What will be the PC response to Apple's M1 ?

[SlCKB0Y]

If we learned anything from the M1 and A12Z is that the hardware only is not defining what can be considered a general purpose computer, it is the OS.

Absolutely, and this concept also overlaps with the advantages inherent in this vertical integration.

What we also learned is the the Swiss army knife approach ("general purpose" ) of intel CPU and perhaps GPU is lacking to its end and we see more and more hardware solution to specific compute problems.

I would also say that not only is the Wintel combination trying to meet the needs of all users in all scenarios now, it is hobbled by the fact that it has always tried to do that, and without any sort of structured approach to deal with obsolescence. Their inertia in dealing with obsolescence has meant that by default they do nothing in this regard, except to become more and more bloated and less efficient.

For all their faults, Apple has never had an issue with removing support for obsolete technology and is almost always ahead of the curve in doing this - despite the inconvenience and expense this causes both their users and their (and 3rd party) developers.

The release of the M1 Macs represent the most vertically integrated consumer computers ever to be released. Historically, as mentioned, this level of vertical integration has only been found in enterprise workstations from companies like SGI or Sun and in current times only at the extreme end of the enterprise spectrum with IBM's POWER/AIX as an example.

I think the most interesting period for the Mac line of computers is not in it's 36 year history but in the next 5-10 years and that's extremely exciting for someone like me.

 

[Argon_]

The release of the M1 Macs represent the most vertically integrated- desktop OS, unwalled -consumer computers ever to be released. Historically, as mentioned, this level of vertical integration has only been found in enterprise workstations from companies like SGI or Sun and in current times only at the extreme end of the enterprise spectrum with IBM's POWER/AIX as an example.

I think that's an important distinction to add. Most of us on this forum, as enthusiasts, don't represent the average computer buyer. For many people, an iPad already is their main computer, even if that seems preposterous to us.

 

[skaertus]

Good points though niche must be how many uses a computer not what it can do. Point number 2 is especially valid and that is what driving Mac Pro and traditional desktop into the niche category (in my definition). Ten years ago, you needed a Mac Pro for video editing. Now you need a laptop and can do decent stuff.

If we learned anything from the M1 and A12Z is that the hardware only is not defining what can be considered a general purpose computer, it is the OS. It is clear that here (hello all fellow nerds), general purpose is defined by how much the OS lets you do. In my world that is a grey scale depending on your point of view. I consider a phone OS to be more general purpose than embedded system despite that you have better control of all computing aspects of said embedded system.

What we also learned is the the Swiss army knife approach ("general purpose" ) of intel CPU and perhaps GPU is lacking to its end and we see more and more hardware solution to specific compute problems. Nearly all need to process video and picture today so we have dedicated hardware for that which handily outperform the GP processors. Next step, I expect, is real time rendering accelerator so you do not need a 3090 or something similarly energy inefficient for smooth rendering.

The way I see it, the idea of general-purpose computing has always been something to do with the software and not the hardware. In the 1980s and 1990s, Macs, which are general-purpose computers, used processors based on the Motorola 68000 series, the same one used by the Sega Genesis, the Neo Geo, and many Arcade games, which were dedicated to a purpose.

As for lacking of general-purpose computing, well. Back in the early 1990s, I used several applications on my computer. After the Internet became so popular, I basically use Microsoft Office and a web browser, which gives me access to a world of possibilities. If I did not have specific office requirements, I could use an online office suite as well. The web browser replaced so many applications that allowed for the Chromebooks to become viable alternatives for many. It is not that general-purpose ceased to exist, it is more in the sense that the web browser became the general application for any specific needs, replacing the requirement of an application for each different task.

 

[rui no onna]

I think that's an important distinction to add. Most of us on this forum, as enthusiasts, don't represent the average computer buyer. For many people, an iPad already is their main computer, even if that seems preposterous to us.

Nah, smartphones are most people's main computers. The iPad is for the those who can afford extra (likely third) devices.

Overall, laptops sales (including Windows and Chromebooks) are still much, much higher than tablet sales.

 

[Fomalhaut]

It depends on what the "old days" are to you ?

Your example of SGI - at their peak in the late 80s/early 90s they were firmly in the "workstation" category of computers, and because they were so performant in their niche area of graphics computation using hardware acceleration, they were able to charge huge sums of money.

But just a few years later in the mid 90s, the confluence of Microsoft producing workable GUIs, graphics APIs, consumer hardware-accelerated 3D (Eg. 3DFx) and the resulting ports of specialised 3D modelling software to Wintel saw this formerly niche area of computing became commoditised.

So having said all that, I guess I have four points to make:

1. Whilst the SGI workstations were extremely good at one area of computing, they could be used as a general purpose computer (even though it would make no financial sense to do so). So, a niche computer can (but not always) be used as a general purpose computer.

2. An area of computing that is considered niche can become commoditised and mainstream in the blink of an eye. This has occurred time and time again.

3. Whilst expensive, I would not consider the Mac Pro a niche computer, just a high powered general purpose computer. It is only niche in terms of it's cost, and therefore the target consumer, but nothing about it is technologically niche. So it really depends on how one defines "niche" in the context of computing.

4. I would argue that currently, most niche computing is implemented in the many different types of specialised embedded computers and that "niche" has moved up the computing stack from hardware to software.

Ah yes, the good old SGI! It was the aspirational workstation back in the day, and I remember seeing them in my first job in the early '90s at Philips Interactive Media Systems. IIRC, it was just the graphic designers doing 3D modelling that used them. As a developer, I had a rather more mundane Sun SparcStation SLC (maybe an ELC?)

20MHz CPU and 16 Megabytes of RAM, running SunOS 4. I think it had a 20MB internal drive for swap or local cache, but used network storage mounts ( NFS I imagine). It had a very nice optical mouse that required a special Sun mouse pad, and a pretty decent graphical OS.

Macs were used in the graphic design and audio departments, but Windows PCs were becoming more common, and much more cost-effective than SGI for rendering. We had a small "farm" of 80386 and 80486 machines producing animations and video renders.

 

[pshufd]

Nobody remembers punched cards?

 

[s66]

And even then Windows 10 has massive issues with interface consistency, both cosmetic and functional. Eg: System tools and configuration:

1. Administrative Tools: These look and function like something from Windows from the NT days almost.

2. Control Panel: Other than icon updates and the optional grouping feature, this has been the same since Windows 9x and is the primary place for system configuration.

3. Settings App: Introduced with Windows 8, it is still not feature complete compared to control panel, has a totally different look and feel and for some reason they have not switched over to it despite having had more than 8 years to do so

I mean it's just insane that something so important has not been unified.

You forgot messing with the registry directly because they failed to make a UI for the settings you need to change.

 

[JeepGuy]

Nobody remembers punched cards?

i was at the very tail end, we did most of our programing on 3270 terminals. My first Cad machine was a Pr1me mini, with a vectorscope made by Lundy, and that was replaced with an HP Apollo 720 running hp-ux.

 

[Captain Trips]

Yes, but you get rid of the CISC penalty. And that looks to be quite significant. You're still playing catchup from there and it may well be that nobody is able to catch up.

And if you are going to play catch up, then better to start playing catch up with an ARM / RISC chip, even if a basic / vanilla design, then trying to catch up using a CISC chip. Because it is just going to get worse (the gulf between the M-series chips and Intel/AMD).

Granted, the Intel & AMD chips still have life in them, if nothing else for legacy applications and for important applications that can't (yet) run on an ARM-based operating system.

And Intel chips are entrenched and have a good mind share, but that can change.

 

[dmccloud]

This is more likely. My earlier post about using virtualized ARM-Linux referring to the current limits on dual-booting on M1 Macs.

It would be interesting to see Apple use custom Mx-based servers in their data centres, but I'm not sure that they have the appetite to get back into this kind of hardware unless there is a compelling technical or financial reason for it. It's probably cheaper for them to use commodity servers (maybe ARM-based) or 3rd party cloud offerings like the AWS Graviton 2 instances.

While Apple already has cut a lot of its electric bills by building out so many solar farms, there is another way switching the datacenters to M-series machines would further decrease costs of running those buildings. Many electric companies offer credits (or even outright payments to companies and individuals who generate more power than they use and put the excess power back into the power grid. For Apple, this could theoretically mean that it could use that excess power being generated as another revenue stream. Given the lower power consumption of the M1 Macs compared to their Intel-based counterparts, the more M1s Apple uses, the more revenue they could make from the excess power being generated.