Apple Not Disabling OS X Atom Support After All 275
bonch writes "Contrary to previous reports, Atom chip support is working fine in the latest 10C535 build of OS X 10.6.2. Apple's EULA still states that OS X is licensed to run only on Apple hardware, but it looks like OSX86 hackers can breathe easy ... for now."
WOLF! (Score:3, Insightful)
WOLF! WOLF!
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The OP was saying that the original person saying it didn't work was crying wolf. How is that offtopic?
Re:WOLF! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:WOLF! (Score:5, Insightful)
There are two likely explanations:
I don't know about you but as a developer I only test the most likely scenarios before I pass it on to QA. I don't test every scenario real or imagined. In this case, Atom isn't officially supported by Apple and so the Apple developers probably didn't bother to ensure it would on Atom. When they heard that it didn't work, they went back and discovered why. Most likely the bug would cause other issues. So they fixed it.
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Explanation 3:
Apple has an atom device in the works.....
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Re:WOLF! (Score:4, Funny)
Man, stop trying to buz-kill my rumor mill. Trolling slashdot is all I got anymore. :)
Re:WOLF! (Score:5, Interesting)
According to this MacRumors article [macrumors.com], the developer who complained about lack of Atom support was in Build 10C531 which was a week before Oct 27, when build 10C535 came out which works fine with Atom. The developer who complained about lack of Atom support posted his complaint a day before. We're at 10C540 now - which was released yesterday or today.
So to release the complaint a day before Apple releases a new build? In the few hours it takes to pick it up, Apple would then have to see all the "bad PR" and have time to fix it before the next build? (I suspect most of the "bad PR" happened after 10C535 came out.
At best, it would be they broke Atom support accidentally, at worst, some guy just couldn't update his Hackintosh properly.
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Reasoning? They run os x on the iphone. They run OS X on appleTV, the ipod touch, and likely various other future devices. At least some of those potential future markets are likely to be well suited to the Atom processor.
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You missed the third explanation.
The single reporter that said Atom support was missing screwed up. He f*cked his sh*t up and cried wolf.
WOLF! WOLF!
HTH, HAND
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It's not piracy if you buy it. It's well established that EULAs are not legally binding.
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It's well established that EULAs are not legally binding.
EULAs have been repeatedly upheld in U.S. courts. Do you have a case citation from a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the past decade that supports your position?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_license_agreement#Enforceability [wikipedia.org]
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How many times ?
US != World !!!
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The dogcow says Moof not wolf (Score:5, Funny)
The dogcow says Moof not wolf
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Re:The dogcow says Moof not wolf (Score:4, Funny)
Sosumi.
b-b-b-but.... (Score:2)
Apple still is a Wolf, right?
I mean, sure, even if they apparently haven't done this, they still could, right?
Why take a chance? Don't buy Apple's locked-down hard--- wait, that's the iPhone rant. Don't buy Apple's potentially locked-down software.
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The phrase originates from a story where the crying of "WOLF! WOLF!" is about the wolf coming to town to devour the village – not that there are no wolves nearby, and certainly not that no wolves exist.
Apple could still be a wolf (whether they are or aren't is debatable), but they're not coming to devour the village right now.
Veiled Threat (Score:5, Informative)
...it looks like OSX86 hackers can breathe easy ... for now.
Translation: I know that yesterday's story that Apple intentionally disabled Atom processors from working for OSX was completely wrong but I'm going to imply, in an ominous way, that Apple will probably do what they didn't do (which we incorrectly said they did do) because, hey, that's sensational and sensationalism sells baby!!
Sorry, but it would be really nice if summaries tried to keep the editorializing to a minimum. We have reader comments to add all kinds of overblown and baseless opinions. Let's keep the focus of the summary on, you know, the news for nerds, stuff that matters.
I know. I know. I must be new here...
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tried to keep the editorializing to a minimum
And prophesying.
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Indeed, you must be new here. The correct response is to go to the previous story, copy and paste some +5 comments, and rake in the karma.
+5 Comments, search in vain (Score:5, Funny)
--> Could not find text "+5 Comment"
Though, it was with Opera, maybe I need FireFox?
I did find a +5 Comment in this thread though: [slashdot.org]
What to search for (Score:2)
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Oh, are there people who haven't maxed their karma?
I thought killing off the numbered karma scale was supposed to cut down on that sort of thing. Silly me.
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"OSX86 hackers can breathe easy ... for now."
Am I the only one who imagined hearing "dun dun DUNNNNN" when reading that?
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which reminds me of when RMS announced there was a backdoor in Apple software, then it was found to be false and he was spreading FUD. His retraction was like "yes I was wrong and sensationalist, but I was not really that wrong because there may be some undiscovered backdoor".
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Not doing any worse than typical newspapers (of today and for the past two hundred years). But yes, yellow journalism makes me want to smack someone.
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Yellow journalism?! For crying out loud, it was a facetious remark. It's common sense not to expect OS X to always support non-Apple hardware.
Besides, I'm not a journalist, and this isn't a newspaper. It's a user-submitted content site.
Re:Veiled Threat (Score:5, Insightful)
One specific development build of OSX didn't work properly on a completely unsupported platform, affecting perhaps tens of people nationwide. Subsequent builds did not exhibit this problem. News at 11.
Of course some people are going to flip out and claim Apple is doing something evil. When it gets fixed in a later build, someone is probably going to claim that Apple backed down due to the outrage of Hackintosh owners. In reality, it's entirely possible that they had a bug in a development build that unintentionally broke Atom support, and then fixed the bug and unintentionally restored Atom support.
Imaginations are running wild here! (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple has no products that use the Atom, correct? So, there was never a bug or a feature
So, what makes everyone think that Apple is even concerned about anything to do with the Atom? They're developing their software for their products. If it just so happens to work on some other hardware, it's an accident. If a build doesn't work on other hardware, it's an accident. If it works again on a subsequent build, it's an accident.
God, you people are turning a non-issue into one.
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Do you realize that atom supports the whole IA-32 instruction set (and x86-64 for some models)? Things can't just stop working on atom, Apple needed to actively prevent it from working. That's why this is slightly interesting (if it is true)...
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You can bet Apple has OS X running on secret prototypes that use Atom processors.
After all, they had OS X running on Intel for years before they decided to tell the rest of us about it.
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Their OS, until quite recently, had to work on x86, x86_64, PPC, PPC64, and ARM. Deliberately excluding one particular variant of one of these in a nontrivial way just means they will have to deal with increased complexity in their codebase, because the Hackintosh community is just going to work around it anyway. So it doesn't make business sense to do that.
Apple has had and continues to have many, many opportunities to do stuff in their OS that breaks it for non-Macs. They haven't yet, for good reason.
Conspiracy Theory: Atom will power new tablet (Score:3, Funny)
I know MainStream Media pablum when I hear it... you guys are missing the real story: Apple broke Atom support to make it less likely that people would suspect their new Tablet will be running... an Atom! These guys are geniuses, that's for sure!!! (or I'm off my medication again).
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Analogy fail. Unless you know about the magical switch that turned all PPC-based Macs into bricks when 10.6 (aka Snow Leopard, for those who are following at home) was released (or so it seemed from the louder complaints at the time). I salute Microsoft for teaching most people that your computer is fragile and could break down any time a butterfly flaps its wings on Alpha Centauri II, for that is the mindset it would require to believe that. (It also allows me to easily amaze and astonish newbies by show
What a wonderful opportunity! (Score:5, Funny)
Goody! Now we can post another 500 messages arguing about whether EULAs should be enforceable or not. With luck, this time we can finally finish the argument and come to a conclusion that brings peace to all. I hope Apple and Psystar are prepared to follow the decrees and rulings of the best minds of the Slashdot community.
Don't count on Atom support... (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, Apple doesn't use the Atom in any products. Ergo, there's no guarantee that a shipping version of Mac OS X will support it. Since Atom is basically just a stripped-down x86, it probably will continue to run but no promises.
Just to remind everyone, Apple builds Macs. Macs are not available in every possible x86/chipset combo. Just a handful. That's one of the reasons why Macs are typically pretty reliable, but also why the average frankencomputer can't run OS X reliably.
Yes, Mac OS X is licensed in such a way that you don't have the legal right to run it on anything but an Apple-made Mac. Yes, they won't come after you with lawyers if you make a hackintosh. Yes, they will come after you if you then try to sell them (like Psystar). And yes, licenses like Apple's are restrictive.
But no, they aren't under any obligation at all to provide support for any computer other than what they expressly state on the box to be compatible and licensed. Which, in the case of Snow Leopard, is:
- Mac computer with an Intel processor
- 1GB of memory
- 5GB of available disk space
- DVD drive for installation
And all the other specs are on:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html [apple.com]
If your computer doesn't fit that description, you're SOL. Period. If Snow Leopard runs now on your Atom-based netbook and 10.6.2 winds up killing it, suck it up or stick to 10.6.1. So it goes.
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Re:Don't count on Atom support... (Score:4, Funny)
Face it peeps, only Linux or Windows are man enough.
Well. Except for Windows.
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Linux is too mainstream to be man. Try OpenSolaris.
Not supporting v Disabling (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a big difference between these two terms. Its ok for Apple to not support hardware that is not theirs. Its another thing to go out of your way, put time and resources into not allowing other people (most of who purchased your product legitimately) to use your product.
I guess the lesson is (Score:2, Interesting)
not to listen to unsourced blogs written by someone just because they might have overheard someone talking about it in a bar somewhere sometime. Quite why this was all over the internet is anyone's guess.
Never ascribe... (Score:5, Insightful)
So nerds screeched for nothing (Score:2, Funny)
Apple are EVIL!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh wait, they released the format specs and anyone can make one.
OK, they took from open source and added Grand Central Dispatch without giving back to the community! Apple are EVIL!!
Oh wait, they released the GCD sources to Darwin.
OK, they nobbled the Atom processor in the latest OS build so people can't run Mac OS on some no-name brand PC! Apple are EVIL!!
Oh wait, it was probably just a bug.
And so on, and so on...
Re:Just a reminder from Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, this was some blog poster that screwed up his Hackintosh and blamed it on Apple.
Re:Just a reminder from Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
You sir win this whole discussion. There are not enough mod points in the world for you.
Re:Just a reminder from Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, this was some blog poster that screwed up his Hackintosh and blamed it on Apple.
In one line you sum up why Apple has no interest in seeing OSX become the system builder's OS of choice.
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When was the last time you heard a rumor that Microsoft was disabling support for some line of processors on Windows?
Back when they dropped support for NT on MIPS and Alpha? :-)
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Re:Just a reminder from Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
I think all those Hackintoshers are also a reminder to Steve that there is a market for netbooks and non-AIO upgradable computers under 1000$.
Re:Just a reminder from Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
But perhaps not big enough of a market for the big guy. Perhaps he would like to sell you a 10" tablet for $1000 with a $300 profit margin than a $300 netbook with a $50 profit margin*.
*Numbers completely pulled out of the air, and not a MacBook Air, those numbers would be even higher.
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But that $300 Netbook with the $50 profit margin will
#1 Sell ten times more than the $1000 tablet with a $300 profit margin. Thus earning $500 in profits for every ten Netbooks sold at $300 for every one $1000 Tablet sold with a $300 margin. Net sum of $200 more in profits.
#2 Raise the Apple marketshare of Mac OSX based devices.
#3 Put a lid on the Hackintosh market as a $300 Mac based Netbook is cheap enough to buy that even the stingiest of Hackintosh users can't pass up the $300 Mac OSX Netbook.
#4 Apple r
Re:Just a reminder from Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe, maybe not. You can't say for sure.
It would also cannibalise other Mac laptops, so they would lose quite a bit as well. You guys always seem to forget that.
It would also mean more support calls to Apple, more genius visits, more unhappy people. How do you put a price on that.
Try to look at the big picture for once.
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#1 Be a general POS compared to most Apple hardware and tarnish their brand.
#2 Canabalize the sales of their more expensive (and higher margin) laptops.
For that matter, I can't say I agree with your points:
#1 How many of those sales will come at the price of a $300 profit laptop or tablet? If they lose 1 high profit sale for every 5 low profit sales they gain, it's a losing strategy.
#2 If they honestly cared about market share over all else they would have taken t
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#4 Apple really needs a Netbook to compete with the PC companies who have their own Netbook.
Do they? [theregister.co.uk]
I don't think they need advice on how to run their business from slashdotters (including me).
Re:Just a reminder from Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
I could see how hackintoshers demonstrate the existence of demand for those things but saying they are proof of a market Apple would be interested in would be *really* stretching it.
Apple doesn't need to join in with everyone else in the race to the bottom.
And cheapen the brand?! Gucci in Walmart. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think all those Hackintoshers are also a reminder to Steve that there is a market for netbooks and non-AIO upgradable computers under 1000$.
Apple is making a very nice business out of being the premium computer and electronic gizmo maker. Making a sub $1,000 netbook would be like Gucci making a handbag to be sold in Walmart.
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The 13" macbook pro is their "netbook"...
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Given that the monitor-less, keyboard-less and mouse-less Mac mini costs twice as much as a Netbook, I would bet on the "jumbo iPod touch" scenario.
Yet my EEE PC netbook is gathering dust on a shelf, while my Mac Mini currently has an uptime of 271 days (and that was after an intentional reboot)...
Re:Just a reminder from Apple (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Just a reminder from Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
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So does that mean we're gonna see a bunch of retractions from all the people in the other thread saying how evil Apple was for disabling support for a CPU they don't even use on their OS?
I hope one day Slashdotters are known for being that classy. One day they'll figure out that owning up to something like that can earn them 'Insightful' mods, too.
Re:Just a reminder from Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Anti-trust? Precisely what monopoly does Apple hold? (Other than a monopoly on nice design. :)
Monopoly on handhelds with semi-open development (Score:2)
Anti-trust? Precisely what monopoly does Apple hold? (Other than a monopoly on nice design. :)
iPod Touch is the only handheld video game system that 1. allows part-time developers to make and publish apps and 2. is sold in U.S. and European stores. There used to be PDAs, but over the course of this decade, PDAs became unavailable in U.S. stores as smartphones with a minimum commitment to voice service and data service from the wireless cartel have taken over shelf space. Sure, I can buy a GP2X and make games for that, but it won't even have enough of an audience to recoup development costs because
Re:Monopoly on handhelds with semi-open developmen (Score:3, Interesting)
iPod Touch is the only handheld video game system that 1. allows part-time developers to make and publish apps and 2. is sold in U.S. and European stores.
This description does not rise to any legal standard for judging a monopoly that I'm aware of. You're attempting to describe a market in such a way that no other products match the description. Contrast this with what you see, for example, in T. Penfield Jackson's Findings of Fact [justice.gov] document in the DoJ v MS case. (Note how it is defined in terms of ma
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Legal standards for judging a monopoly are described relative to a given country, not the worldwide market. So by considering legal standards alone, I can narrow the field to products marketed in one country. Because you mentioned United States v. Microsoft, I'll consider the United States market, composed of Nintendo DS, Sony's PSP, Apple's iPod Touch, and a few players that are collectively as insignificant as desktop Linux was a decade ago when US v. M$ was argued. Of these, Nintendo and Sony have a his
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In order to assert your point, you've had to conflate Apple's competitors (Nintendo and Sony) with users of the iPhone SDK. If this were to go before a court, they would ask what Nintendo and Sony could do to compete if apple were to attempt to exercise their market power "soley in terms of price". If they raised the $99 annual fee, as you suggest, this would actually put the iPod Touch in the same market as the Nintendo and Sony platforms (mobile gaming platforms with a high barrier to entry). This cut
Re:Just a reminder from Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Many people would be happy to see anti-trust law applied in any case where they thought that a company was acting in a way that benefited the company more than the customers of the company.
1) All companies act in their own interests - that is the whole point! If those interests happen to coincide with the customer's then that is just a bonus. If I want a quick burger, McDonalds is going to sell be a quick burger. If I want a roast turkey dinner with all the trappings, McDonalds is going to sell a quick burger.
2) People with hackitoshes are, by definition, not Apple customers. OK, some people may go out a buy a copy of MacOSX, but I bet most people just "obtain" it or already have it.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Indeed
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There fixed that for you. While there are people who would love to own a netbook with OS X on it, how many of them are willing to pay real money. Remember the netbook market is mostly for people who want small and cheap. Apple does not sell cheap computers. They could technically go into the low-end mark
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As long as Apple is fighting its way up out of the single digits in market share, you're not going to see any anti-trust action against them on the Macintosh side of the house. And the portable music player market is waning anyway. The iPhone is holding its own but it's certainly got no monopoly. In other words, don't hold your breath.
Re:Just a reminder from Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
I just wish people would educate themselves on what constitutes a "trust" worthy of having anti-trust applied to it.
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This was just Steve letting you know that he knows what you're doing.
that and the price concessions they've been wanting for that Atom-based device just came through.
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...that assumes a whole lot of factors to which (apparently) you are not privy to.
(...now if apple pulled the plug on the Darwin project, then changed their TPM chip... well, the latter they couldn't really do w/o angering a lot of existing Macintosh users who suddenly could no longer upgrade, and the former would still have code floating around out there).
Well, nevermind - I'm guessing ol' Steve couldn't quite so easily pull the plug after all.
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From what I've read, the 1GB RAM is more a problem than the Atom CPU.
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HP mini, 2GB RAM, Atom 1.6 GHz CPU, OS/X 10.6.1
Cheep and usable when I am commuting.
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Then why are all netbooks still sold with only 1GB RAM?
Re:Atom (Score:4, Informative)
Because of a license agreement with Microsoft that specified a max of 1GB of RAM and an 80GB HD (most got around that with splitting it into two or more partitions) to allow them to install Windows XP.
I'm not sure if the agreement has changed with the release of Windows 7 Starter.
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It appears MS eased up on the HDD restriction at some point, some netbooks are now shipping with 160GB hdds (and at least on the HP mini I got it came as a single partion)
Windows 7 starter allows up to 2GB but being a proper edition of windows I expect the limits to actually be enforced this time.
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WTF? this is madness! I hate microsoft even more now.
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WTF? this is madness! I hate microsoft even more now.
Ballmer: Madness?? THIS . IS . MICROSOFT!!!
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windows is off faster than the stickers when i buy a netbook. And no, the same model without windows was not avaiable. They probably do not get the "cheaper OEM version of their OS" if they do not install it on all of them.
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it;s 1Gig and I do no care how much ram windows support, windows is off faster than the stickers when i buy a netbook. And no, the same model without windows was not avaiable. They probably do not get the "cheaper OEM version of their OS" if they do not install it on all of them. So thay are limiting hardware choices on top of steeling my money with the microsoft tax.
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Because they're VERY CHEAP!
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Cheap assholes in the design department and Management of the companies that make them. That is the ONLY reason.
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If I am wrong, please correct me.
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Unortunately that's not the whole truth. Microsoft only licenses XP at netbook prices if the machine has at most 1 GB memory.
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Some netbook models have a soldered in ram, so you can't change the RAM. The RAM and CPU are together in one part. Many of these do have a RAM slot but not all. A lot of the Dell minis (10 and 12 models) have a fixed amount of RAM. Which is bad in my opinion, but I do not make decisions there. Personally I would like to see netbooks with 2 RAM slots. Many would still max out at 2GB (motherboard limit) but some of the newer atom based netbooks are said to support 4GB of RAM.
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You realize that Mac OS X is based directly on NeXTSTEP, right? And NeXTSTEP ran well on 25 MHz 68040 computers!
Something would be really fucked if Mac OS X couldn't run well on the Atom processors, which in terms of processing power are actually on par with high-end x86 systems from late 2006.
So what? Software grows over time. Windows 7 is based on Windows NT 3.1, and it used to run just fine on 486s as well. Are you arguing that neither platform should be allowed to exceed the system requirements of their predecessors?
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That's like saying that Ubuntu is based directly on Unix, and I have seen Linux run on 12Mhz Mini Computers!
I promise, there is no way in HELL that your getting Ubuntu running on a 12Mhz Mini Computer. In fact, I'd wager that there isn't a Linux kernel that will work on an old 70's era Mini Computer (though I may be wrong).
Windows 7 is based on Windows NT, though I doubt you will be seeing Windows 7 running on a 386 with 12 MB of RAM like NT 3.5 did.
The Atom chip can't really compete with the first x86 CPU
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I know an open source game developer who builds and tests new Mac OS X releases of his cross-platform game on a Hackintosh. Since it's a rather demanding 3D game, a Mac Mini wouldn't be up for the task. Getting a Mac Pro just to compile & test your hobby open source game just seems like a waste of money.
He's got beta testers with real Macs though. It seems to work out pretty well.
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