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If PowerPC is such a great architecture, then why did Apple transition the Mac platform to x86 about 12 years ago? Has PowerPC gotten much better since then?
by mwcampbell 9y ago
If PowerPC is such a great architecture, then why did Apple transition the Mac platform to x86 about 12 years ago? Has PowerPC gotten much better since then?
- Moto7451 9y agoI think the main driver is there’s common ground between some of the engineers who are PPC fans and some that are Amiga/Morph OS fans. Amiga runs on m68k and PPC so this means they can get some more modern hardware for their platform.
- mpe 9y agoThat had basically nothing to do with the architecture. The key reason was likely the diverging requirements between laptop (Apple) and server (IBM) chips.
- hapless 9y agoSpecifically, IBM had no real roadmap for the PPC 970 series (G5), and could not offer pricing that matched Intel.
- Fnoord 9y agoThe rumor back then was because the G5 wouldn't fit in a laptop format, and the G5 became far too hot. So Apple went to Otellini (Intel) for a deal. They swapped once before architecture within macOS: from m68k to PPC. I don't know about it enough to know if that's true or false, perhaps someone else can verify?