[Ham-Mac] MacOS X x86 Intel Support

[D. J.]

On 09, Jun 2005, at 22:35, Bill Coleman wrote:

>
> On Jun 8, 2005, at 11:17 AM, Sergei Ludanov wrote:
>
>
>> Although question is for Chris, I'll jump in. With Xcode 2.1 Apple  
>> introduced universal binaries, which means that it will run on  
>> both PPC and Intel Macs. The stumbling block here will be for  
>> developer who are still using Code Warrior for their development.  
>> They will need to migrate their projects to Xcode and use gcc 4.0.  
>> Also if programs are not Cocoa they may require a bunch of tweaks  
>> and tuning. As an exercise I recompiled a couple of my  
>> applications to Universal binaries yesterday and had no problems  
>> whatsoever. So there should not be any problems maintaining  
>> versions that runs on both architectures.
>>
>
> One very important point that cannot be overlooked:
>
> Supporting two build architectures DOUBLES the QA burden on  
> developing software.
>
> Everything that is tested in the PPC version must be tested in the  
> Intel version, and vice versa. You can't just "trust" the compilers  
> get it right, because they don't always. Or things that appear to  
> work in one architecture show up has horrible bugs in the other  
> architecture are actually undetected bugs in the software.
>
> Trust me, I speak from experience during the LAST processor shift  
> (68k -> PPC).
>
> One technical question -- how do they handle the endian differences  
> between the PPC and Intel processors? Interpreting binary file  
> records must be a real challenge. At least the 68k and PPC were  
> both big-endian.
>
> Bill Coleman, AA4LR, PP-ASEL        Mail: aa4lr at arrl.net
> Quote: "Not within a thousand years will man ever fly!"
>             -- Wilbur Wright, 1901
>
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There have been some big discussions and long threads on Usenet:   
comp.sys.mac.system

They talked about the big and little endian, it's over my head as I  
know nothing about programming, but they did not seen too concerned  
about any of the issues.  Time will tell, I hope they continue to  
support the PPC as I just bought a new G5 a couple weeks ago and  
today added another G. of ram.  It's blazing fast and more power than  
I need, but I like it a lot.