[X4U] Apple's move to Intel 64 bit?

[Scott McCulloch]

On Jun 12, 2005, at 9:09 PM, Adam Bass wrote:

> On Jun 7, 2005, at 12:23 PM, Scott McCulloch wrote:
>
>> On Jun 7, 2005, at 9:13 AM, Richard Gilmore wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Will the MacTel's Pentiums be 64bit?
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Not according to this:
>> http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20050607081920942
>>
>> Which does seem disappointing, or confusing, or something to me,  
>> given Apple's insistence that 64bit was an important step for OS  
>> X, one of the benefits of G5s, etc. I certainly bought the  
>> argument... so I'm not quite sure how to take this.
>>
>> Scott
>
> Could you please quote or paraphrase what Macfixit says regarding  
> this? The page you linked to is only available to Macfixit Pro  
> subscribers. Macworld says they think Apple would probably not  
> abandon the 64-bit architecture, and that Intel has made 64-bit  
> chips (although not very successful ones as far as I know), and  
> that Intel would probably make a 64-bit chip for Apple. Of course,  
> this is completely based on conjecture, and there's no proof one  
> way or the other that I know of. I'm curious as to how Macfixit  
> came to the conclusion that Intel would not make a 64-bit chip for  
> Apple. Are they just guessing. It seems like no one would know that  
> information yet.
>
> Adam

Well, I would, but it seems I can't access it either. I'm not a  
subscriber, so I don't know exactly how I was able to view it before,  
but it didn't occur to me that it was restricted that way since I was  
able to read it.

If I remember correctly, the article was simply pointing out that in  
Apple's documentation about creating Universal Binaries, there was  
mention of Intel's 32-bit architecture, but no mention at all about  
64-bit. I think they were assuming that meant that at this phase, at  
least, 64-bit was possibly not part of the plan.

Since then, however, I've read a lot of additional speculation, most  
of it suggesting that it's too soon to tell - and that perhaps part  
of the reason Apple is planning a "bottom up" strategy for the  
changeover (i.e. lower spec hardware first), is that it gives more  
time for Intel to come up with the "right" processor for the "pro"  
level machines, including being 64-bit.

I'm not aware of any official announcements on any of this.

Scott