In article <1133417695.338693.91350@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.c om>,
"abpp" wrote:

> Finally, the announcement of non-Apple PPC laptops!!
>
> http://www.genesippc.com/press.php?date=20051129

Aha, now we know why Apple are moving to to Intel CPUs ...
--
W. Oates
"I thought I was the last son of Krypton,
but you people keep popping up." -- Clark Kent

Not quite, I don't think. My guess is that IBM looked for new PPC
customers after Apple switched to Intel.

Apple's current hardware goals were more in line with Intel's processor
vision. It made sense to switch.

That and, really, the PPC chips just aren't that great for mobile
computing.

well not quite as that is a ppc603 cpu in that laptop so I don't know
what apple would be worried about

Warren Oates wrote:
> In article <1133417695.338693.91350@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.c om>,
> "abpp" wrote:
>
>
>>Finally, the announcement of non-Apple PPC laptops!!
>>
>>http://www.genesippc.com/press.php?date=20051129
>
>
> Aha, now we know why Apple are moving to to Intel CPUs ...

Actually, the design of this chip is great for mobile computing.

This one is made on the MIPS architecture with an embedded design for
low power-consumption and heat dissipation. MIPS chips is what they use
in Windows CE devices, Cisco routers, the Nintendo 64 console, the Sony
PlayStation 1 & 2 consoles, and PSP.


tonytoepfer@gmail.com wrote:
>.
>.
>.
> That and, really, the PPC chips just aren't that great for mobile
> computing.

Well, the Freescale MPC5200 is just based on the PPC MPC603e. The
MPC5200 is an embedded design with a lot more perks specially made for
mobile and small size systems.


Jef Tenner wrote:
> well not quite as that is a ppc603 cpu in that laptop so I don't know
> what apple would be worried about

tonytoepfer@gmail.com writes:
>Apple's current hardware goals were more in line with Intel's processor
>vision. It made sense to switch.

My guess then is that Apple's current hardware goals are to reduce
their hardware and firmware development staff. I was wondering why
they had not done that when they switched from the 68k, but at least
this gave us some nice affordable PPC hardware for installing Linux
on.

>That and, really, the PPC chips just aren't that great for mobile
>computing.

The PPC74xx chips used in current Apple laptops seem to be just as
great for mobile computing as any of the Pentium chips. They may not
have the best performance, but they are pretty good wrt power
consumption.

And the chips by P.A. Semi look like they will be very nice for mobile
computing, if they are delivered on time.

Followups set to comp.os.linux.powerpc

- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed
anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at Most things have to be believed to be seen
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html

In article <2005Dec4.152628@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at>,
anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) wrote:

> My guess then is that Apple's current hardware goals are to reduce
> their hardware and firmware development staff. I was wondering why
> they had not done that when they switched from the 68k, but at least
> this gave us some nice affordable PPC hardware for installing Linux
> on.

At the time, most were expecting a clean RISC victory over CISC. The
PowerPC partners expected the PowerPC architecture to take off and take
over Windows from x86; Apple thought they were just skipping the
intermediate chip.

People underestimated Intel's ability to redesign their chips while
keeping backwards compatibility. Eventually Intel fell for the same
trap, and it was AMD that kept the x86 instruction set going.

So here we are.

(It's too bad. I really don't like working on little endian chips. Oh
well.)

-- Steve

On 1 Dec 2005 13:15:44 -0800
tonytoepfer@gmail.com wrote:

> Not quite, I don't think. My guess is that IBM looked for new PPC
> customers after Apple switched to Intel.
>

It uses Freescale, not IBM CPUs.