NarcolepticNerd
Registered
Firstly I have never owned a Mac in my life (still dont), but I do like them from a technical standpoint... I'd love to own one, but just can't really justify the cost for a second computer at the moment (dont hate me).
Anyway apparently in the recent MacWorld the president of Sony was introduced along with some vague suggestion of working together in the future.
I dont know what this means.. but I would LIKE it to mean that Apple is going to work with Sony to get the Cell microprocessor into Mac's.
From what I understand the Cell is basically a power processor with some extra hardware to help the processors work together, so this wouldn't be a major hardware change for apple... it's basically the same processor.
Sony have been talking about producing "cell workstations", unfortunately Sony while they make excellent hardware, make totally sucky software... But having a UNIX based workstation is on par for the course for Sony (they've done stuff with Linux before). Plus it gives them all the software that's already been ported to OSX (including stuff like Maya, which is huge).
Mostly I'm assuming that cell workstations would be used for PS3 development, by partnering with apple here they not only get OS X but also XCode, other dev tools and all the software that OS X comes with, Sony can just play with GCC (which is what they did for PS2 development and they got hammered for it) but their developers will be happy.
This also leaves room for 3'rd party companies such as SN systems and Metrowerks to develop PS3 dev tools for x86... Sony wants to keep these people in the game, since as I mentioned they suck at software and have no desire to support PS3 developers.
Apple have already shown that they love dual-processor setups, mostly since the single processor ones can't compete with x86 single processor (through no fault of apples)... so cell would be a natural extension for them.
Both Sony and Apple are more about selling 'their brand' than they are about selling their hardware.... so this is a very obvious partnering for both companies.
Anyhow I was just thinking how cool a development this would be for both Sony and Apple... so I thought I'd post my thoughts here in the hope that someone at apple would agree.... It would even make me want to own a mac.
-NarcolepticNerd
Anyway apparently in the recent MacWorld the president of Sony was introduced along with some vague suggestion of working together in the future.
I dont know what this means.. but I would LIKE it to mean that Apple is going to work with Sony to get the Cell microprocessor into Mac's.
From what I understand the Cell is basically a power processor with some extra hardware to help the processors work together, so this wouldn't be a major hardware change for apple... it's basically the same processor.
Sony have been talking about producing "cell workstations", unfortunately Sony while they make excellent hardware, make totally sucky software... But having a UNIX based workstation is on par for the course for Sony (they've done stuff with Linux before). Plus it gives them all the software that's already been ported to OSX (including stuff like Maya, which is huge).
Mostly I'm assuming that cell workstations would be used for PS3 development, by partnering with apple here they not only get OS X but also XCode, other dev tools and all the software that OS X comes with, Sony can just play with GCC (which is what they did for PS2 development and they got hammered for it) but their developers will be happy.
This also leaves room for 3'rd party companies such as SN systems and Metrowerks to develop PS3 dev tools for x86... Sony wants to keep these people in the game, since as I mentioned they suck at software and have no desire to support PS3 developers.
Apple have already shown that they love dual-processor setups, mostly since the single processor ones can't compete with x86 single processor (through no fault of apples)... so cell would be a natural extension for them.
Both Sony and Apple are more about selling 'their brand' than they are about selling their hardware.... so this is a very obvious partnering for both companies.
Anyhow I was just thinking how cool a development this would be for both Sony and Apple... so I thought I'd post my thoughts here in the hope that someone at apple would agree.... It would even make me want to own a mac.
-NarcolepticNerd
