[rescue] Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips

[Ryan Thoryk]

On Sun, 5 Jun 2005, Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:

> On Sun, 5 Jun 2005, Andrew Weiss wrote:
>
> > Apple machines haven't had a ROM in hardware for a long time.
>
> I think you mean that Apple machines haven't had the toolbox in ROM in a
> long time.  Without ROM, you'd have to toggle in the boot code on front-
> panel switches.

Macs have OpenFirmware which is a standard firmware architecture mostly
developed by Sun (Sun's implementation in their machines is called
OpenBoot).  I don't know how new the OpenFirmware is in the newer Macs,
but my old 8600/250 has an ancient version 1x haha (while my Sun Ultra 2
which is about the same age has version 3x; I haven't looked at the
version numbers in a while - but then again Sun provided more firmware
updates for that until late 1999).  The boot process on New World Macs
(pre-OS boot process) is almost completely identical to Sun machines.

I have a bad feeling about Apple adopting x86 chips, mostly because the
PowerPC platform is a fairly clean architecture right now (this reminds me
of when Apple was interested in adopting the Alpha chip, but then the CEO
of DEC turned them down, which was a stupid move for him haha - that's
more of the reverse though).  They eventually went with IBM's workstation
processor line, the PowerPC platform which was a stripped down version of
the POWER processors.

>
> > All New World machines use a ROM in RAM file for Classic MacOS and OS
> > X doesn't use a ROM file at all.
>
> That's strictly for the toolbox.
>
> --
> Jonathan Patschke  ) "It's alright for someone to sleep past noon every
> Elgin, TX         (   once in a while.  That's what it means to be a
> USA                )  free human being."       --Roger Smith, The Big O
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