[Ham-Mac] LoTW and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

[Jack Brindle]

A bit more info about Snow Leopard...

Applications can be 64 bits and have full use of the OS facilities,  
independent of the kernel setting. 64 bit apps run quite nicely on the  
32-bit kernel. And remember, out of the box, the default enables the  
32-bit Kernel. I understand that applications which are not compatible  
with the new system will get moved to a special folder at the root  
level, but so far I have not seen this happen with any of my apps.  
This probably would be PPC apps which ned Rosetta. By default, Rosetta  
is not installed in Snow Leopard, but it may be included (user  
selectable) when you do the install. Be sure to check out the  
installation options if you need it. There are still significant apps,  
mostly older, that are compiled just for PPC, which needs Rosetta.

Apple surprised developers by releasing S.L. about a month early. But,  
we are already seeing driver upgrades coming out. 64-bit drivers for  
the FTDI serial adapters are already out (see www.ftdichip.com). These  
are used in many devices, including the MicroHam gear. I have not seen  
new Keyspan drivers, however. Knowing those folks, we won't have to  
wait too long. I am sure that other drivers are on the way.

And a note about the LOTW stuff. I, too, have had to renew my  
certificates while using Leopard. No problem. I even changed systems  
(PPC to Intel), moved the certificates, and still have full access to  
LOTW. So it definitely works.

- Jack Brindle, W6FB

On Sep 2, 2009, at 9:12 AM, David Ferrington, M0XDF wrote:

> Hmmm, interesting, and of course the big thing about 64bit of memory
> addressing - thanks
> 73 de M0XDF
> -- 
> A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade
> they know they shall never sit in. -Greek proverb
>
> On 2 Sep 2009, at 16:35, Jack Brindle wrote:
>
>> Interestingly, maybe not. It seems the wider math for pointers (64
>> bits vs 32 bits) tends to wipe out any speed advantage. Plus the
>> kernel doesn't actually need to manage more than 4GB of memory. When
>> you add to that the memory data paths may be 32 bits, which requires
>> two fetches for 64 bit pointers, we can see the potential for slow-
>> downs. It seems the extra registers in the CPU you get when the 64- 
>> bit
>> flag is enabled may not counteract the rest of the system design. I
>> bet down the road when we have 64 or 128 bit cpus and memory data
>> paths things will scream.
>>
>> The Apple developer information for 32 vs 64 bits is rather
>> interesting. 64 bits for apps that need it and large memory systems  
>> is
>> worth while. For smaller systems it may not be. That's why they
>> enabled it on big servers but not on consumer systems.
>>
>> On Sep 1, 2009, at 11:35 PM, David Ferrington, M0XDF wrote:
>>
>>> Because in theory, it will be much faster.
>>> 73 de M0XDF
>>> -- 
>>> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice,
>>> but in practice there is.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 2 Sep 2009, at 05:20, Jack Brindle wrote:
>>>
>>>> Why would you go to the 64 bit kernel?
>
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