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Apple's switch to Intel

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Jun 20, 2005 margoth link
Restricting their OS to just Apple hardware could be quite simple with standard PC hardware of the future. Say by encrypting the kernel and the bootloader and placing the asymmetric decryption key into a protected flash memory chip (maybe the processor itself?). That way only Apple hardware can bootstrap OSX but the system could still boot other unencrypted OS (Linux, Windows XP and older).

Read more about this fabulous technology at:

http://www.eff.org/Infrastructure/trusted_computing/
Jun 22, 2005 Solra Bizna link
I was ready to explode when I heard this news. And then I watched the keynote. Steve is powerful.
Rumor has it that Apple will simply be using a dongle to identify machines OSX can run on.
-:sigma.SB
Jul 09, 2005 RattMann link
Hmmm... Ever since word of the shift to Intel to make processors for Macs got out,
there has been a great deal of worry expressed that Macs/OSX would somehow be
contaminated by Microsoft/Windows. Why? As has already been mentioned in this
thread, it's the software that makes a Mac what it is. Intel makes chips. So maybe
there are a few boxes out there with Pentiums in them that have been made to run
OSX. Fine. Does this mean that the product that Intel makes for Apple will be a P4?
My guess is no. I think that it will be (or become) a different animal. In the meantime, Apple is unhappy with IBM because they can't produce the quality, quantity and speeds in their chips that Apple wants. But what happens? Microsoft
goes to IBM to make chips for the next generation X-Box (3.2 Ghz PPC's).
HOLY CRAP !! MASS HYSTERIA !!!!

But to come back to Earth for a moment. Momerath42: How about getting Vendetta
to utilize BOTH processors in my Mac? THAT would be SWEET !!
Jul 13, 2005 toshiro link
Hm. I'd think that catering to people using PPC processors will have to cease in the entire industry. Not immediately, of course, but definitely at some point. The problem is, as has already been said, that the emulation of 68k was far easier (and even faster than the original) on PPC machines than the emulation of PPC code on Intel will be.

Also, I think that the negative reaction (that has cooled down a lot in my surroundings) stems from the fact that people saw/see Apple and MicroSoft as two forces in the OS battlefield, along with the many faces Linux puts on. I guess it's hard to discern between the chip manufacturer Intel and the whole Windows-compatible PC industry, possibly because they are so close to one another. Still, this difference exists, so I agree with you on the fact that it's not the CPU that makes a Mac a Mac. It's its design (not only the optical one), its OS and the innovative Attitude.