morganvachon

6 jaar geledendiscuss

Picture 18 year old me in 1995, I got a 486SX laptop as a graduation present out of the blue from my estranged father. I wanted to add an external CD-ROM to it so I could play games and load software for college, and it had a SCSI port. I went to the local computer store and asked the guy for a "ess see ess eye" CD-ROM drive, he busted out laughing and said "oh you mean a scuzzy drive?" Very embarrassing for me at the time but that's when I learned that computer acronyms have a preferred pronunciation so I should try to learn them myself to avoid future confusion.

morganvachon

6 jaar geledendiscuss

CPU speed alone doesn't indicate overall system performance, nor do synthetic benchmarks. The PPC mini had a discrete GPU with dedicated RAM, and OS X at that time was mature on the platform and very performant. The first Intel mini was a Core Solo machine that was horribly underpowered, had Intel GMA 950 graphics not even powerful enough to properly render QE/CI without stuttering, and was hobbled by a very slow system bus. Intel Macs didn't start performing better than their PPC counterparts until Lion was released and the second generation of Core 2 CPUs with faster system bus and higher clock speeds came about.

I get the point you're trying to make, but unless you owned both the last PPC mini and the first Intel mini at the same time, as I did in 2006 (and still do), you have no idea what you're talking about.

morganvachon

6 jaar geledendiscuss

> As a development machine it will be all but useless as you find things that won't compile or work correctly on the new CPU arch.

I'm not a developer so forgive my ignorance, but isn't this what cross-compiling is for? I get that compiling natively can increase performance and find obscure hardware issues, but it's my understanding that, for example, ARM builds of GNU/Linux binaries are just cross-compiled by server farms that are also natively compiling the AMD64 builds.

Also, fat binaries and JIT emulation have been a thing forever, especially for Apple who has dealt with these changes twice now (68k -> PPC -> x86-64).

I just don't see this being any different than current multi-platform efforts like Debian, NetBSD, etc., except it's a for-profit company with billions of dollars and thousands of expert employees behind it.

morganvachon

6 jaar geledendiscuss

According to the article it is going to be a staggered release, starting with the lower end of the Mac lineup, so I have a feeling there will be several more years of Hackintosh fun to be had.

morganvachon

6 jaar geledendiscuss

I know it won't be exactly the same thing as the 68k and PPC eras, but I'm excited nonetheless. I'm a sucker for stories of going against the mainstream and pulling it off. I remember being wholly underwhelmed when Apple switched to Intel in the mid 2000s; my PPC Mac mini was more performant than the first Intel mini by far, especially the GPU. Given how powerful the A series mobile processors are (the new iPhone SE makes my Galaxy Note 10+ look like a slouch in benchmarks), I have a feeling the new Macs will be worth a look for anyone without hard requirements for Windows 10.

morganvachon

7 jaar geledendiscuss

Walmart as a company is generally friendly to both truckers and "vandwellers" who use their lot for overnight parking. The only exceptions I've seen are smaller "neighborhood Walmart" locations and the occasional small town where the cops have nothing to do all night except harass overnight truckers and mobile home/van drivers.

morganvachon

10 jaar geledendiscuss

I think it's made clear in the article why the author is so biased:

> "The publishers Apple had joined forces with were Hachette; News Corp's HarperCollins; Penguin Group Inc; Macmillan; and Simon & Schuster, a division of CBS (ZDNet's parent company)."

morganvachon

11 jaar geledendiscuss

It uses a special SIM to hand off between Wi-Fi, T-Mobile, and Sprint service. There's one other MVNO that supports both of those networks, Ting, though they don't support both networks on one device simultaneously (yet; I think they might be working on it). I'm on Ting and it's nice having a T-Mobile phone in my pocket while my wife has a Sprint phone, all on the same account and billing.

morganvachon

11 jaar geledendiscuss

Same here, same browser and OS at 1600x900. It's somewhat easier to read on Firefox, but it could stand some better contrast there too.

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