[G4] snow leopard

[Keith Whaley]

Eric Smith wrote:
> Keith Whaley wrote:
>> Eric Smith wrote:
>>> Richard Klein wrote:
>>>> Furthermore, when you hear that Snow Leopard takes up less hard drive
>>>> space and runs faster than Leopard, at least some of that is because
>>>> they trimmed the extra code to support PowerPC Macs.
>>
>>> Some of the disk space saving is due to the removal of PPC code,
>>> but that is not the major factor. The greatest part of the space
>>> reclaimed came from optimizing localization files.
>>
>> Aren't localization files those files necessary for using the Mac OS 
>> with languages other than English?
> 
> That's right. Here's an article that explains it much better than I can:
> <http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/06/27/solving_the_mystery_of_snow_leopards_shrinking_apps.html> 
> 
> 
>>> Better performance would have nothing whatever to do with
>>> removing PPC code. Whatever performance increase there is
>>> would be due to 64-bit applications plus Snow Leopard's new
>>> features like Grand Central and OpenCL.
>>
>> Point of order here...the speed increase experienced by most SL users 
>> is plenty real, and by default SL boots into a 32 bit mode.
>> How do you account for that phenomenon?
> 
> The kernel is 32-bit by default, although with many Intel systems
> users can choose to boot a 64-bit kernel. But the rest of the system
> is all 64-bit, and almost all applications in SL are 64-bit (on 64-bit
> systems, of course). Plus there are the new features I mentioned before,
> plus let's not forget the possibility that Apple has simply made
> performance improvements to existing code.
> 
> In any case the idea that Snow Leopard performs better due to the
> removal of PPC code simply doesn't compute. Intel systems don't run
> PPC code, so how can removing it affect them? In Leopard that code
> may be sitting on the disk but aside from taking up some disk space,
> in system operation it isn't used.
> 
>>> Apple could easily have provided a PPC version of Snow Leopard
>>> without impacting the performance of Intel systems. Most PPC
>>> systems would not get the benefit of all the new features, but
>>> not all Intel systems get those benefits either.
>>>
>>> The biggest gain for Apple in dropping PPC is from resources
>>> to test and support the old platforms. And since those platforms
>>> no longer generate any direct revenue for Apple, prodding users
>>> to buy new systems is a marketing goal. But this is an ongoing
>>> process. 10.4 wouldn't run on some G3 systems, 10.5 wouldn't
>>> run on some G4 systems, 10.6 drops all PPC systems, and I'm
>>> guessing that 10.7 will be 64-bit only and won't run on early
>>> Intel platforms.
>>>
>>> Eric S.
>>
>> Seems to me, that would go directly against a treasured Apple 
>> tradition, and would be cutting their own throat!
>> Backwards compatibility has ALWAYS been something Apple owners could 
>> count on and brag about.
>> You're talking about a rather rapid evolution into the very best of 
>> the current "very best." Too rapid, to some...
>  >
>  > keith whaley
> 
> I agree completely. Backward compatibility used to be one of the main
> strengths of Apple's OS products. As late as 10.4 with Classic mode
> I could still run a 1986 version of MacPaint from my original Mac Plus
> system. A 20+ year-old program running under the latest OS! Now, however,
> Apple seems determined that your new system will be obsolete in two years
> and completely unsupported in less than five.
> 
> Eric S.
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