3 ms·

I don’t believe you are serious that you don’t see the issue with MacOS having - A 68K emulator - A PPC emulator - a 32 bit x86 emulator - a 32 bit ARM emul

I don’t believe you are serious that you don’t see the issue with MacOS having - A 68K emulator - A PPC emulator - a 32 bit x86 emulator - a 32 bit ARM emulator (since ARM chips don’t have hardware to run 32 bit code) And to think that Windows is a shining example of good operating system design. Why not include a 65C02 emulator also so you can run AppleWorks 3.0 from 1986?

bigyabai 1y ago
I don't believe you know what you're talking about, if you think that Apple's 64-bit ARM chips struggle to run 32-bit code in-userland. Especially if you're going to put words in my mouth - at no point did I ever call the Windows OS a shining example of anything. You're confirming my suspicion that you live in a mercurial clown dimension. However, I will absolutely say Windows users have higher expectations from Microsoft than what Mac customers demand from Apple. Macs would get removed by force from many of the places that rely on Windows in professional settings like render farms, factory automation, and defense. There is absolutely zero tolerance for Apple's shenanigans there, and Apple offers those customers no products to take their needs seriously, unlike Microsoft. It's not a coincidence that Apple has zero buy-in outside the consumer market, not a single professional customer wants what Apple is selling if Nvidia or AMD will do the same thing with less-petty software support. We all know why products like XServe failed, poor Apple had too much pride to support the software that the industry had actual demand for. While we're talking about software darwinism, I think you need to hear this; Darwin objectively sucks from a systems design standpoint, it's why nobody uses XNU unless they're forced to. It's empirically slow, deliberately neutered for third-parties, the user-exposed runtime is loaded with outdated/unnecessary crap and BSD tooling that won't work with industry-standard software, the IPC model is not secure (fight me), the capabilities are arbitrarily changed per-OS, filesystem security is second-rate like Windows/Bitlocker, the default install is bloated with literal gigabytes of deadweight binaries, both LLB and iBoot are mandatory NSA slopware blobs, and their SDK commitment is more fickle than developers playing Musical Chairs. None of these kernels are good, but XNU is unique in that it is completely disposable to humanity and possesses no remaining valuable features. If macOS stopped working tomorrow, there would be no disruption to any critical infrastructure around the world. If Linux or Windows had a Y2K moment, we'd be measuring the deaths by the thousands. I'm willing to give Apple their due, but you refuse to admit they're lazy - "since ARM chips don't have hardware" my ass, on "hacker" news of all places...
- raw_anon_1111 1y ago
  What’s there not to “believe”? There is no hardware support for 32 bit ARM instructions on Macs and iPhones. In fact there has never been 32 bit ARM Mac software. What software are you pining for from 32 bit x86 Macs? Consider how shitty the x86 Windows experience is compared to modern Macs - poor battery life, loud, slow and hot - I’m really surprised at how little Windows users expect from their computers. As far as the Arm based Windows computers, the x86 emulator is slower than Macs running x86 code and the processors are worse. And are you really saying ARM based Macs, iPhones and iPads are slow? You seem to want the Mac to be the equivalent of the “HomerMobile”. No professional is buying Macs? You think that video and audio professionals as well as developers are really saying “we really want Windows computers” or did I miss the “Year of the Linux desktop”?
morshu9001 1y ago
Maybe I'm mistaken but I thought generic ARM (not AS) had a 32 mode, and in fact that's what Windows emulates x86-32 into. If not then great, x86-32 on ARM64.
- raw_anon_1111 1y ago
  Apple removed 32 bit decoding hardware from its chips. I don’t know about generic ARM. If the chips Microsoft uses didn’t, that’s another argument about why supporting backwards compatibility effort stops a platform from moving forward. That die space could be used for something else like Apple did

bigyabai 1y ago

I don't believe you know what you're talking about, if you think that Apple's 64-bit ARM chips struggle to run 32-bit code in-userland. Especially if you're going to put words in my mouth - at no point did I ever call the Windows OS a shining example of anything. You're confirming my suspicion that you live in a mercurial clown dimension. However, I will absolutely say Windows users have higher expectations from Microsoft than what Mac customers demand from Apple. Macs would get removed by force from many of the places that rely on Windows in professional settings like render farms, factory automation, and defense. There is absolutely zero tolerance for Apple's shenanigans there, and Apple offers those customers no products to take their needs seriously, unlike Microsoft. It's not a coincidence that Apple has zero buy-in outside the consumer market, not a single professional customer wants what Apple is selling if Nvidia or AMD will do the same thing with less-petty software support. We all know why products like XServe failed, poor Apple had too much pride to support the software that the industry had actual demand for. While we're talking about software darwinism, I think you need to hear this; Darwin objectively sucks from a systems design standpoint, it's why nobody uses XNU unless they're forced to. It's empirically slow, deliberately neutered for third-parties, the user-exposed runtime is loaded with outdated/unnecessary crap and BSD tooling that won't work with industry-standard software, the IPC model is not secure (fight me), the capabilities are arbitrarily changed per-OS, filesystem security is second-rate like Windows/Bitlocker, the default install is bloated with literal gigabytes of deadweight binaries, both LLB and iBoot are mandatory NSA slopware blobs, and their SDK commitment is more fickle than developers playing Musical Chairs. None of these kernels are good, but XNU is unique in that it is completely disposable to humanity and possesses no remaining valuable features. If macOS stopped working tomorrow, there would be no disruption to any critical infrastructure around the world. If Linux or Windows had a Y2K moment, we'd be measuring the deaths by the thousands. I'm willing to give Apple their due, but you refuse to admit they're lazy - "since ARM chips don't have hardware" my ass, on "hacker" news of all places...

raw_anon_1111 1y ago
What’s there not to “believe”? There is no hardware support for 32 bit ARM instructions on Macs and iPhones. In fact there has never been 32 bit ARM Mac software. What software are you pining for from 32 bit x86 Macs? Consider how shitty the x86 Windows experience is compared to modern Macs - poor battery life, loud, slow and hot - I’m really surprised at how little Windows users expect from their computers. As far as the Arm based Windows computers, the x86 emulator is slower than Macs running x86 code and the processors are worse. And are you really saying ARM based Macs, iPhones and iPads are slow? You seem to want the Mac to be the equivalent of the “HomerMobile”. No professional is buying Macs? You think that video and audio professionals as well as developers are really saying “we really want Windows computers” or did I miss the “Year of the Linux desktop”?

morshu9001 1y ago

Maybe I'm mistaken but I thought generic ARM (not AS) had a 32 mode, and in fact that's what Windows emulates x86-32 into. If not then great, x86-32 on ARM64.

raw_anon_1111 1y ago
Apple removed 32 bit decoding hardware from its chips. I don’t know about generic ARM. If the chips Microsoft uses didn’t, that’s another argument about why supporting backwards compatibility effort stops a platform from moving forward. That die space could be used for something else like Apple did