If Longhorn runs on Power PC

I don't see it happening anytime soon because there would be an issue of backwards compatibility. This is why we haven't seen Itanium take off like Intel hoped it would (not to mention the fact that it's a nuclear reactor when it comes to heat and is quite expensive with no benefits).

From what I also remember, the reason MS stopped making PPC and Alpha versions of NT 4 was because they were running code that was optimized for x86 CISC processors. This meant that there had to be a conversion process to allow the code to be executed in a RISC environment (which I dare not get into....too much for this little blurb) which in turn made Windows NT slow on these processors. I may be simplifying this here, but that's what it basically boils down to.

Yes, the conversion for Apple from CISC to RISC was successful, but they are a company in control of the hardware and the software. It's much different on the Windows side, especially when Microsoft doesn't have control of the hardware as it does with the X-Box.
 
Unless that's why they bought Virtual PC... You have to remember that PPC processors are MUCH more efficient and at emulating other processors than good old Intel/AMD chips are.

Give this a read:
http://www.kernelthread.com/publications/virtualization/

Let's see what happens with Virtual PC this summer. It may be possible to write a small proc emulator such as QEMU (http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/) which is being used in the Mac WINE project. Good stuff happening! Not that I want to see MS start doing something right for a change, but very interesting and I am hopeful that this will push Apple to doing the same thing now that the cards are showing. Apple can do all of this very easily with their infrastructure and background with NeXT. I'm sure there a few cards up everyone's sleeves.
 
ylon said:
Unless that's why they bought Virtual PC... You have to remember that PPC processors are MUCH more efficient and at emulating other processors than good old Intel/AMD chips are.

Give this a read:
http://www.kernelthread.com/publications/virtualization/

Let's see what happens with Virtual PC this summer. It may be possible to write a small proc emulator such as QEMU (http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/) which is being used in the Mac WINE project. Good stuff happening! Not that I want to see MS start doing something right for a change, but very interesting and I am hopeful that this will push Apple to doing the same thing now that the cards are showing. Apple can do all of this very easily with their infrastructure and background with NeXT. I'm sure there a few cards up everyone's sleeves.
Click to expand...
M$ bought Connectix for other reasons. However, that does not mean that VPC can't be embedded in Longhorn. Windows NT was cross-platform. Alpha- or PPC-based port of WinNT ran Intel-binary apps as well as native apps. The did so because M$ licensed Insignia Solutions SoftWindows, which it embedded in its non-Intel ports of WinNT.
 
I expect Longhorn will run on multiple platforms including the PPC. Its all part of M$ .net strategy. The whole idea of .net is that apps will run anywhere anytime. Also, at some point M$ is going to have to axe the backward compatibility like Apple has done. I bet they do it with longhorn.
 
how much truth is to this statement?

Because Linux currently has more market share than Apple.

This guy is a nutjob
 
Well, I'm not too sure about that statement "Linux currently has more market share than Apple." These facts surely don't show that and we all know that linux users regularly use google (at least I consider myself knowing of this being an old linux user from back in '95 and having used google since it first started up):

http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html

Operating Systems Used to Access Google January 2004: Mac 3% vs. Linux 1%

Sorry, can't see linux taking over the desktop market from Apple quite yet. And being a consultant that works with businesses and residential customers daily I can say that people very much lean towards Apple before they lean towards linux. And I'm just speaking from experience in my region.
 
gerbick said:
Seriously... how many of you guys would purchase Longhorn to run on your G5?
Click to expand...

if you could dual boot, i probably would run it
if it ran inside of os x like classic, that would be even sweeter.
 
What motivation would we have to switch, what with this storm of viruses, worms, and trojans only getting worse?

Ick!
 
kendall said:
if you could dual boot, i probably would run it
if it ran inside of os x like classic, that would be even sweeter.
Click to expand...

It will run inside OS X. It's called "Virtual PC".
 
Almost on topic: I wish Microsoft could do for Virtual PC what was long rumoured: That Windows apps can be run 'rootless' like Classic applications (i.e. without being held captive in a 'VPC' window)... This would be awesome, wouldn't it?
 
gerbick said:
Seriously... how many of you guys would purchase Longhorn to run on your G5?
Click to expand...

not me :)






concerning VPC : the problem is that no matter how good it gets... ur still running windows :)
HOWEVER i am forced to run it once a month.. because there is one app that does not come out on the mac... and unfortunately there is nothing like it around for the mac !!!
 
Longhorn is too far away! It may be without viruses, security holes, etc. It may well be the best thing next to whatever Apple will have to offer at that time... But still, it is a Longhorn road ahead :D

Still, I'm not going to use it, not even if I could use it as Classic... Heck, I'm not running Classic since 10.2 :p

If, like soulseek, I MUST use a specific Longhorn app and I could not do otherwise I will use it ONLY for that app and NO more, NO less... There is no way that I will let Longhorn eat important Mac-related hard disk space and computing power in general just to Dual Boot or whatever :) And that's even if it is going to be even better than anything Apple will have ready at that time :rolleyes:
 
fryke said:
Almost on topic: I wish Microsoft could do for Virtual PC what was long rumoured: That Windows apps can be run 'rootless' like Classic applications (i.e. without being held captive in a 'VPC' window)... This would be awesome, wouldn't it?
Click to expand...
Um-m-m-m. No, not really. What makes you say that?
 
Ripcord said:
It will run inside OS X. It's called "Virtual PC".
Click to expand...

emulated at about as fast as my grandma.

if it was developed for ppc, it would run seamlessly with X. now that would be nice.
 
soulseek said:
not me :)




concerning VPC : the problem is that no matter how good it gets... ur still running windows :)
HOWEVER i am forced to run it once a month.. because there is one app that does not come out on the mac... and unfortunately there is nothing like it around for the mac !!!
Click to expand...


you run kazaa too?

:p
 
3ds max is my reason for keeping a PC. But back to the subject at hand... do you guys seriously think they'll skip out on x86 and go for PowerPC, or they're mainly just (re)adding PowerPC support?
 
Probably neither. This is speculation based on the fact that at least a portion of the NT kernel will likely be ported to build the XBox 2. Someone seems to feel that MS is going to try to make XBox 2 Longhorn-compatible (or the other way around, really), I suppose to allow customers to buy a cheap (and by cheap I mean MS makes a loss on every box sold) set-top PC that hooks up to their TVs or HDTVs. I find this last part pretty unlikely.
 
MisterMe said:
Um-m-m-m. No, not really. What makes you say that?
Click to expand...

okay, so you're not a VPC user, then? I have to test websites against Windows versions of IE, Mozilla and Opera. Sure, I can use them in VPC now, but I'd love to have them open in a rootless environment, i.e. they'd behave like Classic applications. Or maybe like X11 applications. Would be nice. I'm okay with those who just don't want to use ANY MS applications on their Macs, but sadly, I can't really do that myself, as although many browsers have come a long way supporting the standards, there are still things that can go wrong. There are still things that just are displayed differently on different platforms.
 
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