Welcome to the Machine

Hello. I would like to discuss a neat little command line utility included in Mac OS X that doesn't get enough attention in my humble opinion. Living in /usr/bin/, this simple Open Source tool is something that I just can not live without. What is this wondrous textual utility that I'm talking about? It's none other than machine!

Included since 1991 with the 4.4BSD platform, machine gives you the processor name that your system is based on. I don't know if it works for Intel or any other architectures since when I opened up the binary in TextEdit.app and couldn't find any processor name strings. Here's an incomplete list of machine output that I do know of to help illustrate what I mean:

• ppc603
• ppc604
• ppc620
• ppc750
• ppc970

The cleverest aspect of machine is bringing up its manual page. I wonder who was clever enough to invent this little pun, but it makes me LOL every time I do it. Sometimes I do it just to laugh, even if I don't want to learn about machine at the moment. In case you can't guess, here is the command to bring up the manual:

man machine

omfg rorlolf

I have been accessing this program since OpenStep 4.2, then in Rhapsody DR2 and continue to use it today under Mac OS X v10.3. Kudos to NeXT and now Apple for including this Wunderwerkzeug for almost 10 years. It sure makes my Power Mac a joy to use. Check it out!

QNX Doesn't Scale!

Hi, I've been using QNX for the last few weeks on my 1 GHz Penium III system, and I'm quite baffled by the performance — or lack thereof — that I've been seeing.

I downloaded the QNX 6.2.1 ISO, burnt a CD, and installed onto my hard drive. This was after erasing an old Windows 2000/Linux dual-boot install. Things went smoothly, and I was easily able to connect to the Internet for updates to various packages. I was really impressed at this point.

After a couple days of playing with it, however, I was boggled at how much like Windows the system acted. Here I was with a 1 GHz processor (the minimum required is 600 MHz) and 1 gigabyte of RAM and Photon, the GUI, was lagging. If I have a few programs open and an MP3 playing in the background, I can watch widgets redraw. Tweaking some options helped a little, but this is not in line with what I have read about QNX performance.

Isn't this supposed to be a hard realtime operating system that runs on medical devices meant to save peoples' lives? How is it that it runs on 33 MHz processors with 128k of RAM in an IV drip yet skips MP3s on a system 100x beefier in every way imagineable? Do they release a different version for free that doesn't try for realtime performance or what?

After less than a full month I've grown dissatisfied with something I'd hoped I could replace my Windows and Linux installs with for leisure and hobbyist purposes. My main system is a dual 3 GHz Pentium4 box with 4 gigs of RAM, but that's a DV workstation and I can't use it just to see how QNX scales with more robust hardware and a dual processor configuration. Something tells me it might not, though.

Can anyone offer me any insights? I realize that this is a free operating system and that I have little room to bitch, but I want to make sure there's nothing I'm missing before I discount QNX altogether and go back to Windows or Linux, which while performing slugglishly are more familiar to me.

Thank you.

iBook G4 Lacks Velocity Engine?

It appears that Apple's new iBook G4 lacks a Velocity Engine, and may not be using what we've known as a G4 processor at all. The iBook G4 tech specs fail to mention the Velocity Engine at all in stark contrast to all of Apple's other G4-class products. This comes to the chagrin of many users who expect a G4-labeled system, using what Apple calls a G4 processor, to include AltiVec technology.

Prospective Apple customer Daryl Stimm wrote that after having talked to a sales rep at 1-800-MY-APPLE, who claimed that the iBook G4 does not include the Velocity Engine. Furthermore the sales rep also stated that the G4 processor in the iBook is not a Motorola product at all, but instead an IBM chip.

Adding to the strength of the claim is the fact that the PowerPC 970—used in Apple's Power Mac G5—is the only IBM processor to include AltiVec. We can be quite sure that Apple hasn't slipped a 970 into the iBook under our noses. There have been rumors of a G3 that will include the Velocity Engine, but even the IBM's latest, the PowerPC 750GX, doesn't have AltiVec and won't ship until later this year.

I called 1-800-MY-APPLE and spoke to Josh, who couldn't find anyone at that time of night (1:00 AM EST) to answer my query about AltiVec in the iBook G4. He noted that several people had also asked the same question, and agreed with me when I suggested that it was odd for Apple not to trumpet AltiVec, let alone fail to mention it at all.

Where does this leave us? Still wondering about the new iBook until Apple posts detailed developer notes or someone from Apple confirms or denies suspicions. While we wait for new developments, there are a few important points to keep in mind.

One fact to consider is that names like G3, G4, and G5 are Apple labels only. For instance, the G3 has seen three revisions of the PowerPC 750, and the G4 includes several different chips from Motorola's 7400 line. Also keep in mind that while Apple has heretofore dubbed their systems after the CPU used in them, there has never been a hard and fast rule about it. Perhaps we are seeing a new flexibility in Apple's naming conventions?

Perhaps the chip in question is a PowerPC 750FX, or a Motorola G4 manufactured by IBM without its Velocity Engine, or just an older Motorola G4 and a confused phone rep. At this point in time, while Apple moves away from Motorola, it seems to make little sense that they prolong dependency on the company. IBM has also been Apple's sole supplier of G3 chips for the last several years. Until there is confirmation of an actual processor model number the mystery remains open. The issue will not truly be resolved, however, until Apple's customers are satisfied and informed.

Sovereign Semiconductor

In the best decision out of Motorola in years — now that Chris Galvin has resigned — the Motorola Semiconductor Product Sector will be spun off into its own independent corporation. After years of mismanagement and dwindling mindshare, setting SPS free could spark the rebirth of the sleepy chipzilla, but sadly for Apple and Mac users the move has come too late to benefit Macintosh.

Quite simply, SPS going on its own isn't really that big of a deal. Motorola is such a vast company that it operates as several independent entities, SPS among them. The biggest potential challenge that an independent SPS will face is that of reduced R&D funding, as SPS will no longer enjoy the bankroll of an aggregate Motorola. A tighter budget will lead to either increased efficiency, the lack of which has stifled Motorola PowerPC efforts since the late Nineties, or oblivion. After starting with a bang, it didn't take Motorola long to stall out with PowerPC.

After IBM's PowerPC 601, Big Blue and Motorola collaborated on the Somerset designs. Among these processors was the venerable PowerPC 603, a low-cost, low-power part targeted at low-end and portable systems. The 603 flourished in the embedded and desktop worlds and acted as the cornerstone for virtually every one of Motorola PowerPC designs after it. It was also the engine behind Apple's first PowerPC PowerBooks and their consumer desktops.

Following up their success with the Somerset designs, IBM and Motorola created the PowerPC 750 — the G3 — from the core of the PowerPC 603. At the time, it was the cheap, fast, and simple processor that Apple required to weather a trying transition period. Soon after the G3, however, IBM and Motorola parted ways, with IBM leaving Motorola the Somerset facility. Sadly, Motorola was dependent upon IBM for architectural innovation, so this move was the beginning of the long, slow end for Motorola's PowerPC.

Not long after the Somerset split, Motorola began an old bad habit of rehashing ad nauseum, extending the 603 core year after year with add-ons, hacks, and kludges. This philosophy of upgrades translates into less performance and an increase in complexity with each new iteration, a recent example being the 500 MHz Fiasco, where Motorola's PowerPC G4 (another 603 derivative) was stuck at 500 MHz for 18 months. Apple was forced to downgrade their new Power Mac G4 processors shortly after introduction and weathered a horrific year and a half standing still while Intel and AMD raced ahead with faster and faster chips.

These problems, alongside a dodgy fabrication process, poor yields, and constantly slipping schedules, caused Apple to move away from its dependence on Motorola and the G4. With Motorola's development efforts pouring into the embedded market with the PowerPC 8500 line — yet another 603 variant — it became clear not only to Apple but to Mac fans as well that moving the Mac platform ahead in speed and performance meant moving away from Motorola as a chip supplier.

In the end, SPS having a go on its own won't really affect Apple as they move toward using IBM's G3 and G5 chips everywhere, especially as IBM's 750 line gains AlitiVec in its next major revision. Motorola has made this last move with SPS far too late to do Apple any good, though it became obvious long ago that retaining Apple as a customer was no longer a significant goal.