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> ARM is the first architecture in 20 years that competes with x86 on reasonably priced machines. (e.g. IBM POWER and IBM z are pretty quick but you can't affor

> ARM is the first architecture in 20 years that competes with x86 on reasonably priced machines. (e.g. IBM POWER and IBM z are pretty quick but you can't afford them) What about the PPC Macs? Yes, they were bad enough that Apple had to switch to x86—not exactly a ringing endorsement—but I'd say they were at least somewhat competitive, no?

PaulHoule 5y ago
Yeah, the power macs were usable in the early 00's but they were slipping fast. I don't know if I'd count macs as "alternative" because, despite their good qualities, they are more locked down than PCs. SPARC was almost viable for a desktop machine in the early 00's, I had one under my desk that I was running a Sun Ray server on. We were hoping to use Sun Rays to provide access to the online catalog and other web resources but after Netscape became a non-viable web browser we were never able to get Mozilla to build on SPARC. It could have been ported but we didn't have the resources and nobody else bothered to do it. SPARC was slipping too and the price was not right.
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  > I don't know if I'd count macs as "alternative" because, despite their good qualities, they are more locked down than PCs. What do you mean here? Couldn't Power Macs run Linux?
  - adamomada 5y ago
    I don’t remember much about it but they even had a bootloader called Open Firmware. Assuming its not a joke, GP has it dead wrong.
- johnklos 5y ago
  I don't know if I'd agree that SPARC would've ever been viable. The performance just wasn't there for the price. For instance, my 2002 AlphaServer DS25 with two 1 GHz CPUs runs many workloads noticeably faster than my 2007 Sun Fire V245 with two 1.5 GHz UltraSPARC IIIi CPUs. Also, Macs were never locked down. All Macs can run alternate OSes, from m68k Macs which can still run modern NetBSD without issues, to beige PCI Power Macs, to G3, G4 and G5 Power Macs, to Intel Macs, and now ARM Macs. Notably missing is support for NuBus Power Macs which requires more work than people are willing to do, although older MkLinux was available for them.

PaulHoule 5y ago

Yeah, the power macs were usable in the early 00's but they were slipping fast. I don't know if I'd count macs as "alternative" because, despite their good qualities, they are more locked down than PCs. SPARC was almost viable for a desktop machine in the early 00's, I had one under my desk that I was running a Sun Ray server on. We were hoping to use Sun Rays to provide access to the online catalog and other web resources but after Netscape became a non-viable web browser we were never able to get Mozilla to build on SPARC. It could have been ported but we didn't have the resources and nobody else bothered to do it. SPARC was slipping too and the price was not right.

Wowfunhappy 5y ago
> I don't know if I'd count macs as "alternative" because, despite their good qualities, they are more locked down than PCs. What do you mean here? Couldn't Power Macs run Linux?
- adamomada 5y ago
  I don’t remember much about it but they even had a bootloader called Open Firmware. Assuming its not a joke, GP has it dead wrong.
johnklos 5y ago
I don't know if I'd agree that SPARC would've ever been viable. The performance just wasn't there for the price. For instance, my 2002 AlphaServer DS25 with two 1 GHz CPUs runs many workloads noticeably faster than my 2007 Sun Fire V245 with two 1.5 GHz UltraSPARC IIIi CPUs. Also, Macs were never locked down. All Macs can run alternate OSes, from m68k Macs which can still run modern NetBSD without issues, to beige PCI Power Macs, to G3, G4 and G5 Power Macs, to Intel Macs, and now ARM Macs. Notably missing is support for NuBus Power Macs which requires more work than people are willing to do, although older MkLinux was available for them.