[smackeyacky]

In CPU choices, when Apple have lead (PowerPC) nobody followed. Their other CPU choices have hardly been brave. 6502? Not the first. 680x0? Followers. Intel they were way behind and all their laptop and desktop gear was a generation behind everything other companies were using.

Phones bit of a mixed bag but their computing gear has always been a bit old hat since the 1980s.

The M1 is the first time since PowerPC they took a risk. My guess is that it will turn out the same PowerPC. I really want a linux powered ARM workstation but Apple aren't going to make that.

[MisterTea]

> In CPU choices, when Apple have lead (PowerPC) nobody followed.

PowerPC was developed by IBM. Apple got involved when Motorola could not deliver a faster 68k to beat Intel's 486 which was passing 50MHz. So they joined IBM along with Motorola and formed the AIM alliance (Apple, IBM, Motorola) to build better processors.

> The M1 is the first time since PowerPC they took a risk.

There's little to no risc (buh-dum-tish) in moving to Arm these days. It's a well supported and understood architecture and found everywhere.

> I really want a linux powered ARM workstation but Apple aren't going to make that.

Apple has the power to steer its own ecosystem. When AMD was working on its Arm A series server processors I kept thinking "This sounds like a backwards approach destined to fail. Why not start by making a performant Arm SoC with 2-4 cores and GPU with a TDP of 10-20W? Target it at consoles/tv/laptops/desktop computing and jump start the desktop Arm market which will naturally lead to demand for Arm servers." The Idea was an Arm SoC that could fill the gap between low power/performance Arm SoC's for mobile/embedded and the power hungry yet performant x86 chips. Basically an AMD version of the M1. That could have really changed things but the big issue AMD would face is where's the Arm Desktop software ecosystem? That's why Apple can take these "risks", they have full control over the whole stack.

[bcrl]

It's not that Motorola failed to delivery a faster 68k, it's that IBM's actions forced them to invest in PowerPC at a time when they should have been focused on advancing 68k. The 68040 was quite competitive at the time with performance that beat the Pentium. And any time a company is forced to split resources across multiple product lines, none of the projects will be as successful as a more focused competitor. Since Intel had gobs more revenue from x86 than Motorola had from both PowerPC and 68k lines at the same time, Intel was instead able to invest more in development of x86 with multiple teams without the distraction of supporting dual architectures. Intel's progress accelerated while Motorola's limited resources were diluted across projects that didn't have any common infrastructure.

The complexity of developing validation tests suites for PowerPC alone would have sucked up all the software resources inside of Motorola at the time, as all the old 68k OSes and support code, etc had to be rebuilt from scratch for PowerPC. Not at all a small undertaking.

[smackeyacky]

They need to steer it so it can address more than 32Gb of memory. On any particular day I can chew that up with a couple of fat VMs running legacy stuff that customers still need supported but I don't want a physical machine hanging around to work on.

[brucehoult]

You can order a MacBook Pro with M1 Max with 64 GB of RAM right now.

[brucehoult]

Apple not the first with 6502?

The 6502 was introduced at Wescon in September 1975.

Apple I was out in April 1976. That's seven months.

The KIM1, a board made by MOS to demonstrate their 6502 chip, was also released in April 1976. Even they didn't beat Apple to it.

Commodore Pet was December 1977. Rockwell AIM65 was 1978. Acorn System 1 was March 1979. Atari 400 was November 1979

In short: I don't know what the heck you're talking about.

Similarly, the Lisa was a very early 68000 machine. The Amiga and Atari ST were years after the Lisa and Mac. Only very expensive workstations from HP, Apollo and Sun were before the Apple Lisa.

[thuccess129]

In the era of Steve Jobs's second stint at Apple as the interim head, the Mac was designed on the very expensive Sun workstation.

[smackeyacky]

So, they are batting 50% either being first with a dead end (6502, PowerPC) or being late (68000, Intel). Not exactly a stellar record of innovation in CPU adoption.

If the pattern holds the M1 is due to be a dead end.

[zeckalpha]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessagePad

[anthk]

Irrelevant, Palm did it better.

No one got a Newton, but every mid-boss or manager got a Palm.

[zeckalpha]

But Palm didn’t drive the CPU direction of the industry as GP claimed.

[anthk]

Neither did the Newton.

[zeckalpha]

> Their other CPU choices have hardly been brave.