Unseen PowerPC: The Cores That Didn't Make It

Ever since Apple, IBM, and Motorola jumped into bed together twelve years ago, tech media—and Apple watchdogs especially—have had a field day with speculation, rumors, and actual news regarding new PowerPC projects. Apple gave a familiar face and a flair of iconoclast to the affair while IBM lent a grave sobriety. This thing could really happen, then, someone to challenge the Microsoft/Intel duopoly. And the stories just kept coming, well into the next decade. But not all of them were so real.

So what were these projects that came and went faster than a Quad Xeon Mac? Handily enough, they're right below, broken down by project. Read on to find out what Apple, IBM, and Motorola had in store for us throughout the Nineties and what didn't make the cut. Through all the rumors, one thing was certain: AIM never had a lack of imagination, even if it didn't always end up in silicon.

Why Apple Really Ditched PowerPC

Apple wants to make their switch to Intel chips seem like a no-brainer, but the reality of it was a lot more complicated than just faster chips for Macs. Apple's claims of their Intel systems being "4-5x faster" than their PowerPC systems is a little much to swallow, especially with Intel Macs landing in users' hands and failing to live up to the hype. So if these Intel chips aren't really that much faster than the G5, why did Apple make the switch? The answer to this question is a lot more interesting than what Apple's telling you.

The Ninety Nanonmeter Speed-Bump

Last Summer, Apple launched a serious upgrade with the Power Mac G5 and for the first time in a decade used a totally new PowerPC core not based on the PowerPC 603. With IBM's PowerPC 970, Apple is using a mainframe-level chip capable of massive parallel computing, access to hyper bus speed, and huge volumes of cache. Since the industry hit the wall shrinking to 90nm, however, the Mac community has expressed unrest at the clock-starvation: Memories of Motorola's 500 MHz Fiasco five years ago bubble up to the surface.

Kill your worry processes, Mac users. There's no clock-stall in the PowerPC's future any time soon. Motorola's failure to achieve speeds above 500 MHz was a result of it recycling the PowerPC 603 core far too many times, something that IBM avoids in using its Power series core. The speed-bump at 2.5 GHz is the result of a one-shot problem involved in shrinking the die. But let me explain in more detail.

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.

Motorola Semi's Failure to Innovate

Motorola struggling isn't news to anyone who watches Apple, nor is it news to anyone else with a vested interested in Motorola's semiconductor branch. But it's not like the company is beleagured. It's not like it takes Motorola's last gasping breath to release a new G4. The problem with Motorola's struggle is Motorola's attitude toward innovation.

Trading Megahurtz For Megahertz

For the last few years Motorola has been the sole supplier of Apple's high-end chips, all from the G4 family. And for the last few years, Mac fans and industry pundits alike have expressed grief over the speed — or lack thereof — Motorola has reached with these processors. While Intel and AMD reach speeds nearing 3 GHz, or 3,000 MHz, the Motorola/Apple camp have slowly crawled to 1.25 GHz.

A cacophony of possible solutions to the Megahurtz problem have been heard from within the Mac community, and finally an end is in sight. The light at the end of the PowerPC tunnel is shining, Mac faithful, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief.

Well, not quite yet.

The PowerPC 7455 Is Too Little, Too Late

Let's face it: Apple's new offerings in the Power Mac line are too little, too late. The PowerPC 7455 is a cop-out for the real deals (the 7460, 7500, and the 8500). If Apple doesn't get its act together soon on the high end, it'll be relegated to a consumer-only nitch and dwindle until it's bought out for its brand name.

Apple's been severely slacking when it comes to keeping its high end customers appeased. Just how long did the Power Mac stay at 500 MHz? 18 months? Well, you do have to hand it to Apple: they broke Moore's law. But don't drone on about Motorola's bug in the 7400 that kept it at 500 MHz and no higher. IBM has a 1 GHz G3 out now (the PowerPC 750FX) and could have easily provided Apple with the firepower it needed then. No AltiVec you say? Motorola's a greedy miser. They could easily release an AltiVec-only co-processor, but they want to keep it tied to PowerPC so they're guaranteed business. Business from a company too stupid to drop deadbeat technology, Apple.

Motorola's PowerPC 7455 is a compromise. It's basically a rehash of heretofore substandard processor technology with a few new fabrication features added to let it crawl towards the 1 GHz mark. There's nothing new on the table with it, and that's what makes Apple look even stupider. How long have rumor sites been predicting Apollo (the 7460)? And it's a well-known fact that the 8500 has been in testing for over a year. Yet Apple finally breaks the gigahertz barrier with something that barely is capable of doing so, a silly token upgrade to the 7450.

Why do we Mac users put up with Apple delivering slop from a bleeding company that can't keep a schedule? The only thing that makes these systems "fast" compared to the new 2.2 GHz 786/Pentium4 or AMD's XP is Steve Jobs's Reality Distortion Field. That in itself is amazing, but not perpetually sustaining. Eventually (hopefully) Mac users will smarten up to this kind of marketechnology.

It's really kind of funny. Apple has awesome machines and stays ahead of the competition hardware-wise but runs Mac OS 8 and 9, which aren't at all native to PowerPC and can't do SMP, then it gets an OS that has memory protection, SMP support, full native PowerPC code, preemption, etc. (Mac OS X) and lets its hardware fall behind by a year.

I remember back when when Apple was encroaching on SGI's low and mid end systems; now you need a PowerPC 74xx to run Mac OS X because the 750 is under-powered but still shows up in the iMac and iBook lines. That's called selling snake-oil.

If I were you I'd consider the above and think about jumping ship. I didn't like to admit it but once I was honest with myself I felt like technology was going somewhere besides the Barbie aisle.

The PowerPC G4 Is a Lie

At the heart of the current high-end Macs, routers, and switches is the PowerPC G4, which is what Apple and Motorola claim to be their fourth generation CPU that is the result of the three-way Apple/IBM/Motorola alliance, which has been designing and fabbing various PowerPC chips since 1991.

I contend that “G4” is a blatant misnomer by Apple and Motorola to spur sales and compete with Intel's Pentium 4 product and nomenclature. Below I'll give some historical background, technical information, and plain facts that support my claim that the PowerPC G4 is really a second-generation processor, and the broader notion that the PowerPC family has not evolved significantly since 1995, something Apple and Motorola propaganda has repeatedly accused the competition of in recent years. But first, the background.