Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Windows NT for Power Macintosh

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 223 posts

Re: Windows NT for Power Macintosh

#71

Post by pndy »

faefox wrote: post #31
stahi wrote: post #22

Nostalgia reminds me of this: https://lowendmac.com/2014/next-openstep-and-the-triumphant-... Amelio and the rest of his senior staff began searching for a way out. They needed a new operating system to buoy their attempts to compete with the Wintel juggernaut. The same search had taken place several times before, but now the company was desperate. Limited Options Ultimately the list of possible targets was narrowed…

What I'd give for a glimpse of the timeline where Apple bought Be instead of NeXT.

Right innit? It's not just Apple using BeOS but wondering how everything else would be different. You actually need to... think different at this point, aye?

Re: Windows NT for Power Macintosh

#72

Post by lizknope »

badgersnake wrote: post #59
redox99 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a derivative? I'd say it's the latest version of Windows NT.

It’s the same codebase that was my point. Whether it’s still called Windows NT or whether that name died in the 90s can probably be argued either way.

I think XP is when the DOS based Win95/98/ME was merged with NT

Re: Windows NT for Power Macintosh

#73

Post by nullindividual »

_yb2s wrote: post #68

Can someone explain the context here? Surely NT is closed source and was never developed for macs, what actually is this? And what are the chances you can get software for it? Presumably most NT software was compiled for Intel only and closed source.

NT4 was developed for PowerPC architectures (and MIPS, Alpha). A large portion of the NT4 source code was leaked [0]. I'm not saying the author used the NT4 source code in any fashion, but I would imagine using such source would make life much easier to accomplish this task.

Or the author clean room reversed engineered the bootloader. Or there is enough information out there to forgo the need for any internal knowledge of Windows code.

The PPC code base was never explicitly targeted for Macs, but other systems from IBM/Motorola; but because it is a 'common' platform, the binaries themselves on the NT4 ISO do not need modification.

And yes, you can find the source code on GitHub. In multiple repos!

[0] https://www.neowin.net/news/exclusive-windows-2000--windows-...

Re: Windows NT for Power Macintosh

#74

Post by lizknope »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #33
nullindividual wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you getting this information? The PReP/CHRP was a venture by Apple, IBM, and Motorola (but primarily IBM) to allow companies to build OSes for a common platform. Apple didn't want to participate in the end. But like other ports of NT to MIPS and Alpha (Alpha enjoyed much more support until Compaq dropped support), the popularity was well beneath the dirt cheap in comparison x86 platform. https://en.wikipedi…

> AIX isn't exactly a desktop OS. If so, only artificially; AIX was born on a workstation and seems to still support running a graphical desktop environment.

AIX was the first Unix I ever used in 1991 on an IBM RT with the ROMP CPU

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_RT_PC

I wanted one on my desktop so bad. DOS/Win3.1 PCs were just so bad to me. Then I saw SunOS and really just wanted any Unix system on my desk. I bought a PC in 1994 just to install Linux.

Re: Windows NT for Power Macintosh

#75

Post by alwillis »

actionfromafar wrote: post #41
scelerat wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t think of a better acqui-hire than NeXT + Steve Jobs

You mean when NeXT bought Apple and forced Apple to finance the deal. A.K.A. that time when Steve Jobs acqui-hired Apple.

Apple looked at it as an acquisition, while NeXT looked at it as a merger.

NeXT didn’t buy Apple obviously, but Steve Jobs and his lieutenants took over the most important positions within Apple.

Which made sense given the situation Apple found itself in.

Re: Windows NT for Power Macintosh

#76

Post by nullindividual »

badgersnake wrote: post #59
redox99 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a derivative? I'd say it's the latest version of Windows NT.

It’s the same codebase that was my point. Whether it’s still called Windows NT or whether that name died in the 90s can probably be argued either way.

The marketing and front-facing name clearly died. The internal name did not.

Re: Windows NT for Power Macintosh

#77

Post by nailer »

postmodest wrote: post #70
faefox wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'd give for a glimpse of the timeline where Apple bought Be instead of NeXT.

I suspect that without Jobs, Apple is dead by 2002. Turned into an arm of, like, RIM. Then Google comes out with the Android phone and it's all over for everyone including Microsoft.

HTC G1 the original Android phone, was basically another sidekick. We’d have this shitty Android and WinMo for a decade longer and eventually things would get good.

Re: Windows NT for Power Macintosh

#78

Post by FMecha »

nullindividual wrote: post #19
FMecha wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because desktop PowerPC was unpopular for anything other than Mac, and PPC NT wasn't designed for Open Firmware. Though you can blame Microsoft's monopoly tactics - in which loyalty to x86 was the prime directive, alternative OSes on PPC Macs were not a widely accepted idea either - people stuck around with classic Mac OS, in (ultimately) vain hopes that Copland/Taligent would deliver.

Where are you getting this information? The PReP/CHRP was a venture by Apple, IBM, and Motorola (but primarily IBM) to allow companies to build OSes for a common platform. Apple didn't want to participate in the end. But like other ports of NT to MIPS and Alpha (Alpha enjoyed much more support until Compaq dropped support), the popularity was well beneath the dirt cheap in comparison x86 platform. https://en.wikipedi…

>Where are you getting this information?

From personal perception every time I read articles on Taligent, Copland, and Workplace OS (which did result in a demo PowerPC port of OS/2).

>This had nothing to do with Microsoft's monopoly.

Admittedly I had that comment in mind to pre-empt any potential narrativeposting.

Re: Windows NT for Power Macintosh

#79

Post by karlgkk »

alsetmusic wrote: post #40
mepian wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did end up releasing salvageable bits and pieces of Copland as Mac OS 8.

I saw Copland at MacWorld Expo Boston at Apple’s booth. It kernel panicked. We didn’t get to use it. But wow do I remember how exciting it was the first time I read about it in MacUser magazine. Basically some GUI mockups and promises of cool under-the-hood improvements, possibly the first time I was excited about future computing. Thank goodness they bought NeXT instead. They had no ability to manage projects at sca…

I'm tired of hearing "Tim Apple's Apple Can't Engineer".

VisionOS has some of the most incredible, coolest engineering I've seen in a long time, from top to bottom. Even if you're not interested in AR/VR, the writeups and sessions about the dual processor OS layout they've used, the scene and room graphing technology they've built, and the challenges of building ultra low latency pass through scene reconstruction and mapping are incredible.

Vision Pro might honestly be one of the technically coolest things built in the last 10 years, and I really hope they get the price down and fix some of the UX (weight, battery, etc), because it is something I use every day (and in fact, am writing this post on right now). It's for sure a Beta/DevKit/etc, and I wouldn't recommend the casual person to buy one, but again, on engineering chops alone, it is a masterpiece.

Post reply on HN