Apple to ditch IBM, switch to Intel chips | CNET News.com:
Apple has used IBM’s PowerPC processors since 1994, but will begin a phased transition to Intel’s chips, sources familiar with the situation said. Apple plans to move lower-end computers such as the Mac Mini to Intel chips in mid-2006 and higher-end models such as the Power Mac in mid-2007, sources said.
The announcement is expected Monday at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, at which Chief Executive Steve Jobs is giving the keynote speech. The conference would be an appropriate venue: Changing the chips would require programmers to rewrite their software to take full advantage of the new processor.
Interesting.
Of course, changing chips actually wouldn’t require developers to rewrite anything: the compiler (gcc 4 comes standard with OS X) needs to know what it’s generating object code for, as with the rest of the toolchain, but in this day and age, programmers don’t need to sweat those details.
Gee, I hope they got some of the more important facts right. Not that this story hasn’t come up before . . . .
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[composed and posted with ecto]
[composed and posted with ecto]
[composed and posted with ecto]