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Osborning the Mac, or not

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Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#131

Post by Eric_WVGG »

lunixbochs wrote: post #41
egypturnash wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: On a desktop machine, there’s no benefit in lower power dissipation and slimmer bodies If you’re in a hot climate then every little bit helps. Lower your power bill due both to lower consumption on the part of your computer and due to the AC coming on that much less. Run the computers fan less. Maybe even have a Mini that does a surprising amount of what you’d buy a Pro for. Make the iMac that much more of a fl…

> On a desktop machine, there’s no benefit in lower power dissipation and slimmer bodies The obvious win for me is shipping multiple times as many cores in the same TDP. If Apple used a chiplet strategy and good interconnect to make scaling easy - imagine a 16-core Mac Mini, 64-core iMac Pro, and something obscene (256 cores?) in a Mac Pro.

Exactly. If Intel's 3ghz cpu eats 262W and emits 895 BTU/h, and Apple's passively cooled ARM laptop chip eats 130W and 450 BTU/h (completely made up numbers), how fast would Apple's ARM chip run with active cooling and 250W?

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#132

Post by Cthulhu_ »

saagarjha wrote: post #106
kstenerud wrote: post #97

It's actually a brilliant move by Apple. After the new machines are released, all Mac app store apps will just magically work because they were recompiled behind the scenes by Apple to run on ARM. Only independent releases (stuff not in the app store) will have to deal with the shit show, which will also push more developers to the Apple tax. For regular Mac users (who are already using the app store for everything),…

> After the new machines are released, all Mac app store apps will just magically work because they were recompiled behind the scenes by Apple to run on ARM. That would be really magical; this is essentially impossible.

It's not though; when submitting a native app to the app store, at least for iOS you're sending them an intermediate version; a version that can be compiled and repackaged by Apple for a specific CPU, e.g. 32 or 64 bits. They will also grab the assets intended for that platform, e.g. regular images for small screens, 2x images for retina and 3x images for iPad screens.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate_representation

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#133

Post by als0 »

mikece wrote: post #116

1. Apple designed chips are already faster per-core than a top-end MacBook Pro. 2. There's no reason dedicated ASIC modules for specialized tasks (like video rendering) can't be connected by Thunderbolt 3 just as external video/compute modules are now. 3. There's no reason a dedicated x86-64 dongle can't be sold for ARM-powered Macs that need to run software that hasn't been ported yet. It would be a spectacular coup…

> 3. There's no reason a dedicated x86-64 dongle can't be sold for ARM-powered Macs that need to run software that hasn't been ported yet. It would be a spectacular coup if those x86-64 dongles had chips made by AMD but I digress...

Fun suggestion, so I'll bite :-) would a USB-C dongle actually be a speed improvement compared to host dynamic binary translation? Especially since all RAM operations would need to be funneled over I/O...

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#134

Post by kwhitefoot »

mikece wrote: post #116

1. Apple designed chips are already faster per-core than a top-end MacBook Pro. 2. There's no reason dedicated ASIC modules for specialized tasks (like video rendering) can't be connected by Thunderbolt 3 just as external video/compute modules are now. 3. There's no reason a dedicated x86-64 dongle can't be sold for ARM-powered Macs that need to run software that hasn't been ported yet. It would be a spectacular coup…

Takes me back to the Apple IIe that I used to develop 6502 controllers with in assembler. It had a Z80 add on that ran CP/M and Wordstar that I used for writing the documentation.

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#135

Post by Cthulhu_ »

egypturnash wrote: post #10
egypturnash wrote: post #4

I’m just real glad that my personal upgrade cycle is at the point where I won’t be looking for a new computer until at least the second year of ARM Macs, when most show-stopping bugs should be ironed out of the OS and the Adobe tools I spend most of my work time in. I was an early adopter of PPC and OSX, I’m not gonna sit there trying to get work done via the old-cpu emulation again.

Also: On a desktop machine, there’s no benefit in lower power dissipation and slimmer bodies If you’re in a hot climate then every little bit helps. Lower your power bill due both to lower consumption on the part of your computer and due to the AC coming on that much less. Run the computers fan less. Maybe even have a Mini that does a surprising amount of what you’d buy a Pro for. Make the iMac that much more of a fl…

Yup, and if they reduce power consumption (and heat generation) per core, they can cram more in the same device without having to upgrade the cooling or power supply, and they'll have to throttle less if temperature limits are reached. It's always worthwhile to get more performance-per-watt.

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#136

Post by Cthulhu_ »

tyingq wrote: post #7

I'd worry more about Apple iOSing the Mac.

I do worry; some years ago they added some features to MacOS that made it look like they were headed towards a touch screen interface, convergence with their mobile products - Launchpad, mainly, which I hate and never use and I don't think there are many people that do. I mean yeah, using Finder to list applications beyond what's in the bar is crude at best, but it works fine for me. I don't use Launchpad and have the application bar hidden most of the time; spotlight works for me for 99% of my use cases.

But that's just one piece of anecdata. I prefer my MacOS to remain roughly how it is now.

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#137

Post by mprev »

lucideer wrote: post #124
mprev wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it's a laptop, I'm quite the fan of having as much as possible built into the machine as a single unit. That's the point of the form factor, after all. I think the last thing the MacBooks need are more dongles.

Dongles for vital functions every user will have an ongoing need for are a problem. Dongles for legacy functions in the process of deprecation that some users may not want/need seems sensible.

I suppose it depends on how quickly they go from "Apple says this legacy" to actual legacy tech.

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#139

Post by microtonal »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #132
saagarjha wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After the new machines are released, all Mac app store apps will just magically work because they were recompiled behind the scenes by Apple to run on ARM. That would be really magical; this is essentially impossible.

It's not though; when submitting a native app to the app store, at least for iOS you're sending them an intermediate version; a version that can be compiled and repackaged by Apple for a specific CPU, e.g. 32 or 64 bits. They will also grab the assets intended for that platform, e.g. regular images for small screens, 2x images for retina and 3x images for iPad screens. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermed…

Chris Lattner:

Bitcode is not a magic solution, though. You can’t take a 32-bit app, for example, and run it on a 64-bit device. That kind of portability isn’t something that Bitcode can give you, notably because that is something that’s visible in C. As you’re writing C code, you can write #ifdef pointer size equals 32, and that’s something that Bitcode can’t abstract over. It’s useful for very specific, low-level kinds of enhancements, but it isn’t a panacea that makes everything magically portable.

https://atp.fm/205-chris-lattner-interview-transcript

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#140

Post by unicornfinder »

slantyyz wrote: post #105
jedberg wrote: post #19

Everyone here is very positive that the transition will go smoothly based on their last few transitions being fairly successful. I'm a bit more skeptical. Back then, their desktop/laptop business line was much more important to them. They needed it to go well. They were also a niche player and couldn't afford to lose more market share to PCs/Windows. But now, they barely care about their desktop/laptop revenue (being…

>> their last few transitions being fairly successful. Their last transition is specifically what brought me to the Mac after having been away for a decade. I switched to Mac exactly because they were going x86, because I knew I'd be able to virtualize Windows (although it took a year to happen), which was a win-win for me. I'm guessing a lot of people who used Windows at work plus developers on Linux wanting a nice…

Honestly, I don't think that many will.

Back then Mac software support wasn't nearly as good as it is now - I think Apple is in a much better position to drop x86 support.

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