[G4] snow leopard

[Eric Smith]

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.