| Re: Dual Core Apple "MacBook", and RSI's Mac Intel plans [message #46902] |
Thu, 12 January 2006 02:17  |
Nigel Wade
Messages: 286
Registered: March 1998
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Senior Member |
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JD Smith wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Jan 2006 08:33:49 -0500, Haje Korth wrote:
>
>> Man, you really can't wait,huh? The words his Steveness spoke yesterday are
>> still echoing through the room and you are demanding applications. :-) (My
>> understanding from the blogs I read was that not even Apple has fully
>> converted all their apps.)
>
> Well, whether I wait can or not, I'll have to, given my 1 yr old PB
> sitting on the desk. In terms of recommending to colleagues, I think
> "sometime in 2007" is a very poor answer. Had they poured effort into
> optimizing IDL for PowerPC with Altivec, then I could understand it,
> and cut them some slack. Given that they did not (after making much
> ado about nothing), it is likely a relatively easy port, so waiting
> over a year to do it seems a bit... how shall we say... weak?
>
> Scientists types love Macs, with their decent GUI, and all the BSD
> Unix trimmings. Those same scientists hate IDL's performance on the
> Mac, which is painfully slow, even compared to other laptops (i.e. my
> 4 yr old PIII laptop was faster at IDL than my current PB). This
> 2-processor MacBook offers the perfect solution. It really won't be a
> good choice to wait more than a year from the time they are available
> to first support them.
>
> That said, RSI probably heard about the MacBook yesterday with
> everyone else, so perhaps are revising that strategy now. I suppose
> it all depends on whether the PPC IDL can run under Rosetta.
>
> JD
Given that RSI won't port IDL/Solaris for Solaris x86, or IDL/Linux for Linux on
Itanium, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for an them to do an "easy port" to
MacOS X on Intel.
--
Nigel Wade, System Administrator, Space Plasma Physics Group,
University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK
E-mail : nmw@ion.le.ac.uk
Phone : +44 (0)116 2523548, Fax : +44 (0)116 2523555
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| Re: Dual Core Apple "MacBook", and RSI's Mac Intel plans [message #46909 is a reply to message #46902] |
Wed, 11 January 2006 15:06  |
JD Smith
Messages: 850
Registered: December 1999
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Senior Member |
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On Wed, 11 Jan 2006 08:33:49 -0500, Haje Korth wrote:
> Man, you really can't wait,huh? The words his Steveness spoke yesterday are
> still echoing through the room and you are demanding applications. :-) (My
> understanding from the blogs I read was that not even Apple has fully
> converted all their apps.)
Well, whether I wait can or not, I'll have to, given my 1 yr old PB
sitting on the desk. In terms of recommending to colleagues, I think
"sometime in 2007" is a very poor answer. Had they poured effort into
optimizing IDL for PowerPC with Altivec, then I could understand it,
and cut them some slack. Given that they did not (after making much
ado about nothing), it is likely a relatively easy port, so waiting
over a year to do it seems a bit... how shall we say... weak?
Scientists types love Macs, with their decent GUI, and all the BSD
Unix trimmings. Those same scientists hate IDL's performance on the
Mac, which is painfully slow, even compared to other laptops (i.e. my
4 yr old PIII laptop was faster at IDL than my current PB). This
2-processor MacBook offers the perfect solution. It really won't be a
good choice to wait more than a year from the time they are available
to first support them.
That said, RSI probably heard about the MacBook yesterday with
everyone else, so perhaps are revising that strategy now. I suppose
it all depends on whether the PPC IDL can run under Rosetta.
JD
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| Re: Dual Core Apple "MacBook", and RSI's Mac Intel plans [message #46926 is a reply to message #46915] |
Wed, 11 January 2006 05:33 |
Haje Korth
Messages: 651
Registered: May 1997
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Senior Member |
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Man, you really can't wait,huh? The words his Steveness spoke yesterday are
still echoing through the room and you are demanding applications. :-) (My
understanding from the blogs I read was that not even Apple has fully
converted all their apps.)
Cheers,
Haje
"JD Smith" <jdsmith@as.arizona.edu> wrote in message
news:pan.2006.01.10.19.59.41.908085@as.arizona.edu...
>
> Apple just announced a new Intel-based, dual core "MacBook", using the
> newly announced "Core Duo" chip. Check it out here:
>
> http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/
>
> This looks like the ultimate IDL mobile workstation. Now, the
> question is, will IDL 6.3 be offered as a Universal Binary for the
> Mac? Since we know RSI never really put much into Altivec (if anything at
> all), it would seem to me that a port to Intel for Mac would be as simple
> as clicking the "Compile Universal Binary" box. Given how many Powerbooks
> I see floating around at conferences, I think they should strongly
> consider ticking that box. This machine will sell.
>
> Since they are compiling IDL with GCC, we should see similar
> performance as available on similarly-equipped Linux systems (it's the
> same exact compiler). Since GCC was such a woeful underperformer for
> PowerPC, the speed advantages would be multiply compounded. I would
> guess the new MacBook would offer IDL performance up to 5 times as
> fast as the current Powerbook G4 (for problem sizes which can take
> advantage of both cores). All that, and a shiny metal case too (not
> to mention the built-in video-cam).
>
> Anyone have the inside scoop?
>
> JD
>
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| Re: Dual Core Apple "MacBook", and RSI's Mac Intel plans [message #46973 is a reply to message #46911] |
Fri, 13 January 2006 07:55 |
Ricardo Bugalho
Messages: 22
Registered: March 2005
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Junior Member |
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Hello,
a couple of points, depending on your interest:
- Mac OS X for Intel won't emulate Altivec. So, if IDL makes any use of
it, IDL might not run. OTOH, unlike SSE, Altivec never supported double
precision so it's likely IDL won't use it.
- If you don't care about Mac OS X and just want Apple's tradicional
quality in laptops, you might be able to install Linux on it.
On Wed, 2006-01-11 at 13:05 -0600, Kenneth Bowman wrote:
> I am going to try to get a demo Intel iMac so we can see if IDL runs under
> emulation, and if so, what the performance is.
>
> Ken Bowman
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| Re: Dual Core Apple "MacBook", and RSI's Mac Intel plans [message #46978 is a reply to message #46902] |
Thu, 12 January 2006 16:55 |
Richard French
Messages: 173
Registered: December 2000
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Senior Member |
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>
> Given that RSI won't port IDL/Solaris for Solaris x86, or IDL/Linux for Linux
> on
> Itanium, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for an them to do an "easy port" to
> MacOS X on Intel.
I agree with JD that 'sometime in 2007' is a poor answer. For those of us
who have been waiting for years for a fast OSX laptop, the new machines look
great, but they won't do us any good if IDL won't run on it. Perhaps all of
us using Macs in this newsgroup should write to RSI and ask them to speed
things along. They might find it easier to port than to put up with all of
the complaints.
Dick French
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| Re: Dual Core Apple "MacBook", and RSI's Mac Intel plans [message #46997 is a reply to message #46915] |
Thu, 12 January 2006 06:18 |
Matt Feinstein
Messages: 33
Registered: July 2002
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Member |
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On 11 Jan 2006 08:07:11 -0800, phaccount@nycap.rr.com wrote:
> I am thinking that Apple on Intel may be a demise of Linux.
>
> I for one, a linux and wintel user, would love to switch to Apple and
> have the best of linux and the decent of mictel (microsoft+intel). If
> the hardware price comes down some, a part of the linux folks may
> switch to apple. Apple may then see a surge in computer, scientific
> and engineering applications that partially drove linux forward.
The killer option is a Windows/OS X dual-boot workstation, but it
looks like that won't happen for a while. The various items I've read
are somewhat unclear, but, apparently, dual-boot XP+OS X is not a
possibility with the new macs because of BIOS/firmware issues. However
Vista+OS X will be possible and, IMO, poses a major threat to linux.
Matt Feinstein
--
There is no virtue in believing something that can be proved to be true.
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