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I think Apple has done an amazing job of pulling off their own silicon. At Sun I got to be involved peripherally in the effort that created SPARC and it was way

I think Apple has done an amazing job of pulling off their own silicon. At Sun I got to be involved peripherally in the effort that created SPARC and it was way more work than I had suspected. So kudos to Apple's design, engineering, and QA teams! I am also noting that they have killed the "ARM SoC's will never match what Intel can do" story line. That always reminded me of the "Microcomputers will never be able to do what minicomputers can do" story line that everyone except DEC and HP seemed to realize wouldn't hold up over time. "Never say never" is a good motto in the computer business. That said, as the integration continues apace re-usability and repairablilty reach all time lows. When you consider that you could take a 1970's minicomputer, disassemble it to the component level, and create an entirely different (and functional) computer out of those components, you get a sense of how quaint that notion seems these days. I doubt anyone will ever desolder an M1 chip and put it onto a new board of their own design. And that reminds me more of the IBM "die on substrate" modules that they started using in mainframes which made them basically nothing more than low grade gold ore if they no longer worked as a mainframe.

Corrado 6y ago
I agree about the upgradability/repairability. However, if you look at like a cell phone maybe it makes more sense. No one has ever complained that you couldn't update the RAM or the CPU in a iPhone. In order to upgrade the hardware of your cell phone you have to purchase another one. I'm guessing Apple is looking at the Mac hardware in the same light. "Want more power? Buy a new laptop!" The more interesting question is how does this affect the Mac desktops? It would be a shame to throw out a whole Mac Pro machine just because it only has 64GB RAM. Then again, this event did release the Mac Mini, which is a desktop and does not have upgradable RAM or storage or CPU. Hmmmm...
- ChuckMcM 6y ago
  I think that is a good observation, perhaps at some point the motherboard becomes the swappable part?
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    Unlikely, it'll be as expensive as just buying a new one and it's unlikely Apple would offer full motherboard replacements easily.
  - neop1x 6y ago
    It could be done but companies rather want you to buy a complete computer again and again. Same with cars. That way they sell more stuff and earn more. With proper environmental marketing tricks like the recent one with chargers and recycling robot lies, environmental impact is hidden.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  I don't know about the new model but the 2018/2020 MacMini does have upgradeable memory.
  - aldanor 6y ago
    iMac as well. Also, the previous Mac Mini has 64G max memory and not the laughable 16G.
- envolt 6y ago
  The iPhone has a very smooth process of upgrading the phone. You turn on the new iPhone next to your old one, it prompts and voila. It's like upgrading hardware of your current phone. I'm unsure if we're at a point where these things are even feasible. e.g I have configured my MBP a lot, the .zsh file, home directory and endless configuration. I would not be surprised if they ditch the kernal completely, and make everything an App (much like chromebook)
  - timzo 6y ago
    You can do something similar with Macs. Using Migration Assistant I was able to transfer all my data (.zsh, git repos, configs, Docker containers, everything.) Took less than an hour. In fact, I did this because I needed to upgrade my RAM
    - gwd 6y ago
      Yup, did this when I upgraded from a 2013 MacBook Air to a 2018 MacBook Pro. Everything worked great except for homebrew, which unfortunately had to be nuked and re-installed; but I can't really blame Migration Assistant for that.
  - aws_ls 6y ago
    I thought, the parent comment was talking about hardware upgrade on the same laptop.:)
- CivBase 6y ago
  > I'm guessing Apple is looking at the Mac hardware in the same light. "Want more power? Buy a new laptop!" How often do phone users actually upgrade their phones for more power? I mostly use my computer to develop software, play video games, and edit media, and stream videos. I mostly use my phone to text, play music, and access the internet. Almost every PC purchase I've ever made was driven by a need for better performance, but I've never upgraded my phone for that reason. I've upgrade my phone for a better screen, a better camera, a bigger battery, software support, new hardware features (4G, biometrics, USB-C, etc)... but never because I felt like I needed a faster processor or more system memory.
jacobwilliamroy 6y ago
I think that the future of computer customization is in virtualization. Instead of having a single very expensive machine to upgrade, we just go grab 30 servers from a bulk seller and use something like Xen or Proxmox to use them all as a single machine with 1 virtual CPU, 1 virtual disk and 1 virtual network interface. Got another computer? Just add it to the pool. So while computers are getting harder to disassemble, it's also getting easier to pool them together to share compute, network and storage.
ithkuil 6y ago
Apropos SPARC, one of the most interesting features of that ISA (apart from mainstreaming register windows) was the tagged arithmetic instructions. Does anybody know why they didn't have much success in later ISAs?

Corrado 6y ago

I agree about the upgradability/repairability. However, if you look at like a cell phone maybe it makes more sense. No one has ever complained that you couldn't update the RAM or the CPU in a iPhone. In order to upgrade the hardware of your cell phone you have to purchase another one. I'm guessing Apple is looking at the Mac hardware in the same light. "Want more power? Buy a new laptop!" The more interesting question is how does this affect the Mac desktops? It would be a shame to throw out a whole Mac Pro machine just because it only has 64GB RAM. Then again, this event did release the Mac Mini, which is a desktop and does not have upgradable RAM or storage or CPU. Hmmmm...

ChuckMcM 6y ago
I think that is a good observation, perhaps at some point the motherboard becomes the swappable part?
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Unlikely, it'll be as expensive as just buying a new one and it's unlikely Apple would offer full motherboard replacements easily.
- neop1x 6y ago
  It could be done but companies rather want you to buy a complete computer again and again. Same with cars. That way they sell more stuff and earn more. With proper environmental marketing tricks like the recent one with chargers and recycling robot lies, environmental impact is hidden.
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
I don't know about the new model but the 2018/2020 MacMini does have upgradeable memory.
- aldanor 6y ago
  iMac as well. Also, the previous Mac Mini has 64G max memory and not the laughable 16G.
envolt 6y ago
The iPhone has a very smooth process of upgrading the phone. You turn on the new iPhone next to your old one, it prompts and voila. It's like upgrading hardware of your current phone. I'm unsure if we're at a point where these things are even feasible. e.g I have configured my MBP a lot, the .zsh file, home directory and endless configuration. I would not be surprised if they ditch the kernal completely, and make everything an App (much like chromebook)
- timzo 6y ago
  You can do something similar with Macs. Using Migration Assistant I was able to transfer all my data (.zsh, git repos, configs, Docker containers, everything.) Took less than an hour. In fact, I did this because I needed to upgrade my RAM
  - gwd 6y ago
    Yup, did this when I upgraded from a 2013 MacBook Air to a 2018 MacBook Pro. Everything worked great except for homebrew, which unfortunately had to be nuked and re-installed; but I can't really blame Migration Assistant for that.
- aws_ls 6y ago
  I thought, the parent comment was talking about hardware upgrade on the same laptop.:)
CivBase 6y ago
> I'm guessing Apple is looking at the Mac hardware in the same light. "Want more power? Buy a new laptop!" How often do phone users actually upgrade their phones for more power? I mostly use my computer to develop software, play video games, and edit media, and stream videos. I mostly use my phone to text, play music, and access the internet. Almost every PC purchase I've ever made was driven by a need for better performance, but I've never upgraded my phone for that reason. I've upgrade my phone for a better screen, a better camera, a bigger battery, software support, new hardware features (4G, biometrics, USB-C, etc)... but never because I felt like I needed a faster processor or more system memory.

jacobwilliamroy 6y ago

I think that the future of computer customization is in virtualization. Instead of having a single very expensive machine to upgrade, we just go grab 30 servers from a bulk seller and use something like Xen or Proxmox to use them all as a single machine with 1 virtual CPU, 1 virtual disk and 1 virtual network interface. Got another computer? Just add it to the pool. So while computers are getting harder to disassemble, it's also getting easier to pool them together to share compute, network and storage.

ithkuil 6y ago

Apropos SPARC, one of the most interesting features of that ISA (apart from mainstreaming register windows) was the tagged arithmetic instructions. Does anybody know why they didn't have much success in later ISAs?