The growing space for the ARM architecture mean that there is space for non x86 platforms, like powerpc platforms..

That's thanks to the free software , gnu/linux and others, so is the moment in which every architecture will provide its qualities for the software.

So the market for powerpc is opening now more than any other moment in the history.

Believe me ;)

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Actually it just means there is room for more ARM architecture devices. PowerPC had it's chance back in the 90's and whoever was in charge (Apple, IBM, Motorola, for your information), fumbled it.

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Matt Sealey

well, objectively of those three, ibm have a negative track record in 'consumer desktop platforms management'*, motorola - a zero track record, and only apple, of all three, have a positive track record. and apple alone were doing fairly well with a ppc desktop up until not long ago, when the other two started rocking the boat. so the fact that those three (two?) fumbled speaks little of the potential of the tech per se. IMHO. at least apple seem to have learned their lesson re the viability and reliance on 'exotic' cpu platforms, an now have their own cpu division dedicated to apple's latest-n-greatest consumer platform. good for them.


* remember how they handled the pc? - anybody willing to argue that was a non-viable destop tech? ; )

We can directly attest to that..
Despite the Apple clone market and CHRP?
If only Steve Jobs wasn't involved Apple may still be using Power Architecture and probably have an 8-core 64-bit Freescale processor right now.
The "we have to hit 3GHz" war rocked the boat and Steve started that one. Let's look at their lineup where only the iMac (and ironically not the Mac Pro, which uses a lower speed Xeon, albeit with 3 times the cache and 8 times more (virtual) cores) actually has this clock rate.

PowerPC always outperformed these processors, regardless. The MPC8610 is a really nice chip, the MPC8641D was unfortunately delayed just a little too long (and was caught in the middle of the Apple switch..) and became the low power MPC8640D. Both would be good in current Notebook products, Mac Mini, AppleTV...
They always had this division.

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Matt Sealey

Powerpc consumer devices will arrive soon!
Android is already ported on Powerpc platform for that reason.
Where there is not needed Windows compatibility, powerpc grown up, first will grown up arm and after powerpc, mips, etc...

Will happen like what was happened with Internet Explorer and Firefox and the others browser..

matter of time.

:D

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http://deliriotecnologico.blogspot.com

If Steve Jobs wasn't involved, Apple wouldn't even exist today.

Switching to Intel is one of the best business decisions Apple has ever done. Only a fool would claim otherwise.

Yes, so instead of being a major partner to a superior technology consortium, Apple is now just one very minor Intel customer. The problem that led to the switch was volume. Apple just didn't order enough CPUs to force Motorola(then)/IBM to do more R&D on faster models/more cores/etc. It was a 5-10% (perhaps less, I remember reading that number somewhere) of the total cpus sold by both companies. With Intel, Apple is in a WORSE position, but people are happy paying premium for the same specs, just for MacOS X and perhaps they're right, I like MacOS X myself. Did you notice that the prices didn't go down after the switch? not even 1$? Even when the Intel CPUs cost 1/5th of their PowerPC counterparts? Did you notice that the competition is always faster/cheaper? Intel didn't really give anything to Apple, MacOS X does. Apple understands this, so it bought PASemi, don't know what their next CPU will be based on, but it will surely be designed/owned/built by them.

I still wonder why apple bought PASemi. My only guess is to kill it. If they were still interested in PPC, why are they no longer supporting it at all ?

They might not be interested in PPC, but they sure got the best CPU design & engineering team on the market. I'm sure these guys can design anything. Who knows what they've been doing secretly all this time.

Hardly. There's nothing to port; you can run Android on any system that has a Linux kernel. Just a few non-architecture-specific extra features on top and the rest is ALL Java which is also not architecture-dependent.

You're not going to see a PowerPC Android device on the market any time soon. The thing about open source is anyone can port it whereever they like but it needs someone to build hardware SUITED for Android - this is, unfortunately, just phones right now as it's totally whacky to use on anything not touch screen and not limited screen resolution. PowerPC is not suitable for this market.
It won't. Why do you think Google are making Chrome OS? Because people want "Android on Netbooks". Android on Netbooks is a bad idea.

Unfortunately not a good business decision. Any analyst you talk to will say that this was a pretty silly idea - as someone said here, now Apple is no longer something different but yet another Intel box. Their margins are not better - in fact, they're much worse than they were with PowerPC. Sales are up but profits are stagnant...

Steve moved to Intel because Freescale and IBM did not WANT to support his drive to "3GHz" - a pointless goal - as fast as he wanted to.

Lets see.. 4 years into the Intel transition and they only just made it to 3GHz, and the 2.5GHz 970MP still outperforms the 3GHz quad-core in the iMac, the 32-to-64-bit switch was delayed all that time (after performing it for the PowerPC platforms in 2005, it only got fully realized in Snow Leopard this year)

The sales of Apple portable computers have only risen lockstep with the sales of the iPod and iPhone where the best platform to use them with is the Mac (horizontal selling at it's best). There have been no actual benefits from the move to Intel except that you can now run Windows on your Mac.. wow. So very, very different.

Steve Jobs' contribution was taking a risk; he has ideas like "gah my MP3 player sucks ass, can't we make a better one?" and then pushes people to do it.

Now, everyone has those ideas, but actually betting the company on it? That is what Steve Jobs is good at.

Tell me somehow that "we NEED to be at 3Ghz so we can beat Intel!" turns into "we should be in bed with Intel even though the processor roadmap shows multi-core 2.2GHz chips being the baseline for the next 5 years!" and that becomes a great decision on his part?

Nope, simply put Steve decided that he would rather run Windows on his Mac than have the power/performance advantage, and he would use the iPod, iPhone and other peripheral devices to sell the Notebooks and Desktops horizontally. The iPod was his great business decision, practically locking it to the Mac was another.
PASemi are a company that moved to PowerPC after a long, long time at DEC doing Alpha, and then at Intel doing XScale (ARM architecture). They have great experience having invented both processor architectures in low-power, high performance RISC design. PPC was just the next step.

Apple do not want to kill PASemi, they are getting good value from it, and they have no interest in killing PowerPC - it is just not what they want to DO with the company. Dan Dobberpuhl and his team are put to much better use at Apple designing stuff for iPods and iPhones and whatever else. You have to be really blinkered to think that buying up this team of CPU design experts has anything to do with the PowerPC architecture or past history with Apple.

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Matt Sealey

oh i'm sure you could, it's just not necessary with the big neon sign hanging over ibm's desktop division, reading 'dodo' : )
i would not give them much credit about that - they were just promoting their apple-designated tech trying to expand the respective market, while at the same time making sure not to piss apple. an effort bound to fail. had moto been really serious about their tech's penetration on the desktop they could've come up with their branded motherboards (like, erm, intel has been doing for eons?), but no, they preferred to be the quiet component supplier that feeds apple (on the consumer desktop market, that is). as a result, people had to buy ppc desktops at apple's pricepoint (speaking of the mass market here).
while what you say of Steve's role in that is likely true, the 'IM' part of AIM were not without guilt either - i do remember a few generations of macs being down-specced at the last moment in the cpu department. clearly somebody was not meeting their roadmaps, but i wouldn't single out apple as the sole blame bearer. it's one thing to have grandeur visions, it's another to have to down-clock already finalized designs. no, it may not be a big deal technically, but it does not sit well in the eye of the public.
but it hasn't always included p.a. semi, has it? : ) hopefully we'll see what they can deliver very soon now. apropos, did their 16xx ever find a place in a non-DoD project?

Final results about the market research here:

http://www.codex.gr/index.php?pageID=&blogItem=100

Quote from the blog -the interesting part-:
Perhaps even use Genesi's bounty system?

COMMENT: The nice thing with that approach, is that the end design will be open. If the amount of people does not reach critical mass for a mass production -eg. 500- there might still be a few (100 or even less) people that may go for a small production scale and get the board of their dreams, albeit a bit more expensive! And if I would decide to drop out of the project for whatever reason, the design would be open for anyone to continue development on it. Actually, I wonder why didn't I think of that scheme before...

Yuck! Nowadays, people tag anything as "operating system"... Thankfully, I'm an old fart that still likes operating systems done like many years ago. I'm not saying this modern way of doing things doesn't work, but I wouldn't touch it with a six foot pole.
Even if it was only for technical reasons (it isn't, ARM is the buzz now, and that's marketing), nobody is crazy enough to build a consumer device around an architecture with so little variety and so much supply problems. For example, freescale's latest new processors are directly targetted at substitution for their "automotive" MPC5xxxx range. And they are ARM.
Agreed.
Really, how much people actually think that way? Apple is perceived as a distinctive, cool brand. They have the status that allows them to build almost the same products, that will be perceived as different, and thus enjoy higher margins.
The funny thing is that they are NOT really different to other computers. But, as they pushed their "be different" motto through so many years, that motto remains to this day. That's their success (oh, and they still have a different operating system).
I can't believe that. If they have lower margins, it must be because they are spending a lot of money on some other things we don't see. Come on, building computers with x86 has to be cheaper than with PowerPC. The volumes of some of their products have raised so much that production runs must be very cheap, unit wise.
I believe they earn less money just like everyone else, because of the worldwide crisis. That should affect more a luxury product manufacturer like Apple: Many people have to resign, and buy an ordinary, non Apple computer, instead of that flashy one. Add to that that most people already have a computer, sales can only go down (specially in a crisis environment).
Logical. As logical as not sinking millions in development for a customer that only represents a tiny fraction of your business. So little, that when you get rid of that customer, you get rid of a whole business division...
Very true, but again, who cares? It's all about the looks of the product!
:lol:
Yeah, genius. Take phrases about those bad things that people might think about you, and precede them with "not".
Indeed, that way of thinking, that companies destroy products on purpose, is very "amigaish".

New information coming...

power2people MPC8610

R&B :)

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Nice to see ppc things moving a bit again. Hopefully I will be able to put some efforts into this project once I finished my current job (runs till mid December).