The RISC of moving to Intel
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Not exactly breaking news, but yesterday Steve (Steve!) announced that Apple is switching to Intel chips in 2006-2007.
Apple.
Intel processors.
*pop*
I'm worried that this move will take us away from the cutting edge. I mean, Intel isn't exactly sporting when it comes to picking the right technologies to put in their chipsets. Anyone remember the first Pentium 4 chipsets? RAMBUS?
Also, I've always been such a proponent of RISC that I'm kind of annoyed that Apple is just walking away from PowerPC. Who's with me on that? I haven't heard any talk about that. I'm pretty sure this symbolizes the death of RISC in consumer-level computing personal computers*.
All in all, Apple moving to Intel has that eerie feeling of buying a modern American car (from 2002 or newer). They seem to be reliable, but ... there's something unsettling about them, like they're constantly fighting the contradiction of their existence. Millions of people use Intel, but does that make it right? I'm not sure.
OTOH, if I can get a cheaper, faster, lighter, and cooler PowerBook, maybe even with a longer battery life, I might see the benefit.
--
Update: I forgot that RISC is pretty much everywhere in the embedded consumer-level computing world. My TiVo, PlayStation, GameBoy Advance, ... my truck probably has a RISC-based controller. So, nevermind -- RISC is actually the majority.
