So, there are many rumours floating about regarding a port of MacOS X for the intel x86 platform (look about halfway down the linked page - their link to more detail is unfortunately (conveniently?) broken).
At first I thought this was probably people getting their wires crossed about the Darwin Open Source code that Apple ships for developers, where some of the basic code of MacOS X is freely available, and is currently being ported to i386 by the Open Source community.
However, this article implies that something a bit more serious is going on, and that Mr Jobs might be quietly hedging his bets.
I was hoping that Apple would go 64-bit with MacOS X on the IBM Power4 architecture (a rumour I had heard at work), but it seems the velocity engine capability is giving IBM headaches. Motorola have undoubtedly been more than a bit shit in the CPU development stakes, but if Apple just jump on the Intel clock-speed bandwagon it would be a shame; there was always an element of superiority and class about the Mac processor family (even if they aren't as powerful any more).
At first I thought this was probably people getting their wires crossed about the Darwin Open Source code that Apple ships for developers, where some of the basic code of MacOS X is freely available, and is currently being ported to i386 by the Open Source community.
However, this article implies that something a bit more serious is going on, and that Mr Jobs might be quietly hedging his bets.
I was hoping that Apple would go 64-bit with MacOS X on the IBM Power4 architecture (a rumour I had heard at work), but it seems the velocity engine capability is giving IBM headaches. Motorola have undoubtedly been more than a bit shit in the CPU development stakes, but if Apple just jump on the Intel clock-speed bandwagon it would be a shame; there was always an element of superiority and class about the Mac processor family (even if they aren't as powerful any more).