Letter from the CEO
Foolin’ around with 64-bit systems, Iffy EFI and Mactel Manipulations
by Robert Pritchett
First off, Happy 30th Birthday Apple, and Happy 5th birthday to Mac OS X! http://happybirthdayapple.com/ and http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/osx-fiveyears.ars
64-Bits
The IBM-based chipset in the iMac G5s are end-of-lifed and the next-gen Intel chip-based iMac G5s have been flying out the doors of Apple. Go to http://appleintelfaq.com/ to see what Mactels can and cannot do. There is “controversy” regarding whether or not they really can do 64-bit http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=4604. Apparently, first-gen Mactels have the 64-bit functionality disabled. To read more about Mactels, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mactel.
You knew that Mac OS X Tiger was 64-bit based, right? http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/64bit/ and Leopard
has even more Mac-goodness built in; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_v10.5 Hopefully, we will learn more at the now August-rescheduled WWDC; http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/
On Microsoft
Meanwhile Microsoft continues to commit Vista Hari-Kari by announcing that the first releases of Vista will now be slated to not support EFI – the Bios replacement – with 64-bit technology and are backtracking to 32-bit technology instead and without EFI enabled.
http://apcmag.com/apc/v3.nsf/0/E666E4A0A303D9AACA25712C008166C4 links to an audio of Andrew Ritz, Microsoft Development Manager’s comments on EFI and Vista plans. This pretty much squashes any plans to let Vista run natively on Mactel systems – at least legally. CG5Addict reports that Apple senior software architect Cameron Esfahani said “No” to the Vista functionality thttp://applexnet.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1762 at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco and Apple isn’t stopping development by others, but they are not exactly championing the cause either. And Apple’s VP, Phil Schiller has been quite vocal about not letting Mac OS X work on non-Mac systems.
Irony?
Any standup comedian would be happy offering the following ironic observations:
The stock ticker name for Microsoft is MSFT. Say it phonetically. Misfit? Pa-da pum!
Does Microsoft go out of its way to find people with double-meaning last names?
Nuke-em!
They sent a guy to the US Congress to tell the world the source code for the OS couldn’t be revealed, as it would endanger security for the US in 2002 – and than gave it to the Russians back in 2003. http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7028-15.cfm The name of the person who acted in behalf of Microsoft was William Neukom, http://news.com.com/2100-1001-944645.html
Ho!
The head of the Apple Business Division’s last name is Roz Ho (just don’t say that last name in polite company with a southern accent), http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/158677_msftmac30.html
Too-Loose!
How bad is security at Microsoft? Things are so bad, that Microsoft has a whole section devoted to Security in TechNet called “Microsoft Bluehat Security Briefings” http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bluehat/default.mspx and there is a “Microsoft Security Response Center Blog” too http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2006/03/22/422849.aspx The person who works for Microsoft as head of the Microsoft Security Response Center is saying that Apple needs a Security Guru – he apparently is looking for work at Apple. Name? Stephen Toulouse http://www.stepto.com/default/default.aspx
MS Titanic – Not People-Ready! Microsoft’s “Copeland”
And with the issues surrounding the “Not People-Ready” 6 flavors of Vista, http://www.forbes.com/technology/2006/03/22/vista-microsoft-ballmer_cz_dl_0322microsoft.html and http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/001513.html it is being renamed by pundits as MS Titanic and Microsoft is being called the Enron of software! Why? Because Microsoft is going through a massive reorg and because they said 60% of Vista has to be rewritten before it will be released. http://www.smarthouse.com.au/Computing/Platforms?Article=/Computing/Platforms/R7G5G6U4
Target dates have moved to November for the two Business (Server versions with 64-bit coding) and four Home versions (32-bit coding) and apparently, they pulled in their Xbox coders to help out.
The Mac community is looking at Vista as Microsoft’s Copeland – a name of one of Apple’s “failed” projects; http://osviews.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2889
Microsoft History Video
There is a wonderfully done History of Microsoft over on The Unofficial Apple Weblog; http://www.tuaw.com
Microsoft Office Spring Cleaning Sweepstakes
Meanwhile, there is a Spring Cleaning Sweepstakes at http://www.officeformacssweeps.com, where $100,000 USD of prizes (Office 2004 for the Mac) are being given away. How’s that for irony?
Mactels
To read frequently asked questions regarding Mactels, check out http://appleintelfaq.com.
Mac OS X on Dells
The Dells can now have pirated versions of Mac OS X loaded on them designed for Mactels, according to MacWindows at http://www.macwindows.com Do you really want to break the law?
Windows on Mactels
The best dual-boot analogy I heard relates to vehicles, of course. It relates to waking up one morning to discover a Lexus in the driveway, after you’ve been driving around in a Ford Pinto. Then being hair-brained enough to take the Ford Pinto engine and sticking it under the hood alongside the Lexus engine. Who in their right mind would do that? Apparently, lots of folks:
OpenOSX had developed WinTel to run on Mactels at http://www.openosx.com/wintel/index.html and it uses Windows 98.
XP on iiMacs
We call them Mactels, because Apple is in the middle of trademarking the name, but the dual-platform geekset calls the units iiMacs.
See the Joy of Tech cartoon; http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/802.html for the "been there, done that, feel dirty" cartoon.
Eric Bangeman at http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060310-6361.html stated earlier that the reward had not been given to get XP Pro to boot on a Mactel system, but two guys in California (blanka and narf2006) took home the nearly $14,000 USD prize by showing how XP Pro could run in dual-boot mode on Mactels and made geekdom history:
http://www.hardmac.com/news/2006-03-16/#5271
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4816520.stm
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=183700267
Download Instructions
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060316-6393.html http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/HOWTO
Watch the video; http://features.uneasysilence.com/mactel/ And if you watch MacBreak over on iTunes, Leo LaPorte also is involved in a MacBreak video too.
Jason Snell did a follow-up report;
http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/macword/2006/03/winmac/index.php?lsrc=mwrss
Windows Drivers that work on iiMacs; http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Drivers#Ethernet
And Driver searching; http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showforum=63
iSlayer at AppleTalk Australia has a 3-part article on Windows on Macs including an interview with Jesus Lopez who is blanka:
http://www.appletalk.com.au/articles/index.php?article=17703 http://www.appletalk.com.au/articles/index.php?article=17797 http://www.appletalk.com.au/articles/index.php?article=17885
Gearlog showed benchmark tests of Windows XP on Mactels doing better than XP on non-Mac Core Duo PCs; http://gearlog.com/blogs/gearlog/archive/2006/03/21/8212.aspx and http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=5906
Rob Griffiths over a MacWorld offered his experience installing XP on a Mactel (don’t try this at home kids); http://www.macworld.com/2006/03/firstlooks/xpmini/index.php?lsrc=mwrss
Arik Hesseldahl in BusinessWeek Online didn’t have a good experience with this either; http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2006/tc20060322_658188.htm?campaign_id=search
Over on MacInTouch there is a lot of chatter about Macs on Intel; http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/macsonintel/index.html
There is also a way to not dual-boot on Mactel, and that is by running Darwine on a Mactel instead. No Microsoft OS is involved, but Windows apps can run in emulated mode;
http://darwine.opendarwin.org/
http://www.osx86project.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=114&Itemid=2
And I also heard that may be a virtualization process could be in the works for Mac OS X Leopard;
http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/apple_intels_idf_and_getting_personal/
Other Tantalizing Technologies
Intel continues to work on relationships and one that is very interesting is with Transitive (makers of the Rosetta emulator for Mactels); http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=4894. It is possible that other Windows-based apps could run on Mactels with Transitive’s help. Intel also has plans for Apple products and these are revealed by Neo at Macsimum News:
http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.php/archive/apple_intels_idf_and_getting_personal/
The Q.app is continuing to be worked on at http://www.kberg.ch/q/ by Mike Kronenberg. “Q” runs Windows, Linux and other operating systems on a Mac as “guest PCs” using OpenGL, Coreimage and Coreaudio technologies to run under Mac OS X using the Cocoa port of Open Source QEMU at http://www.qemu.org/.
You might also want to keep your eyes on EyeOS at http://www.eyeos.org/. It is a web-based OS from Barcelona that could perhaps one day have something for Mactel systems.
So if you don’t mind foolin’ around in April with Mactels, EFI and alternate options for the Mactel platform, there are lots of opportunities out there to do so.
No kidding!
