4 ms·

>Apple also has a pretty legendary track record of successfully shifting CPU architectures without breaking popular apps at the time, something that's pretty mu

>Apple also has a pretty legendary track record of successfully shifting CPU architectures without breaking popular apps at the time, something that's pretty much unheard of elsewhere Which other SW/HW companies have switched CPU architecture? I am not sure there is a point of comparison here, and there has only been 1 case so far, the M1 is upcoming and we don't know yet how well that will work. Linux works pretty well with client qemu specified as the architecture handler for non-native binaries too :)

chongli 6y ago
Only one case so far? Apple has taken the Mac from Motorola 68000-series chips to PowerPC to Intel x86 and now to the ARM-based M1. That’s 4 different architecture in less than 4 decades.
- barnacled 6y ago
  I mentioned M1 and specifically excluded it since it is unreleased. Is that fully released such that I can buy it right now? Apple site says 17th Nov. Can't know if it breaks things until it is released. I also said 'architecture change' so by your count that would be 2. But Rosetta was only for PowerPC to x86 wasn't it? There seems to have been emulation for the 68x chips but was it seamless without breaking anything? I mean any company could change architecture but rely on a customer using an emulator that isn't really not breaking things. So by my count, 1, but if I am wrong and the 68x translation was equally as seamless and breakless than 2. But to say it was unheard of you need to reference all the other companies that transitioned architecture and broke stuff. I can't think of another general computing supplier who did that but I might be wrong - can you give an example?
cesarb 6y ago
> Which other SW/HW companies have switched CPU architecture? There's also Palm, which successfully switched from Motorola 68000 to ARM, without breaking popular apps at the time.
- barnacled 6y ago
  Nice thanks, wasn't aware of that. To me while it's nice, it's not an impossible achievement and often likely uses somebody else's code to get there :) I think apple receive far too much praise for things they've done which are often not as amazing as they seem and too little praise for other things (e.g. their great work on the 5nm SoC hw) as well as far too little criticism for biz practices. Trying to set things a little more on an even keel :)

chongli 6y ago

Only one case so far? Apple has taken the Mac from Motorola 68000-series chips to PowerPC to Intel x86 and now to the ARM-based M1. That’s 4 different architecture in less than 4 decades.

barnacled 6y ago
I mentioned M1 and specifically excluded it since it is unreleased. Is that fully released such that I can buy it right now? Apple site says 17th Nov. Can't know if it breaks things until it is released. I also said 'architecture change' so by your count that would be 2. But Rosetta was only for PowerPC to x86 wasn't it? There seems to have been emulation for the 68x chips but was it seamless without breaking anything? I mean any company could change architecture but rely on a customer using an emulator that isn't really not breaking things. So by my count, 1, but if I am wrong and the 68x translation was equally as seamless and breakless than 2. But to say it was unheard of you need to reference all the other companies that transitioned architecture and broke stuff. I can't think of another general computing supplier who did that but I might be wrong - can you give an example?

cesarb 6y ago

> Which other SW/HW companies have switched CPU architecture? There's also Palm, which successfully switched from Motorola 68000 to ARM, without breaking popular apps at the time.

barnacled 6y ago
Nice thanks, wasn't aware of that. To me while it's nice, it's not an impossible achievement and often likely uses somebody else's code to get there :) I think apple receive far too much praise for things they've done which are often not as amazing as they seem and too little praise for other things (e.g. their great work on the 5nm SoC hw) as well as far too little criticism for biz practices. Trying to set things a little more on an even keel :)