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Is anyone else as absolutely amazed as I am that Apple managed to change the CPU instruction set to a completely new architecture and users barely notice? I ha

Is anyone else as absolutely amazed as I am that Apple managed to change the CPU instruction set to a completely new architecture and users barely notice? I have a new M1 Macbook Air and I love it. Stuff just works, and users who know absolutely nothing about what an x86 or an ARM architecture is don't need to care about it. I'm just amazed by this.

qeternity 5y ago
> Is anyone else as absolutely amazed as I am that Apple managed to change the CPU instruction set to a completely new architecture and users barely notice? They’ve done this twice now. Also, x86 apps running on Rosetta 2 feel faster than native x86 on my recent Intel Macbook.
- simondotau 5y ago
  Thrice now, if you include the 68000 to PPC transition that occurred prior to Mac OS X. That's a total of four CPU architectures. 1. 68000 —> PowerPC [0] a. Mac OS 9 —> Mac OS X [1] 2. PowerPC —> Intel [2] 3. Intel —> Apple Silicon [2] Or refactoring that into timespans: 1. 68000: 1984 to 1994 (10 years) 2. PowerPC: 1994 to 2006 (12 years) 3. Intel: 2006 to 2021 (15 years) Interesting tidbits: Mac OS X has been around longer than MacOS was prior to X. And the Mac has been on Intel longer than any other instruction set. For someone who has used Macintosh computers since 1985, it feels strange saying that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_68k_emulator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_68k_emulator [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_macOS_components#Classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_macOS_components#Class... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software)
tcmart14 5y ago
This is what I am curious about and it might take away some of the amazement. We know from the PPC to Intel transition, Steve Jobs mentioned that they 'always' had a port of their OS to intel. So I am wondering if the same and is true here and maybe for more architectures? Makes sense. Have an internal version that can run on different architectures so if a decision is made to switch the hardware, most of the heavy lifting is done. My bet is, they've had an internal MacOS port on Arm for sometime. Edit: To add. From what I've read, the M1 chip is fairly similar in many respects to the Arm chips in their phones. I am assuming there is some shared infrastructure there and simplified the process. I'd love to see a write up about this from Apple engineers, but I know that probably won't happen.

qeternity 5y ago

> Is anyone else as absolutely amazed as I am that Apple managed to change the CPU instruction set to a completely new architecture and users barely notice? They’ve done this twice now. Also, x86 apps running on Rosetta 2 feel faster than native x86 on my recent Intel Macbook.

simondotau 5y ago
Thrice now, if you include the 68000 to PPC transition that occurred prior to Mac OS X. That's a total of four CPU architectures. 1. 68000 —> PowerPC [0] a. Mac OS 9 —> Mac OS X [1] 2. PowerPC —> Intel [2] 3. Intel —> Apple Silicon [2] Or refactoring that into timespans: 1. 68000: 1984 to 1994 (10 years) 2. PowerPC: 1994 to 2006 (12 years) 3. Intel: 2006 to 2021 (15 years) Interesting tidbits: Mac OS X has been around longer than MacOS was prior to X. And the Mac has been on Intel longer than any other instruction set. For someone who has used Macintosh computers since 1985, it feels strange saying that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_68k_emulator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_68k_emulator [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_macOS_components#Classic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_macOS_components#Class... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software)

tcmart14 5y ago

This is what I am curious about and it might take away some of the amazement. We know from the PPC to Intel transition, Steve Jobs mentioned that they 'always' had a port of their OS to intel. So I am wondering if the same and is true here and maybe for more architectures? Makes sense. Have an internal version that can run on different architectures so if a decision is made to switch the hardware, most of the heavy lifting is done. My bet is, they've had an internal MacOS port on Arm for sometime. Edit: To add. From what I've read, the M1 chip is fairly similar in many respects to the Arm chips in their phones. I am assuming there is some shared infrastructure there and simplified the process. I'd love to see a write up about this from Apple engineers, but I know that probably won't happen.