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G5, will it ever arive?
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I read an article about that Motorola’s PowerPC G5 / 8500 processor may never arrive.
It says that Apple may use IBM PowerPC chip for there fastes machines.I don’t know if this is an old story but did anybody hear about this?
Is this true?Signature
Those signatures are great.
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That’s an old item, and though it’s well written, I don’t think they have it right.
Logically: Would Apple stick with the G4 if it was an end-of-life product? If Motorola was not going to provide a road map for Apple going forward, I think that Apple would switch to Intel, AMD, or maybe something weird like Transmeta.
Mind you, that’s the only scenario for Apple switching to Intel, and I don’t think that will happen at all.:D
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Editor - The Mac Observer
Favorite (but less relevant than it used to be) Quote: Microsoft’s tyranny lies not in its success, but in the way it achieved and maintains that success.
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What a stupid question.
This is completely stupid this question.
Of course the G5 will eventually come.
Looking at the PowerPC line, so far Apple has released computers using the PowerPC G3 processor. Once built, the PowerPC G4 was released and has since replaced the PowerPC G3 processor.
Similarly, Intel has had it its Pentium processor, followed by the Pentium II, followed by the Pentium III and currently sells the Pentium 4 processor.
Can we see a pattern developing here?
If the PowerPC G3 processor has been replaced by the PowerPC G4 processor, common sense would say that the next generation of processor to be used by Apple would be the PowerPC G5.
Unfortunately common sense is sometimes a rare commodity.
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"Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower."—Steve Jobs
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I don’t think Apple will stick with the G4 for a very long time. Our High Priest Steve-O recently said so himself: “we’ve used the G4 for over two years now. That’s too long”.
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the fruit of haste
Consider this:
Not long after Intel delivered MMX, Motorola was beginning to develop “VMX”, which ultimately became Altivec. Now, the first consumer G4 shipped in September of ‘99 - that is at least a 3 year development curve (for a very complex addition to the PowerPC), during which the 604 moved into the 750 (G3). Motorola seems to be very careful and thorough in its R&D process, which is generally a good thing.
On the other hand (OTOH), the G5 talk has been basically entirely rumor - the Altivec spec was published and available for years (at least 2) prior to the first shipping 7400.
G5 is rather like the step from 604 to G3, which was almost trivial compared to the G3 to G4 transition, but Motorola wants be make sure they have a quality product that will not be besieged by the cache-coherency problem that caused the clock-shaving fiasco in the original Graphite release.
Just wait a few weeks for MWNY - maybe we will get a clue as to what that stock sell-off was all about.
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Seemed like a good idea at the time
