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Gosh I had to think back a moment to remember 68k to PPC. I wonder if that transition could be considered “botched” in that it happened at instead of going dire

by adolph 5y ago

Gosh I had to think back a moment to remember 68k to PPC. I wonder if that transition could be considered “botched” in that it happened at instead of going directly to x86. Outside hindsight I recall it was considered a questionable choice at the time.

GekkePrutser 5y ago
It wasn't really though. Motorola was going nowhere. As to why not x86, that's another story but Intel has gone down the wrong path several times. Like with the Pentium 4.
zozbot234 5y ago
Not really, PPC was a reasonable choice for a high-performance architecture back then, and arguably a better fit for former 68k coders than x86. And a move was necessary because the 68k was becoming a dead platform by then.
doctor_eval 5y ago
My recollection is that the PPC at launch was much faster than x86. Jobs talked about the road map a bit, and there was a lot of press about it too, but the road map didn’t pan out, and their partners dropped the ball. And many other companies made the transition to x86 (Data General was one I worked with) and subsequently died.
- atdrummond 5y ago
  The biggest problem was Motorola/Freescale saw that their future was in embedded, not the (relative) high performance required for personal computing. So the chip provider for Apple's mobile lineup no longer was producing performant chips. Unfortunately, IBM's implementation of PPC led a dual life as a server/workstation and desktop chip meant that getting it's power consumption, heat profile and performance optimized for a mobile device was an extremely difficult proposition. It would be interesting to see where we'd be if IBM had ensured Apple they could deliver a G5 laptop and had done so at a price and spec competitive with, or superior to, Intel.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    > The biggest problem was Motorola/Freescale saw that their future was in embedded, not the (relative) high performance required for personal computing. Ironically that's also the niche where PowerPC ended up when Apple dumped them :)
- Moto7451 5y ago
  Yeah. The 601 was on par with the P54s and the 604/604e were a bit ahead of the Pentium Pro and Pentium II of the era. The G4 vs P3 and P4 is when the problems for Motorola and IBM eventually ran out of steam with the G5.

by adolph 5y ago

GekkePrutser 5y ago

It wasn't really though. Motorola was going nowhere. As to why not x86, that's another story but Intel has gone down the wrong path several times. Like with the Pentium 4.

zozbot234 5y ago

Not really, PPC was a reasonable choice for a high-performance architecture back then, and arguably a better fit for former 68k coders than x86. And a move was necessary because the 68k was becoming a dead platform by then.

doctor_eval 5y ago

My recollection is that the PPC at launch was much faster than x86. Jobs talked about the road map a bit, and there was a lot of press about it too, but the road map didn’t pan out, and their partners dropped the ball. And many other companies made the transition to x86 (Data General was one I worked with) and subsequently died.

atdrummond 5y ago
The biggest problem was Motorola/Freescale saw that their future was in embedded, not the (relative) high performance required for personal computing. So the chip provider for Apple's mobile lineup no longer was producing performant chips. Unfortunately, IBM's implementation of PPC led a dual life as a server/workstation and desktop chip meant that getting it's power consumption, heat profile and performance optimized for a mobile device was an extremely difficult proposition. It would be interesting to see where we'd be if IBM had ensured Apple they could deliver a G5 laptop and had done so at a price and spec competitive with, or superior to, Intel.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  > The biggest problem was Motorola/Freescale saw that their future was in embedded, not the (relative) high performance required for personal computing. Ironically that's also the niche where PowerPC ended up when Apple dumped them :)
Moto7451 5y ago
Yeah. The 601 was on par with the P54s and the 604/604e were a bit ahead of the Pentium Pro and Pentium II of the era. The G4 vs P3 and P4 is when the problems for Motorola and IBM eventually ran out of steam with the G5.