to it, that is. > Why not > use OpenFirmware so that admins can use their existing skills and > tools? ... and not have to deal with the pain that is the PC BIOS. I guess they might use EFI ;-) as they have only said they're *not* using OpenFirmware so far. That doesn't answer the "existing skills and tools" part, though. I agree that this is unfortunate, though I guess they must want to be more compatible at the expense of some initial pain. I still wonder why they didn't go down the EFI route and provide a modified OpenFirmware with a PC BIOS compatibility layer. -- Craig Ringer
