Project "Not-Marklar"

jeb1138

jeb1138

Carioca
From http://mac.fryke.com/cgi-bin/xforum/x-forum.cgi?show=topic&page=1&topic=11 :

"Just received a mail regarding 'Marklar', the project which Nick de Plume from ThinkSecret (writing for eWeek in _that_ column) dubbed that. He says it's all about X on X86, but the mail i've received makes it very clear that the project group - which is _not_ called Marklar - is all about porting Mac OS X to every possible platform. Ever since the first Rhapsody Developer Releases, that group of about 10 to 15 developers inside Apple ported newer builds of Mac OS X to platforms like R/6000, Sun workstations (Ultrasparc III), sgi RISC workstations, Itanium - and, of course, the X68 platform.

Mac OS X is highly portable. It takes some work getting it to run smoothly on several computing platforms, but it's basically possible to adapt it to just about anything.

This sheds some light on Steve saying that 'they like options' and that they will have options in 2003.

Still doesn't mean they *will* choose another option than Motorola's and IBM's PowerPC architecture(s), but it's very clear that Apple could just walk away from PowerPC. "
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Interesting, no?
 
Originally posted by jeb1138
From http://mac.fryke.com/cgi-bin/xforum/x-forum.cgi?show=topic&page=1&topic=11 :

Mac OS X is highly portable. It takes some work getting it to run smoothly on several computing platforms, but it's basically possible to adapt it to just about anything.

Still doesn't mean they *will* choose another option than Motorola's and IBM's PowerPC architecture(s), but it's very clear that Apple could just walk away from PowerPC. "
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Interesting, no?
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Since Avie did away with the OS 9 development team it should also be noted that only a couple from that team were reassigned to that project, presumeably to write drivers for OS 9 hardware. If they were serious about another CPU they would have reassigned all of the OS 9 dev team and we might have seen something, like an OS 9 emulator, by the end of 2004.
 
If this is true, clever of Apple to hedge their bets. Still a switch to a new architecture would be major headaches for all the software companies that spent so much time converting to the PowerPC version of OS X. Hope Apple could provide an emulation layer again...

-Rob
 
Originally posted by rharder
Still a switch to a new architecture would be major headaches for all the software companies that spent so much time converting to the PowerPC version of OS X. Hope Apple could provide an emulation layer again...
Click to expand...

Boy I sure wish this myth would die.

Here's the scoop. IF Apple were to choose this route here is what will happen:

1. Apple development tools will provide support for what is called "fat binaries" which can be created by simply a click of a button. There is nothing new about this, they did it with NEXTSTEP and it worked flawlessly (for Motorola 68K, HP PA-RISC, SPARC and Intel)!

2. They would need to support this for both Cocoa and Carbon applications. Probably not an issue.

3. They would seed this to 3rd party developers well in advance. Ensuring that their applications were available as fat-binaries when (IF) Apple chose this path.

In all likelihood Classic applications would not make the cut. But...by the time something like this DOES happen (IF it happens), that won't be a major issue.
 
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