“In 2001, Transitive Technologies demonstrated a technology called ‘Dynamite’ which allowed code written for one CPU to be run efficiently on another CPU. This “translator” was said to dynamically translate and accelerate binaries — claiming to provide substantial performance over traditional “emulators”. Recent numbers claim 80% performance matching,” ‘arn’ writes for MacRumors.
“According to an unconfirmed report, there is evidence that Apple has had special internal seeds of Tiger which support this technology for the x86 platform. Beyond allowing Tiger to run on x86, perhaps more significantly is the potential to also allow existing Mac OS X applications to be run on the x86 (PC) platform without recompilation. Otherwise, requiring developers to recompile all current Mac OS X applications has been seen as a major hurdle in providing Mac OS X on the PC,” ‘arn’ writes. “Other arguments against such a transition would, of course, still hold. Apple has traditionally been a hardware company, with the bulk of revenue coming from Mac hardware. The past few years, however, has seen software become a larger portion of their revenue.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “Dynamite?” If Apple did release Mac OS X ‘Tiger’ for x86, “Hydrogen Bomb” would be more like it for the PC industry. Everything would change. As MacDailyNews’ own SteveJack explained nearly a year ago, iPod does much to help free up Apple’s dependence on Mac hardware revenues to explore more radical opportunities such as this idea. See related article below.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
iPod success opens door to Mac OS X on Intel – March 04, 2004
I think we should assume that “arn” is a very wise and knowledgeable person who can be trusted with to provide us with the latest and greatest news accurately. Uh, yeah, right. Who’s “arn?”
MDN Magic word: been, as in MDN has “been” taken by “arn.”
“Beyond allowing Tiger to run on x86, perhaps more significantly is the potential to also allow existing Mac OS X applications to be run on the x86 (PC) platform without recompilation.” If the goal of Apple is to entice Windows users over to the Mac platform, the statement above must be reversed.
I’m sure Apple’s had x86 versions running internally for years. They’d be dumb not to in case the Power Consortium died. Supporting all kinds of PCs would be a nightmare and dilute the Apple brand now that there is some certainty in the Power PC.
However, why not pick a single vendor – Sony – on which to run Tiger? We saw the Sony CEO up there on the stage with SJ. Sony is more of a boutique PC brand.
Although, I agree with satori’s comments about using AMD or Intel chip internally as most likely.
NOT
THIS IS OLD NEWS!!!!
Ever since Apple took over NeXT and started using OSX they had an OS that ran on the Intel architecture. If you remember the first Developer release for OS X was shipped to run on Intel (gotta get one of those one ebay).
Apple has continued to maintain the ability to run on Intel just in case. I don’t think they would actually productize this, but anything is possible eve if it doesn’t make any sense.
It’s no secret that Apple has had internal builds of OS X that run on x86. It’s been that way since the beginning. Remember, when NeXT was purchased, OpenStep/NextStep ran, perhaps exclusively at that point, on x86. It was probably more work to get it back on PPC than x86. I agree with what others have said, it’s probably an internal version that is kept alive as a “plan B”, incase IBM ever hits a ceiling (which it actually looks like IBM, Intel, and AMD have all hit at this point) and the prospects look better elsewhere. Steve Jobs even said a year ago or so that they were keeping their options open.
That being said, I also agree with those who say that if they ever did release it for x86, I’m certain they would limit it to either producing the x86 boxes themselves, or partnering with a few choice companies, and the boxes would have to be built to their exact specifications. The prices would surely be comparable to Apple’s offerings too, so it wouldn’t eat into their sales. That’s the only way I can see it happening.
More likely HP & Sony will bring out PPC boxes to run OS X Tiger with their own branding co-branded with Apple’s.
Apple will allow these ‘cloners’ to have OS X but only for the right price, and only with approved machines and pricing controls not to knock Apple out of the market completely.
They don’t want to be outdone again like they were by the likes of UMAX and Power Computing
If it did appear on Intel CPUs, it’d be for specific hardware configurations like NeXT had for the Intel version of OpenStep Mach.
That way they’d avoid the driver issues and HP would be able to sell the kit once again…
“”According to an unconfirmed report …. “
Yeah, right. Call us when it is confirmed. ;-
x86 Whoopty Do. I’m looking forward to OSX on a cell processor.
I want this to happen, and I want them to release it to all the folks (like me) who build their own computers.
I deal with Windows XP now (but mostly running open-source/free programs like FireFox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, Trillian, iTunes, Wings3D), but obviously would much prefer OS X (why else would I subject myself to hanging out on a Mac news page?)
But y’all are right, it would probably only be HP and Sony clones running AMD and Intel (AMD is the stuff though).
As a graphic designer, I will always push for commoditization of the tools I use. Sounds stupid, but I firmly beleive that if everyone had Adobe CS, and an SLR, and whatever else, those with talent will still prevail. This is opposite of what the CEO of Luxology (modo) thinks, but then again, he creates and sells software, whereas I buy and use software. We’ll probably always differ. That, and I’m cheap.
Intel and M$ are already “designing” simpler computers for their M$ media center concept and the “home” computer concept. One thing you will hear from Gates is “simplicity, simplicity, simplicity”. He is directly speaking about Windoze Media Edition but they also want to see the box it goes on locked down also.
In other words, the PC of the past is not going to be the PC of the future. The PC of the future will be much more Mac like in hardware and software.
There may be a window of opportunity before Long(time waiting)Horn, to blunt a Wintel iniative, with X on an x86 box. Perhaps to replace the Media Center edition on Media Center PC’s, once the next generation of Intel/PC hardware arrives.
I for one welcome our Intel based overlords.
iHUNG
Shut the Hell up!.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> You wanted windows…well can have it!
I like the idea of OS X running on the wintel platform, but slower. Like VPC. Then pc people can buy and run OS X, see that they like it, and decide that they want a real mac to run OS X like should be.
This will only be true if Apple sues MacRumors for releasing top secret confidential information.
Recompiling applications is not a “major hurdle”.
I did years of development on the Mac OS X predecessors, NeXTStep and OpenStep, which ran on
Motorola 68030/68040, intel x86 (80486 and up),
HP PA/RISC, Sun SPARC, Motorola 8800, and finally PowerPC.
The Mach-O executable file format used by Mac OS X supports “Multi-Architecture Binaries” (MAB).
MAB Mach-O binaries store the compiled machine code for
different CPU architectures in separate segments of the
Mach-O file. The program loader loads the segment that
is appropriate for the current CPU. This is similar to
the “Fat binaries” Apple used to support both the 68000
and PowerPC, and will certainly be used by Apple to
support executables for both 32-bit and 64-bit PowerPC.
The gnu compiler suite used by Apple supports cross-
compilation for the supported CPUs, and the libtool
packages the results into a single MAB executable. All
of this is automated by the build environment. Users
(and installers) could “strip” executables of unwanted
CPU architectures in the same way they can currently
strip them of unwanted localizations.
The software developer needed to make sure that the
software made no assumptions about byte-endianness
(big-endian vs little-endian) and now word size
(32-bit vs 64-bit).
Supporting the same OS running on different CPU
architectures is MUCH easier than supporting different
OSs running on the same architecture.
The significant advantage Apple has is its limited and
advanced hardware support. Many of the A/V, science,
and math applications for OS X make use of the AltiVec
vector processor on PowerPC, and AltiVec-specific code
cannot be easily “recompiled” for x86. When NeXTStep
3.1 was ported x86, much of the music and sound support
was lost because the PCs lacked the sophisticated
digital signal processor (DSP) that all NeXT machines
had built-in.
MDN is apparently aloof of the fact that Steve Jobs is first and foremost committed to the Mac. He wants to sell better COMPUTERS, not just better OSes. OS X running in the archaic realm that is PC configurations would be little like the experience of OS X on a Mac. Windows is the evitability of any OS that tries to make sense of PC idiocy.
Steve is well aware of this, most level headed thinkers are well aware of this, but apparently the superobvious escapes a lot of other people.
Do we have to go down this road again? Why do you have to get people stirred up about this again?
BTW, your the pop-unders crashed Safari the first time I tried to read this article.
There is one possible scenario for this. Imagine that over time, current trends continue so the iPod and its derivatives take over, providing the majority of the revenue and growth for Apple. Apple’s computer hardware revenues dwindle as Apple market share continues to drop. With the hardware revenues insignificant, they no longer exist as a barrier to selling an x86 version, and Apple is ready to go with the version they’ve been hiding in the lab. People are then able to run OS X on anything, but have to put up with crappy non-Apple hardware configurations.
Just an idea!!
Why would Apple want to get on the x86 bandwagon? That wagon has come to the end of it’s road. If anything Apple would be moveing toward an up and coming architecture, not a dead one. Five years ago, it would have made sense, but not now. They have to be thinking about what hardware will be cutting edge in 3 years and work toward that, and the x86 will really be old news by then.
I’d be more interested to hear about MS porting Longhorn to the PPC platform.
This rumour of Mac OS on Intel does the rounds every month. Ho hum.
(btw, project Star Trek was for Mac OS 7 to run on Intel. OPENSTEP already ran on Intel in the early ’90s… and very early builds of OS X (pre-candy gui) ran on certain PC’s as well as certain Mac’s)
if OS X does get released on Intel, I’d be surprised if it wasn’t built for a narrow band of hardware, such as certain graphics cards, dvd drives etc.
Yeah, whatever. Transitive has been announcing that they’ve achieved this for about five years now, and I’ve long since relegated them to the “vaporware” category. I’ll believe it when I see it.
I would rather see OS X run natively on IBM’s Power hardware.
Just remember that stomping the competition also means you may get something on your shoes.
I love the idea of Tiger sweeping through corporate america, and replacing Windoze on all of those desktops. Don’t know if I want to start seeing MacTel, or AppTel, or InOSX inside stickers though.
If I can have the cake and eat it too, I don’t mind. But please don’t let these beautiful Macs go away.