Next Macs?
- Thread starter Xiao
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As I once wrote in another thread (don't know where), I guess Apple will call future PPC 970 machines 'G6', skipping a generation (G5 is now something of an urban legend, not a real processor, with a lot of bad feelings about it).
Just a guess, remember...
And PPC chips were developed by IBM from the start: when talks started about using them in Macs, Apple brought in Moto, which at the time was its only chip supplier (680x0) and was having some problems developing a RISC processor of its own. So AIM (Apple, IBM, Motorola) was born.
Just a guess, remember...
And PPC chips were developed by IBM from the start: when talks started about using them in Macs, Apple brought in Moto, which at the time was its only chip supplier (680x0) and was having some problems developing a RISC processor of its own. So AIM (Apple, IBM, Motorola) was born.
Horseteeth
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Wouldn't it be logical for Apple to capitalise on the "64-bitness" of the 970? I think it's more likely to see either a name with 64 in it (like G64, or i64, or something like that), or they'll come up with a proper name for the thing (viz. Pentium, Itanium, Hammer, ...). So, any guesses as to what name, if a proper name?
I'm thinking baby-eater or wife-beater or maybe even horse-teether.
I'm thinking baby-eater or wife-beater or maybe even horse-teether.
Horseteeth
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I don't think so. They kind of left this behind with the introduction of the G3. Before the G3 (which was in fact a 75xx), you did have the PPC 6xxx and so on, named as such. This was rather confusing though, as people hardly knew what processor #6800 did more/less than some other processor #6390 (I'm inventing the numbers). Therefore, in a move induced more by marketing than anything else, they started the G3 thing. Naming the new proc PPC 970 would be a step back, imho. They should choose the name good (although they might just as well not).
They won't let go of the 'PowerPC' term in my humble opinion. And to add a 'descriptive' name to that doesn't, well, it isn't descriptive. PowerPC Hexagon (replace with anything, really)... I don't think so. G5, okay, although it IS a G4. G6? That'd be jumping _two_ generations.
Sure Apple doesn't have to adhere to Motorola's and IBM's 'generations', but the 970 is a derivate of the Power4 processor, which is a fourth generation high end PowerPC processor. They've also added AltiVec, which even more fits Mot's G4 description. It's also 64bit, but that is not a generation jump, because PowerPC was ready to go 64 bit, basically, anytime.
If they have to do anything other than 970, let them call it a G5. Motorola doesn't seem to deliver desktop variants of the MPC 85xx anytime soon, anyway.
Sure Apple doesn't have to adhere to Motorola's and IBM's 'generations', but the 970 is a derivate of the Power4 processor, which is a fourth generation high end PowerPC processor. They've also added AltiVec, which even more fits Mot's G4 description. It's also 64bit, but that is not a generation jump, because PowerPC was ready to go 64 bit, basically, anytime.
If they have to do anything other than 970, let them call it a G5. Motorola doesn't seem to deliver desktop variants of the MPC 85xx anytime soon, anyway.
binaryDigit
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Well by then Mot wasen't having problems developing, they had the 88000 line, it's just that they had already missed the boat and all the major manufacturers had already aligned themselves with other RISC platforms.
I kinda like the ring of G64, though that does leave the problem with what do you call its sucessor (G64+, G64/2). Maybe Apple will extend their current naming scheme and simply call it iProcessor
Well Power4 is the fourth generation POWER processor. The POWER chips are now all fully PowerPC compliant (and are therefore technically PowerPC processors), but Power4 owes its heritage to the old POWER line.
Lets not forget that PowerPC was in itself a derivtive of POWER which was developed by IBM. Motorola contributed bus logic and later AltiVec, but the majority of PPC is IBM developed. While Motorola is more focused on embedded and cellular, IBM is very heavy into the embedded market as well (like Nintendo GameCubes for instance, and PlayStation3). IBM isn't "scaling down" to the workstation market, they've always been there. POWER/RIOS was designed from the getgo to power workstations. Unix systems as powerful servers didn't really get a full head of steam until after all the RISC dust had settled (remember, in the 80's/early 90's people like Sun were _workstation_ manufacturers, and their servers were designed to support their workstations).
In general the story of Motorola and cpu's is a sad one. Motorola never really understood this market and misstep after misstep will probably lead to them being nothing but a fab and manuf. of embedded systems. Pretty sad for a company that basically owned the "high end" cpu market 20 years ago.
Rhino_G3
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Something similar has happened in the past. The G4 was originaly going to be the G3 plus. Due to marketing confusion they decided to differentiate it even more with the previous chips. The G4 isn't exactly a 4th Gen chip... it's a G3 with a VPU.
It would seem fairly strange to see a G6 when nothing materialized from the G5
MacMarshall
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I thought that what killed Moto in the CPU market was when Apple decided to move from CISC to RISC in 1993, which killed Moto's 68050 processor. Intel since proved that CISC is scalable after all.
But maybe you have more details than that.
binaryDigit
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Well it goes much further back than that. Back to a different time and age (picture your screen going hazy and wavy around the edges).
Back in the early 80's Mot ruled the high end cpu landscape. At the low end you had the Z80 and 6502. In the "middle" you had x86 and 68k, and on the high end you had the 68k. Now by high end, I'm referring to computers. Note that back them, pretty much the ONLY computers running x86 were pc clones. Most of the workstation manufacturers were using 68k (Sun, HP, DEC, SGI, etc). Then this RISC thing came along, and Sun (who was even back then the big boy in workstations) went to Mot begging for them to come up with a RISC chip. Mot declined/drug their heels. Sun gave up in frustration and went forth with their own design (SPARC). By then HP had PA-RISC, DEC had MIPS then Alpha, SGI had MIPS, and IBM had ROMP then RIOS/POWER. Motorolas hold on the workstation market evaporated. Way too late Mot came up with the 88000, which was a nice chip, but by then all the big boys had theirs and there weren't any more major manuf. left to use the chip. They did manage to get Bull and Data General to sign on. DG came out with the Aviion line. It was rumoured that NeXT had a dual proccie 88k motherboard to supplant the 68k, but then they dropped hardware and that was the end of that. Sun also used the 88k in some deskside graphics subsystems. (As a side note AMD suffered a similar problem (late to market) with their RISC effort, the 29000. It did see some success however as an embedded controller, used esp. in laser printers).
Fast forward a little and Apple realizes that they are being left in the dust performance wise and needs to do something "radical". In steps IBM and Mot. 88k lives on a bit in that part of the PowerPC uses tech from the 88k (bus and glue logic I hear, but I don't know the details). BTW, I believe that Mot was working on the 68060 at the time, not an '050 (now that's interesting eh, we're discussing the same skipping over of '5' with G4->G?). Some '060s shipped in products (I know some Amiga accelerator boards shipped with them). Performance wise, the '060 would probably hold it's own if not beat the early 601, but by then it was too little too late. Even back then Mot was having issues ramping up the clock speeds in the 68k series (see, some things NEVER change).
So had Mot played their cards right, they themselves (all alone without IBM's help) would be the #1 selling RISC processor, powering Sun workstations/servers and Apple, plus probably several other workstation manufacturers machines. Of course this pales compared to where Mot would be now (and conversly Intel) had IBM picked the 68K over the 8088 for the PC, but thats another story
As for Intel and CISC. Yes and no. The current line of x86 processors are really RISC processors at their core (literally and figuratively). So they proved that you could design a chip that executes CISC instructions quickly, but that it takes basically a RISC "chip" to do it.
And finally, Pentium being 586. Well that was true way back when, but had Intel stuck with the numerical model names (which they changed for marketing/legal reasons), you can bet that todays P4 would be way past 586. 986 if you take (Pentium == 5) + 4.
Arden
Where mah "any" keys at?
'Twas in fact Power Computing who made the first G3 systems. They must have had something like 25 Mhz bus speeds, because I remember they had 250 or 275 Mhz clock speed models. However, Mac Wars: Disband of the Clones set in not long after.
Xiao: Unless you need lots of screen space for your video editing (which is always useful), wait for Apple to make 15" AlBooks and buy one. If you like the 17" model, I would recommend that because it has great extra features, a large, vibrant screen, and it's available now. Plus, it's got a Superdrive, so you can create, edit and burn your movies all on the go.