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Ah, the brief era of licensed Mac PowerPC clones towards the end of Sculley. Apple (still under Sculley) killed them all by cutting them out of System 8 (Mac O

Ah, the brief era of licensed Mac PowerPC clones towards the end of Sculley. Apple (still under Sculley) killed them all by cutting them out of System 8 (Mac OS classic). 4 PowerPC 604 processors in a DayStar Genesis MP 600. Only $16k USD! ($31k in 2023 money.)

kalleboo 4y ago
It was actually the next CEO, Gil Amelio, that cut off the clone makers. Except for UMAX, who accepted the new clone terms (that would give Apple a % of sale price instead of a [too-low, assuming that the clones would be a race to the bottom] fixed fee per machine sold) and actually got to distribute MacOS 8 for a while.
- hnbear 4y ago
  I thought it was Jobs. The clones licensed System 7, so jobs took the next version, branded it 8 and forced it out, cutting them off.
  - masswerk 4y ago
    Yes, Amelio's departure coincided with the release of System 8 in July 1997. (The NeXT deal and Jobs' return was in February.) To be fair, System 8 was more than just a service update for System 7: it introduced the Platinum UI, the Appearance API, a multithreaded Finder, and various Copland features. (This was quite a rich update, maybe second only to System 7. It would have been a bit strange to just give this all away as System 7.7.)
    - hnbear 4y ago
      7.6 felt like Snow Leopard. Great stable OS after the flakiness of low 7s. Then 8 felt like a huge shift to the modern. Yes, would have been weird to be 7.7. An ideal break point. Seems odd the clones licensed by OS version, not duration. 9 didn’t have the same change feel.
      - masswerk 4y ago
        System 9 was really just about some compatibility layers in preparation for OSX, as I remember it. (And, yes, 7.6 was a major step in terms of stability. There was also some pre-PPC, pre-OpenDoc version of System 7 that was pretty stable, but with all those major integrations that came with the further iterations, things became a bit "delicate".)
        kitsunesoba 4y ago
        IIRC Mac OS 9.0.x had significant changes for users directly booted into it, as did 9.1 (though to a lesser extent). I think it was 9.2.X that was mostly focused on usage with Classic.
        hnbear 4y ago
        Yes, might be right there. 9 introduced the changes to allow multiple-users on a Mac, with a log-in screen. Going off fuzzy memory. And then Classic/Carbon/Cocoa came around.
    - Someone 4y ago
      > System 8 was more than just a service update for System 7 A lot more, eventually. System 8.6 brought a fully pre-emptive kernel with multi processing (http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=3656.0 http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=3656.0) Problem was that, for backwards compatibility, all applications ran in a single pre-emptively scheduled task that cooperatively scheduled between them. You could write additional tasks that got scheduled preemptively, but they couldn’t make all system calls (https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Carbon/Conceptual/Multitasking_MultiproServ/03tasks/tasks.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ca...)
  - kalleboo 4y ago
    Amelio identified that the clone deal was bad (fixed license cost instead of based on % of machine price) and rebranded to MacOS 8 in order to renegotiate to get a better clone deal. Spindler made the original clone deals assuming they would be chasing aggressively low pricing as seen in the PC market but instead the clones ate Apple's high-end market, replacing Apple's high-end margin with cheap OS licenses. So Amelio wanted to renegotiate the deals to be based on the value of the machine so that Apple would not lose from a clone maker selling a high-end machine instead of Apple. Jobs as iCEO continued the negotiations (after all, NeXT was also an OS-only company at that point so Jobs wasn't necessarily sold on the idea that Apple had to sell hardware) but nobody aside from UMAX bit on the more expensive MacOS 8 license (so yeah there was one clone they had a MacOS 8 license - you can find UMAX MacOS 8 CDs out there) so Jobs gave up, and there were no other clones. So Amelio started it and Jobs finished it.
- NovaDudely 4y ago
  Looking back, Amelio had some decent ideas on how to get Apple back on track but he just didn't have that inspiration to get people excited over it all. Things like iMac, the 4 different system tiers, reducing the amount of research projects to a fraction of what they had were all done under his watch. Steve however kicked it into over drive and actually got people talking about Apple again. Also didn't help that a 2 hour presentation by Amelio felt like weeks!
  - anoncow 4y ago
    > Steve however kicked it into overdrive… Is there a specific action of Steve’s that comes to your mind?
    - NovaDudely 4y ago
      A good example is that Apple had something like 350 different projects. Amelio ended up cutting down to around 50 to be more focused. Steve cut it down to just 12. The idea of making the business hyper lean and hyper focused at the same time. Amelio started to focus on things like reducing the amount of SKU's and pushing hard on Education. Steve took that and actually communicated this to the world. And that was the big thing Steve managed to do. Capture peoples imagination and put out the image that Apple wasn't dead in the water. By leaning hard on those few things that made them different at the time - like the iMac.
  - kalleboo 4y ago
    As I saw it reading his book, he correctly identified what was wrong with Apple to get it to the point it was, and had good ideas to fix that. But he didn't have the respect of the rank-and-file to implement the ideas without being undermined, and his ideas for what to do next were all wrong (the stuff in the last chapter of his book when he rails at Jobs).
natas 4y ago
I'll take two please
- 1letterunixname 4y ago
  No personal checks and no refunds. Cash or money orders only. Delivery will be in 6 to 8 years. :P
geenew 4y ago
To be fair, PowerPC was dramatically faster at the time. Akin to the jump with M1.
- 1letterunixname 4y ago
  SMP was sort-of included mid System 7. I doubt many programs took advantage of it because the programming model isn't like async GCD-based with origins in NeXTSTEP (NS...) like it is now in macOS X+. I'm guessing there wasn't much to take advantage of multiple processors except specialized professional apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker, QuarkXPress, LightWave, Maya, and not much else. That's the only reason they could justify their prices, effectively competing in a similar space as NeXTSTEP was.
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  Although it was supposed to be, PowerPC wasn’t the leap forward that the M1 was, partially because the system software was still largely run in 68k emulation and partially because Intel poured infinite money into making x86 faster to remain competitive with RISC processors.
  - GeekyBear 4y ago
    > Although it was supposed to be, PowerPC wasn’t the leap forward that the M1 was Just as with M1, it depends on your workload. For instance, in the old school PBS show, The Computer Chronicles, they mention a prepress shop using the first PowerPC Macs that saw one of their workflows go from hours to minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic0dkf1iFOY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic0dkf1iFOY
  - geenew 4y ago
    Speaking from my own impressions, the UI was noticeably faster. There were many applications - mp3 playing, for example - that only worked on PowerPC. Over time Intel became faster, but there was a period of ~1-3? years when PPC was faster. AFAIR :)
cortesoft 4y ago
I had PowerTower 200, and I loved that thing. Felt so powerful after our old LC. https://everymac.com/systems/powercc/powertower/powertower200e.html https://everymac.com/systems/powercc/powertower/powertower20...
- mackman 4y ago
  Loved my Power Tower! BeOS, Rhapsody DR 1 and 2. But then I started running Linux on it in college and never looked back.

kalleboo 4y ago

It was actually the next CEO, Gil Amelio, that cut off the clone makers. Except for UMAX, who accepted the new clone terms (that would give Apple a % of sale price instead of a [too-low, assuming that the clones would be a race to the bottom] fixed fee per machine sold) and actually got to distribute MacOS 8 for a while.

hnbear 4y ago
I thought it was Jobs. The clones licensed System 7, so jobs took the next version, branded it 8 and forced it out, cutting them off.
- masswerk 4y ago
  Yes, Amelio's departure coincided with the release of System 8 in July 1997. (The NeXT deal and Jobs' return was in February.) To be fair, System 8 was more than just a service update for System 7: it introduced the Platinum UI, the Appearance API, a multithreaded Finder, and various Copland features. (This was quite a rich update, maybe second only to System 7. It would have been a bit strange to just give this all away as System 7.7.)
  - hnbear 4y ago
    7.6 felt like Snow Leopard. Great stable OS after the flakiness of low 7s. Then 8 felt like a huge shift to the modern. Yes, would have been weird to be 7.7. An ideal break point. Seems odd the clones licensed by OS version, not duration. 9 didn’t have the same change feel.
    - masswerk 4y ago
      System 9 was really just about some compatibility layers in preparation for OSX, as I remember it. (And, yes, 7.6 was a major step in terms of stability. There was also some pre-PPC, pre-OpenDoc version of System 7 that was pretty stable, but with all those major integrations that came with the further iterations, things became a bit "delicate".)
      - kitsunesoba 4y ago
        IIRC Mac OS 9.0.x had significant changes for users directly booted into it, as did 9.1 (though to a lesser extent). I think it was 9.2.X that was mostly focused on usage with Classic.
        hnbear 4y ago
        Yes, might be right there. 9 introduced the changes to allow multiple-users on a Mac, with a log-in screen. Going off fuzzy memory. And then Classic/Carbon/Cocoa came around.
  - Someone 4y ago
    > System 8 was more than just a service update for System 7 A lot more, eventually. System 8.6 brought a fully pre-emptive kernel with multi processing (http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=3656.0 http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=3656.0) Problem was that, for backwards compatibility, all applications ran in a single pre-emptively scheduled task that cooperatively scheduled between them. You could write additional tasks that got scheduled preemptively, but they couldn’t make all system calls (https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Carbon/Conceptual/Multitasking_MultiproServ/03tasks/tasks.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ca...)
- kalleboo 4y ago
  Amelio identified that the clone deal was bad (fixed license cost instead of based on % of machine price) and rebranded to MacOS 8 in order to renegotiate to get a better clone deal. Spindler made the original clone deals assuming they would be chasing aggressively low pricing as seen in the PC market but instead the clones ate Apple's high-end market, replacing Apple's high-end margin with cheap OS licenses. So Amelio wanted to renegotiate the deals to be based on the value of the machine so that Apple would not lose from a clone maker selling a high-end machine instead of Apple. Jobs as iCEO continued the negotiations (after all, NeXT was also an OS-only company at that point so Jobs wasn't necessarily sold on the idea that Apple had to sell hardware) but nobody aside from UMAX bit on the more expensive MacOS 8 license (so yeah there was one clone they had a MacOS 8 license - you can find UMAX MacOS 8 CDs out there) so Jobs gave up, and there were no other clones. So Amelio started it and Jobs finished it.
NovaDudely 4y ago
Looking back, Amelio had some decent ideas on how to get Apple back on track but he just didn't have that inspiration to get people excited over it all. Things like iMac, the 4 different system tiers, reducing the amount of research projects to a fraction of what they had were all done under his watch. Steve however kicked it into over drive and actually got people talking about Apple again. Also didn't help that a 2 hour presentation by Amelio felt like weeks!
- anoncow 4y ago
  > Steve however kicked it into overdrive… Is there a specific action of Steve’s that comes to your mind?
  - NovaDudely 4y ago
    A good example is that Apple had something like 350 different projects. Amelio ended up cutting down to around 50 to be more focused. Steve cut it down to just 12. The idea of making the business hyper lean and hyper focused at the same time. Amelio started to focus on things like reducing the amount of SKU's and pushing hard on Education. Steve took that and actually communicated this to the world. And that was the big thing Steve managed to do. Capture peoples imagination and put out the image that Apple wasn't dead in the water. By leaning hard on those few things that made them different at the time - like the iMac.
- kalleboo 4y ago
  As I saw it reading his book, he correctly identified what was wrong with Apple to get it to the point it was, and had good ideas to fix that. But he didn't have the respect of the rank-and-file to implement the ideas without being undermined, and his ideas for what to do next were all wrong (the stuff in the last chapter of his book when he rails at Jobs).

natas 4y ago

I'll take two please

1letterunixname 4y ago
No personal checks and no refunds. Cash or money orders only. Delivery will be in 6 to 8 years. :P

geenew 4y ago

To be fair, PowerPC was dramatically faster at the time. Akin to the jump with M1.

1letterunixname 4y ago
SMP was sort-of included mid System 7. I doubt many programs took advantage of it because the programming model isn't like async GCD-based with origins in NeXTSTEP (NS...) like it is now in macOS X+. I'm guessing there wasn't much to take advantage of multiple processors except specialized professional apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, PageMaker, QuarkXPress, LightWave, Maya, and not much else. That's the only reason they could justify their prices, effectively competing in a similar space as NeXTSTEP was.
KerrAvon 4y ago
Although it was supposed to be, PowerPC wasn’t the leap forward that the M1 was, partially because the system software was still largely run in 68k emulation and partially because Intel poured infinite money into making x86 faster to remain competitive with RISC processors.
- GeekyBear 4y ago
  > Although it was supposed to be, PowerPC wasn’t the leap forward that the M1 was Just as with M1, it depends on your workload. For instance, in the old school PBS show, The Computer Chronicles, they mention a prepress shop using the first PowerPC Macs that saw one of their workflows go from hours to minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic0dkf1iFOY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic0dkf1iFOY
- geenew 4y ago
  Speaking from my own impressions, the UI was noticeably faster. There were many applications - mp3 playing, for example - that only worked on PowerPC. Over time Intel became faster, but there was a period of ~1-3? years when PPC was faster. AFAIR :)

cortesoft 4y ago

I had PowerTower 200, and I loved that thing. Felt so powerful after our old LC. https://everymac.com/systems/powercc/powertower/powertower200e.html https://everymac.com/systems/powercc/powertower/powertower20...

mackman 4y ago
Loved my Power Tower! BeOS, Rhapsody DR 1 and 2. But then I started running Linux on it in college and never looked back.