LR: New Processor?

[arn]

http://www.LoopRumors.com launched and posted a very questionable rumor...

Several of our sources have indicated that the show will bring a new chip architecture to the iMac line, scheduled to debut at Steve Job’s 9am(PST) keynote on January 7th. This new processor will not just be a speed-bumped chip, but rather a new design.

I post it here and not on the main site, because the rumor barely even makes sense, and is not believable. If you read the rest, they talk about "This new chip will only be able to run OS 9 in a Unix shell, commonly known as “Classic” and not from start-up."

hmm....

arn

 

[BenderBot1138]

I don't know...

Sometimes I feel like the worries that some feel about Mac not pushing GHz through the roof has to do with some behind the scenes development going on at Motorola.

If some bizarro technology does begin to surface that totally blows the Intel/IBM/AMD market to shreds, I'm not going to be overly surprised.

I agree the article seems fringe, but Motorola's just a little too quiet with the upgrades. Does anyone know exactly where and what Motorola's scientists are up to? Can we account for all R&D personnel at Motorola?

Realistically Motorola has a record of Thinking Different. It is not outside the realm of possibility that some massive performance increase is underraps and underway at Motorola. It's quiet... just a little too quiet at Motorola...

 

[3G4N]

... More information to follow regarding speed, capabilities and manufacturer this week.

sounds a little fishy, and I ain't holding my breath,
but...

Some backroom IBM development? Creating
a streamlined "consumer" G3-replacement alongside
the development of the "pro" 970. IBM could marry
the Sahara's children with the same VMX (altivec) instruction
set being used with the 970.

This would assure better altivec-optimized OSX performance
and DVD burning for the iMac.

If Apple is as pissed at Moto as I know they are and
as the "Roadmap" post the other day would indicate,
Apple would not have focused solely on an alternative
"pro" 970 solution. They would also be looking
elsewhere for their "consumer" line's processor too.
Let Moto screw us again? No thanks.

But what would IBM get out of it? If 970 is for their
linux lines of workstations and smaller servers, could
they position this for their own line of linux laptops for
mobile development? : )

That's about as much speculation as I can squeeze out
of this one.

I agree the article seems fringe, but Motorola's just a little too quiet with the upgrades. Does anyone know exactly where and what Motorola's scientists are up to? Can we account for all R&D personnel at Motorola?

FWIW, I know a few Motoheads.
They told me back in Apr about pieces of the "G5 fiasco,"
and how they are ceeding the Apple-reins to IBM for a while,
and how they are now focusing on embedded to get
them through the tough times, but are planning
a come-back heavy-hitting G7. (I think they are better
at designing than manufacturing.) I've seen jobs posts
that indicate they are hiring "high-performance PPC"
engineers and logic designers. I've also heard that
the 7457 (Apollo 7) is at the fab and sampling
at 1.6Ghz (dunno about supply nums).

If the afore speculated G3-replacements are
branded G5s and the 970 are G6s, then this might work.

And that's all the second hand info I know.
Wish I had more friends at IBM, and Apple : )

 

[adamcoop]

Current chips are built on an architecture that is nearly ten years old, designed at the time Motorola switched from the 680X0 to the PowerPC RISC processor


Ooh... 10 years... how old is the x86 again?

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Well, we're supposed to get an update today, so maybe there will be something a little more concrete and believable.

The whole thing with OS9 only booting in a shell is quite odd - I'd love to know how that's supposed to work.

D

 

[Bear]

Re: LR: New Processor?

Originally posted by arn
"This new chip will only be able to run OS 9 in a Unix shell, commonly known as �Classic� and not from start-up."

This part, while worded rather badly, is only a restating of no Macs introduced after New Years will be able to boot into OS9, but will still have Classic under OS X.

So, this part of the rumor at least sounds in line with stated fact.

 

[gbojim]

Definition of architecture

One of the things that I think is confusing the matter here is whether the article is refering to the Instruction Set Architecture or the fab architecture.

A friend who works on the engineering team for a local communications company was telling me over the weekend that Moto actually appears to be ahead of schedule ramping up the 7457. They (the comms company) are optimistic that they can move their new product launch up by as much as a quarter because they will be getting 7457s ealier than predicted.

Since the 7457 is using the .13u process, that represents a new fab architecture.

To me, it does not make much business sense for IBM, Moto or anyone else to be working on some secret project that is only applicable to Apple. Apple by itself would not generate enough volume to make it worthwhile.

 

[arn]

Re: Re: LR: New Processor?

Originally posted by Bear


This part, while worded rather badly, is only a restating of no Macs introduced after New Years will be able to boot into OS9, but will still have Classic under OS X.

So, this part of the rumor at least sounds in line with stated fact.

No... it seems this part seems based on speculation.

The Unix Shell has nothing to do with Classic, and the whole "new processor won't run OS 9" is a very simplisitic view trying to explain away Jobs' comment that new machines won't boot OS 9. If the processor can launch Classic, it could boot 9.

arn

 

[Sun Baked]

The final coffin nail in OS 9 booting should finally allow Apple to move forward with their chipsets and features without having the OS 9 corpse causing problems.

Just because Apple will no longer support OS 9 booting on "new" machines introduced after the end of the year, it doesn't mean that the CPU and/or chipsets of the entire line-up will be "all new" as of Jan 7th.

It's just that Apple can once again move forward quickly on the motherboards without having to worry about a change killing full support of OS 9 bootability.

---

Though it would be nice to see an entire new line-up - just to see how well Apple can juggle production problems on all the machines at once.

 

[sparkleytone]

omfg sun baked.

i just watched the movie in your sig for the first time. its pretty damned funny.

 

[funkywhat2]

Re: Re: Re: LR: New Processor?

Originally posted by arn


No... it seems this part seems based on speculation.

The Unix Shell has nothing to do with Classic, and the whole "new processor won't run OS 9" is a very simplisitic view trying to explain away Jobs' comment that new machines won't boot OS 9. If the processor can launch Classic, it could boot 9.

arn

But when they said "a UNIX shell, commonly known as 'Classic'", are they not refering to the Classic Environment? That is how it is commonly known.

 

[pgwalsh]

Re: Re: Re: LR: New Processor?

Originally posted by arn


No... it seems this part seems based on speculation.

The Unix Shell has nothing to do with Classic, and the whole "new processor won't run OS 9" is a very simplisitic view trying to explain away Jobs' comment that new machines won't boot OS 9. If the processor can launch Classic, it could boot 9.

arn

Not having switched to OS X yet, I was under the impression that the classic environment in OS X was an emulated version? In addition you could boot in Classic as well. In January you will no longer be able to boot in Classic. Nothing said about the elimination of the emulation of Classic.

Perhaps there is a new processor that won't run classic from boot. Probably because Apple's not bothering with classic anymore or it's such a jump ahead that it would too much of a pain in da azz.

 

[MisterMe]

Re: Re: Re: Re: LR: New Processor?

Originally posted by pgwalsh

Not having switched to OS X yet, I was under the impression that the classic environment in OS X was an emulated version? In addition you could boot in Classic as well. In January you will no longer be able to boot in Classic. Nothing said about the elimination of the emulation of Classic.

Classic does not run in emulation. This has been discussed ad nauseum. The major differences between Classic and bootable Mac OS 9 are that Classic is controlled by the MacOS X Finder, it has only a limited MacOS 9 I/O, and some MacOS 9 applications and utilities are incompatible.

Originally posted by pgwalsh

Perhaps there is a new processor that won't run classic from boot. Probably because Apple's not bothering with classic anymore or it's such a jump ahead that it would too much of a pain in da azz.

Booting into MacOS 9 is not an issue of processors, per se, but of firmware and everything else on the motherboard and everything that communicates with it. A computer is much more than a microprocessor.

 

[Durandal7]

The glaring problem with this is that no new processor will be introduced in a consumer model first. It would make sense for Powermacs but not iMacs.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

Well, the site was updated, but with nothing ground breaking, just a little discussion on iChat and iSync. I'm wondering where they're going with this. SpyMac started out pretty small and grew in a few months - but I don't think this new site has everything together yet.

Remains to be seen.

D

 

[Durandal7]

Originally posted by dukestreet
I'm wondering where they're going with this. SpyMac started out pretty small and grew in a few months - but I don't think this new site has everything together yet.

Spymac grew because of the iWalk. We'll just have to wait and see if Looprumors comes up with any absurd photoshop jobs in the coming weeks.

 

[Kid Red]

Originally posted by Durandal7
The glaring problem with this is that no new processor will be introduced in a consumer model first. It would make sense for Powermacs but not iMacs.

I disagree. This could be the replacement for the G4 in cosumer lines. We all know the 970 is going to the towers. If the current G4 tops out at 1.3ghz then you have maybe 1 speed bump left, 2 if you piss people off. So what to do then? The 970 won't even be 4 months old so you cant throw that into the iMac/PB/eMac yet. So that's why you use a Sahara ll or something. It would have to have the VMX for the superdrive and the Sahara is supposed to scale well. If so, it's by by for moto for good across the board. IBM would be Apple's sole chip supplier.

 

[dabirdwell]

If I were wishing...

I would love to see a .13 micron G4 or a Sahara II replace the iMac's G4, and by some miracle of production the 970 replace the G4 in the dual machines. Back to all single processor line with all widescreen displays...

 

[bluecell]

Re: If I were wishing...

Originally posted by dabirdwell
I would love to see a .13 micron G4 or a Sahara II replace the iMac's G4, and by some miracle of production the 970 replace the G4 in the dual machines. Back to all single processor line with all widescreen displays...

I would love to see the G4 taken out of existence.

 

[alex_ant]

Originally posted by Kid Red
I disagree. This could be the replacement for the G4 in cosumer lines. We all know the 970 is going to the towers. If the current G4 tops out at 1.3ghz then you have maybe 1 speed bump left, 2 if you piss people off. So what to do then? The 970 won't even be 4 months old so you cant throw that into the iMac/PB/eMac yet. So that's why you use a Sahara ll or something. It would have to have the VMX for the superdrive and the Sahara is supposed to scale well. If so, it's by by for moto for good across the board. IBM would be Apple's sole chip supplier.

But the rumor goes that this chip will be introduced in January. At the time it's released, it will (if it brings any performance improvement at all over the G4) compete too favorably against the G4s in the pro line. The only advantage to the Power Mac over the iMac then would be the expansion slots and the dual slow processors (compared to the iMac's single fast processor).

This rumor doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I don't see why the iMac won't be able to make do with a G4 until the 970 comes out. Dual 1.4-1.6-1.8GHz 970 in the towers, single 1.2GHz or whatever 970 in the iMac... sounds plausible to me.

 

[BenderBot1138]

Realplayer...

unReal... wow, realplayer website makers are not members of the ape family, they are chimps.