ARM acknowledging MacBooks??

[throAU]

It was already established in the mobile space before the iPhone launched. For example Palm transitioned in 2002 from their original 68k architecture and wrote their own 68k emulator for ARM.

Yeah. Was also in the archimedes computers back the 80s and 90s but those along with palm were pretty niche.

The iPhone was the first properly mainstream product that sold in real volume imho.

But yes. Arm goes back a long way. Almost as far as i386.

 

[maflynn]

Part of it is also Microsoft continually treating ARM as a second class citizen.

Oh no question, but conversely the network admins I work with prefer Apple, because of the tools you have accessible, so ARM on macos (unix) but arm on windows not so much

 

[edubfromktown]

ARM is certainly mainstream:

• every raspberry pi
• every apple watch
• every android watch
• every smartphone
• probably every digital camera
• close to every smart TV
• virtually every tablet that matters
• every desktop IP phone for the past 2 decades

People just don't realise because these devices typically aren't sold with the CPU as marketing front and centre.

Also becoming more mainstream in development shops too. It was also somewhat of a surprise to learn that using Macs is more cost-effective compared to adding ARM nodes to our on premise virtual infrastructure clusters.

The place where I work uses Azure Devops (ADO) pipelines to push cross-platform code to AWS cloud environments.

Using ARM dev systems reduces cross compilation inefficiency and maximizes AWS Graviton cost savings compared to x86 architecture.

 

[maflynn]

It was also somewhat of a surprise to learn that using Macs is more cost-effective compared to adding ARM nodes to our on premise virtual infrastructure clusters.

What do you mean by that?
Are you running Mac computers on a desktop in place of a server cluster in a datacenter?

 

[edubfromktown]

What do you mean by that?
Are you running Mac computers on a desktop in place of a server cluster in a datacenter?

Doing a POC with an Studio M3 Ultra based on my own research, price guesstimates and querying ChatGPT about speeds, feeds and TCO. Not sure if more than 128 GB of RAM is needed so that's why I chose M3 Ultra. If 128 GB is sufficient, then I'd go with 4 x M4 Max.

To get "sort of equivalent processing" as a single ~$140k GPU cluster node would require 2 more M3 Ultra's (or 4 x M4 Max). The cluster node also includes 2 × NVIDIA L4 for CUDA/Tensor workloads which are n/a and way overkill for this build.

Here is a rough calculation of what the TCO looks like. If I can snag Studio refurbs, the TCO's for the two left below will go down even further.

Green is 3xM3 Ultra, Blue is 4xM4 Max, Orange is GPU node.

 

[maflynn]

Doing a POC with an Studio M3 Ultra based on my own research, price guesstimates and querying ChatGPT about speeds,

Are you replacing servers/clusters with Macs and what functions are they performing?

I get that the desktop computers are going to be cheaper then servers for lots of reasons that don't necessarily make desktop computers a better option.

Obviously I'm missing large pieces of the puzzle and/or I'm not really understanding your point. In my own organization we cluster running virtual servers - these run our enterprise applications, we even have our netscalers virtualized. We operate Dell's VxBlock technology, so our San, computing and even networking are managed, we then spin up VMs as needed with vmware. This enterprise setup has inherent advantages of running applications on a desktop computer.

 

[ADGrant]

Yeah. Was also in the archimedes computers back the 80s and 90s but those along with palm were pretty niche.

The iPhone was the first properly mainstream product that sold in real volume imho.

But yes. Arm goes back a long way. Almost as far as i386.

Palm was not niche back in the 90s though they were not ubiquitous like the iPhone is now. However, Blackberry also used ARM CPUs and they were close to ubiquitous in many businesses.

The Acorn Archimedes was not niche either, at least in the UK. Its 6502 based predecessors were in almost every school in the UK thanks to the BBC endorsement. It was a victim of unfortunate timing though, IBM compatible PCs were starting to take most of the market.

 

[maflynn]

Palm was not niche back in the 90s though they were not ubiquitous like the iPhone is now

Palm were the devices back in the day though I think their decline came at the time of Blackberry's surging popularity.

 

[edubfromktown]

Are you replacing servers/clusters with Macs and what functions are they performing?

I get that the desktop computers are going to be cheaper then servers for lots of reasons that don't necessarily make desktop computers a better option.

Obviously I'm missing large pieces of the puzzle and/or I'm not really understanding your point. In my own organization we cluster running virtual servers - these run our enterprise applications, we even have our netscalers virtualized. We operate Dell's VxBlock technology, so our San, computing and even networking are managed, we then spin up VMs as needed with vmware. This enterprise setup has inherent advantages of running applications on a desktop computer.

Adding dedicated ARM resource support for a somewhat limited scope dev project.

Tested ARM emulation VMs and they are too slow on our Intel processor-based cluster with 100's of VMs efficiently zooming along.

There are also compatibility headaches with the hypervisor. ARM emulated VMs can't evacuate to other cluster nodes (for example). The rest of our resources can auto load balance between nodes and move elsewhere during maintenance or hardware failure with no manual intervention.

 

[throAU]

Palm were the devices back in the day though I think their decline came at the time of Blackberry's surging popularity.

I worked in IT and knew one person with a palm device in the 90s.

I'd say that's pretty niche.

 

[throAU]

Oh no question, but conversely the network admins I work with prefer Apple, because of the tools you have accessible, so ARM on macos (unix) but arm on windows not so much

Yeah I'm a network admin on a Mac. I need to RDP to windows boxes to run the on-prem admin tools though unfortunately.

 

[maflynn]

I worked in IT and knew one person with a palm device in the 90s.

I've been in IT since the 1980s and perhaps its my location, but they were the device to have. At that time that Palm was popular I worked for an for an insurance company quite conservative, they still required suits to be worn and if you got up, you had to wear your suit jacket - Everyone and their brother were using them in meetings and taking notes.

 

[headlessmike]

ARM is certainly mainstream:

• every raspberry pi
• every apple watch
• every android watch
• every smartphone
• probably every digital camera
• close to every smart TV
• virtually every tablet that matters
• every desktop IP phone for the past 2 decades

People just don't realise because these devices typically aren't sold with the CPU as marketing front and centre.

And most importantly, the Game Boy Advance.

Somebody needs to get working on a GBA build of macOS.

 

[jlc1978]

More recently, it was revealed Arm wants to develop its own chips. This requires a change in strategy and marketing to end-users directly (B2C). This why you're seeing these changes. Arm wants to be associated with high performance and long battery life.

Given Apple's advertising exactly those features for the MacBook, ARM;s mention of the Mac makes sense since it lets them bask in Apple's glory...

Palm were the devices back in the day though I think their decline came at the time of Blackberry's surging popularity.

I had a number of Palms's tarting with OG Pilot. Great devices, saved me a lot of time doing things like expense reports. The Treo's upped the game as well as a smartphone.

Palm's problem, IMHO, was they let Blackberry take over the enterprise market where the money was. The Crackberry was ubiquitous in many corporate and government settings thanks to Blackberry's enterprise focus; while Palm's tended to be consumer purchases.

I recently found my old Palm's, including a NIB Palm watch, that I gave to a friend who collects Palm's.

 

[maflynn]

palm's problem, IMHO, was they let Blackberry take over the enterprise market where the money was.

No question, while I supplied my own palm pilot, my company gave me a BB, when they rose to prominance. if that was more of a theme (people buying palm pilots vs. organizations supplying blackberries), I can how quickly BB would have surpassed pilot.

 

[edubfromktown]

I've been in IT since the 1980s and perhaps its my location, but they were the device to have. At that time that Palm was popular I worked for an for an insurance company quite conservative, they still required suits to be worn and if you got up, you had to wear your suit jacket - Everyone and their brother were using them in meetings and taking notes.

Me too and yes- still have a dead Palm V somewhere... in addition to Compaq iPAQ (that still boots up with the super annoying high pitched tones), MessagePad 120, 130, "upgraded 2000"/2100 and other oddball devices.

 

[jlc1978]

No question, while I supplied my own palm pilot, my company gave me a BB, when they rose to prominance. if that was more of a theme (people buying palm pilots vs. organizations supplying blackberries), I can how quickly BB would have surpassed pilot.

I think the big thing that the Backberry had over the Palm was the keyboard. People quickly learned how to do thumb type whereas with the palm you had to use the stylus. The stylus was great if you had to do things like numeric entry and of course, Graffiti was great for writing, but it never really matched how fast people could type on the palm. Plus, of course the Blackberry had infrastructure that allowed you to do things like send email in that easily.

I do think Steve Jobs is decision to use the finger as the input device made a huge difference because people could now more easily type on screen than pack with a stylus.

 

[maflynn]

in addition to Compaq iPAQ

I had one of those - how about a Psion 3 or 5e. I had one in a box, but moving a while back, it got lost.

 

[jlc1978]

I had one of those - how about a Psion 3 or 5e. I had one in a box, but moving a while back, it got lost.

Trip down memory lane. I had an iPaq, Psion5m, and Jornada. The Psion was a great portable device, the iPaq and Jornada showed why Windows was not a PDA OS.