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

[Bill Bradford]

On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 09:59:27AM -0500, Steve Hatle wrote:
> Now today I'm pissed. I guess I've moved to the "anger" stage, wherever that
> fits. Eff'ers. I guess I'll have to be like sambo and go buy one of the
> high-end "pre-sellout" boxes while I still can.
> And who knows, I may consider buying a Mactel box someday, but they'll have
> to sell me all over again. We'll see.

I'll probably be hated for this, but here's my take on it after sleeping on
it for a couple of days.

I have an iMac G5 (1.8Ghz, 17", purchased in November), a Mac Mini (purchased
in March), and an iBook G4 800Mhz 12.1, purchased back in August.  All of
these machines work *great* for what they do - heck, the iMac was an impulse
buy to replace a dual-867Mhz G4 tower that did the job just as well.

All of these machines provide me with a great work environment (mostly 
Terminal.app, SSH, and Firefox, along with iTunes/iPhoto, Photoshop 
Elements 3, etc).  I don't see needing or wanting to replace them for 
at *least* the next two years.  Until then, Apple will still be releasing
OS updates (and past that, too - when I watched the keynote last night, Steve
was very clear in "we have a very large installed base that we will continue
to support"), and software like PS Elements v4 will be released as fat
binaries as far as I know.

Once AppleCare on these boxes runs out in two years, the "x86 inside" Macs
should be in full swing.  At that time, I'll look at them and decide whether
to stick with my "old and outdated" (by then) hardware, or pick up the 
"latest and greatest".

I don't use a Mac to rage against the x86 machine.  Sure, I know that Intel
doesn't make the greatest CPUs out there - I've always been a fan of PPC and
SPARC.  However, if my applications are available for it, and it runs as good
as the systems I have now for the tasks I need to perform, I really *don't 
care* what CPU is inside.  I like the Mac for OS X (I *hated* OS9).

Sure, I've ranted about "Wintel" in the past - but look at the first part of
that, the "Win".  Windows.  Most people's bad impression of "x86" is due to
their bad experiences running Windows on the architecture.  Intel has a chance
here as well, to do some amazing/neat things with the Pentium D (and onward).

In short, sure I'm a little upset, because eventually new software for my
existing PPC machines will dry up.  However, by that time, I'll hopefully 
have moved onto whatever processor-de-jour that OS X runs on at the time,
and be just as happy with that work environment as I am with the one I have now.
My PowerPC machines at that time will be relegated to a "thanks for years of
hard work and productivity" corner of my Rescue storage, or perhaps even still
be in use.

(however, if Sun completely dumps SPARC for Opteron, *then* you'll see me 
*pissed*).

Bill

-- 
bill bradford
houston, texas