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http://www.macnn.com/articles/03/07/28/apple:.panther/

Apple: Panther simply a tweaked 32-bit OS

updated 12:25 pm EDT, Mon July 28, 2003

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Apple has confirmed a Register report that Mac OS X 10.3 : Apple VP Greg Joswiak this week "admitted that Panther will be a 32-bit operating system tweaked to support 64-bit addressing....That's the same technique implemented in Mac OS X 10.2.7, the version of the Apple operating system that will ship with the first 64-bit Power Mac G5s. Mac OS X 10.2.7, codenamed 'Smeagol', is a 32-bit OS, but certain libraries and other elements have been recoded to allow it to make use of the 64-bit addressing provided by the G5's 64-bit IBM PowerPC 970 processor."

by MacNN Staff

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07/28, 12:36pm | report spam | close Reply |
Who cares?

People don't understand that this doesn't matter. At all.

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07/28, 12:37pm | report spam | close Reply |
Why would it be 64 bit?

Why would apple release an OS that would only run on a G5?

Panther will have libraries and bridges to allow 64 bit apps to run at full advantage. Why should apple split the OS into two installs when they don't have to. This story is not news, anyone who thought Panther would be 64bit only is just ignorant.

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07/28, 12:38pm | report spam | close Reply |
Discussion

I read somewhere that a fully 64-bit OS would not make any sense. However I cannot find the link again. If someone knows what I'm talking about, please post a link here.

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07/28, 12:39pm | report spam | close Reply |
Damn

I was waiting for a 64 bit version of the ls command. ;^)

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07/28, 12:53pm | report spam | close Reply |
this blows

any idiot knows that 64 bits are twice as fast as 32. i want speed. if amd is coming out with a 64 bit chip then MAC should have one that goes to 65!

go MAC!

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07/28, 12:56pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: this blows

Dear Troll,
Real Mac users do not write MAC. We also know what the true advantages of 64 bit versus 32 bit. Nice try at painting us all clueless.
For future reference, I'm sure you can find an IRC channel to pollute.

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07/28, 01:01pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: This Blows

How many applications have you written? The OS does not need to be 64 bit. That would be a really dumb thing to do. It will not make your apps run any faster, the code of the application determines that. There are pieces of the OS that will take advantage of 64 bit, but it is totally unnecessary to write the entire OS for 64 Bit. If you take a look. The AMD won't be running on a 64 bit OS either.

Oh and your comment about Apple going to 65 just because AMD has a 64 bit only shows exactly how uninformed you truely are. The next iteration would be 128-bit. As 65 is not a multiple of 8.

It goes 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256....

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07/28, 01:01pm | report spam | close Reply |
re: Dear Troll

Hey dude, this "troll" was obviously making a joke. He's not a troll at all, just someone making fun of them. Couldn't you tell? Guess not.

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07/28, 01:03pm | report spam | close Reply |
Get a life!

You guys can't see that this guy was/is making a joke?!?! Jeeez. Unbelievable... instead, you have to school us all in the multiples of 8.

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07/28, 01:27pm | report spam | close Reply |
Enough!

I completely agree with the poster above "this blows". This is a complete shock to me, you guys obviously do not understand the importance of having a 64 bit OS. There are tons. I would name a few, but you guys are just not worth it. What the f@*k are they doing there in Cupertino? No fully 64 bit OS, s**** that. Liars!
I am moving to Win XP. At least at MS they are honest, hard working people.
And tt least they have...err...uhm...hm...wtf...they have...or must have...they have games! Yeah, s**** you all. :P

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07/28, 01:27pm | report spam | close Reply |
agreed

I agree why does MacNN keep posting this stuff from the reg? I hope we are all very thankful that Panther is not only 64 bit.. I know I am happy that I can run it on my iBook.

\\ bootleg

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07/28, 01:39pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: agreed

"I agree why does MacNN keep posting this stuff from the reg?"

Because MacNN is a borderline tabloid website. It's somewhere between MacCentral and MacRumors as far as journalistic ethics.

They'll post enough disputable topics so people like us will make comments and drive up visits to the website. It's makes their advertisers very happy.

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07/28, 01:42pm | report spam | close Reply |
in the know

MacNN tell us so we will be better informed, when one in our rank says something that is wrong, more of you informed types will know and correct that person.

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07/28, 01:44pm | report spam | close Reply |
Unnecessary inflammation.

C'mon MacNN. This was irresponsible, making it out as if it were a surprise that 10.3 isn't 64-bit. Who the h*** didn't realize this? A 64-bit version will bow in when it's ready and appropriate, probably starting with the server version first of 10.5 or later.

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07/28, 01:58pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: Unnecessary inflamma

This was irresponsible, making it out as if it were a surprise that 10.3 isn't 64-bit. Who the h*** didn't realize this?

Maybe you should be yelling at the register for posting this article, as they apparently felt is was worthy of mention. Or maybe you nimrods should be yelling at Joswiak, for even talking about the fact that it wasn't going to be a 64-bit OS. I mean, its not like he goes around and tells everyone the world is round and the sun rises in the east, so why should he even mention something as pre-ordained and obvious as the fact that 10.3 wouldn't be 64-bit.

And just so you know, not everyone knew how much of 10.3 would be 64-bit. We're not all clued-in insiders or tech-heads, who spend every waking moment contemplating 32-bit vs 64-bit OSes, and whether any next version of an OS would be one or the other.

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07/28, 02:05pm | report spam | close Reply |
Hrm.

I don't mind MacNN posting the link, nor somebody mentioning it, I just hope that most people either don't notice or know enough (like most here, it seems) to understand that this is a non-issue.

Nothing to see here--move along...

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07/28, 02:08pm | report spam | close Reply |
It IS an issue

Whether its 64-bit total or not may not be a total issue, but there is the issue of the memory sub-systems. Do all my programs need to be recompiled to handle more than 1GB or 4GB of memory? And not having a 64-bit OS really means no 64-bit programs, which means no software will be able to take advantage of > 4GB or memory.

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07/28, 02:09pm | report spam | close Reply |
Ignorant

"The OS does not need to be 64 bit. That would be a really dumb thing to do. It will not make your apps run any faster, the code of the application determines that. There are pieces of the OS that will take advantage of 64 bit, but it is totally unnecessary to write the entire OS for 64 Bit."
***
This is ignorant. "The code" of the app does not in and of itself make the app run faster. Sure, good coding coupled with a good optimizing compiler make for more efficient code, but code gets compiled into binary, i.e. 1s and 0s. If you can load 64 of those 1s and 0s into memory at once and execute them as opposed to 32 1s and 0s, you have effectively doubled the speed of the app. The same hold true for the OS itself. Having a 64 bit OS would allow the G5 to process twice as much data as a 32 bit G4. Remember, an OS is simply 1s and 0s too.

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07/28, 02:13pm | report spam | close Reply |
...

boring...

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07/28, 02:15pm | report spam | close Reply |
Memory

Do all my programs need to be recompiled to handle more than 1GB or 4GB of memory?
***
No.

And not having a 64-bit OS really means no 64-bit programs, which means no software will be able to take advantage of > 4GB or memory.
***
The OS detrmines memory allocation, not the application. If the G5 is cabable of addressing more than 4GB of memory, then the OS can allocate it as it so desires. Applications do not control any of that. Mind you, very few apps use that much memory, things like Renderman or PhotoShop maybe, for example.

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07/28, 02:46pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: memory

Your comments treat the questions of memory as a system-wide thing. I understand that if I've already got 50 things running and they take up the first 7GB of memory, that opening MS word will use memory in the 8GB range without having to be recompiled. My questions were on an application basis. Can a single application access more than 1GB of memory (its current limitation) without being recompiled? Or access more than 4GB regardless of recompiled? If the apps are 32-bit, they'd have to be rewritten somewhat in order to deal with a 64-bit pointer to access more than 4GB in a process.

Whether you can or can't, its still an issue for discussion, and not the boring non-issue that some people here claim it to be.

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07/28, 02:49pm | report spam | close Reply |
Who Cares!

We get a G5 and Panther! Woohoo!

32 bit or 64 bit....who cares...it beats using windows!

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07/28, 02:51pm | report spam | close Reply |
re:ignorant

I completely agree with you.

The advantage of a true 64-bit OS make swap memory go away (almost), the speed of the OS and applications increase dramatically.

This is quite disapointing to me.

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07/28, 02:55pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: memory

For a single application to use more than 4 GB of memory (regardless of where it loads in system memory, which can be anywhere in the 8 GB, as you said), it does have to be recompiled. For a well written app, this would be a fairly easy task...nothing to sweat about. Since the vast majority of apps out there don't need to address more than 4 GB, there's really nothing to worry about. Most apps that will certainly benefit from the increased memory space will certainly be updated by their developers...a "fully 64 bit" OS wouldn't change that.

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07/28, 02:58pm | report spam | close Reply |
re:re:memory

>>My questions were on an application basis. Can a single application access more than 1GB of memory (its current limitation) without being recompiled? Or access more than 4GB regardless of recompiled? If the apps are 32-bit, they'd have to be rewritten somewhat in order to deal with a 64-bit pointer to access more than 4GB in a process.

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07/28, 03:00pm | report spam | close Reply |
re:re:memory

As I know, Photoshop (the version that can take advantage of the G5) do not need a complete rewrite. The update of the software to let it access over 4GB memory is not that much a work.

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07/28, 03:25pm | report spam | close Reply |
Hrm

A question.. you have a G5 w/ 8 GB of ram in it. By default the max that can be accessed is 4 GB. Does this mean 4 GB max recognized by the OS or just the max one application can use is 4 GB?

Another question... except for about 5% of the population of mac users (if that) that might have a valid reason for it, why would you need more than 4 GB of memory total?

One more question, wouldn't that 8 GB cost more than the G5 did?

Ehh, I'm probably just bitter about having bought one of the last rev of G4's a few months ago, makes me wish I hadn't.. and gotten one of the new G5's. Well, there's always saving up for later.

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07/28, 03:43pm | report spam | close Reply |
In an attempt to clarify

For 10.2.x and beyond Mac OS X Applications can be compiled to use 64 integer math instructions (using gcc 3.3 and later), these applications will only work on PPC 970 (or later) systems and they will see a near double boost in 64b integer operations throughput compared to using 32b integer ops on the same CPU. (yeah yeah you could selectively use 32b integer ops on G4s/G3s as needed). It depends on the Application as to how much 64b integer math they used or could use... so the speed up depends on the application.

As a side note the G3s, G4s, and G5s (PPC instruction set) has always supports 64b floating point operations. In other words floating point operations on the PPC has always support 64b wide data processing.

10.2.7 and Panther use 32b effective memory addressing. This represents the number of bits that can be used by Applications to address memory. In other words the normal Application address space is 4GB in size. Panther (and 10.2.7) do have an enhanced virtual memory system that at least allows 8GBs of physical RAM to be addressed. So the VM system can back its virtual memory space with at least 8GB of physical RAM (in theory it supports much much larger then this... i think 48b addressees don't have my notes handy). At the moment I have not heard if and how one could special case an Application to support a larger effective address (it most likely will have to wait until post Panther).

One last thing... Apple is providing enhanced versions of their vector math libraries and many system libraries that are tuned for the PPC 970 including using 64b integer math. If your application uses these directly or indirectly (a lot of OS frameworks uses them) you will automatically get a boost on PPC 970 system with no work on your part. They will mostly show up in panther.

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07/28, 03:52pm | report spam | close Reply |
Answer...

"A question.. you have a G5 w/ 8 GB of ram in it. By default the max that can be accessed is 4 GB. Does this mean 4 GB max recognized by the OS or just the max one application can use is 4 GB?"

The OS can use ALL of the 8GB of RAM and will share it among all processes running on the system. An individual application (process) will only (currently) be able to address a virtual address space of 4GB in size, just like on current G3/G4 systems (about 0.5 GB of that space is consumed by kernel and shared memory mappings, so in general a single process can get access to around 3.5 GB).

"Another question... except for about 5% of the population of mac users (if that) that might have a valid reason for it, why would you need more than 4 GB of memory total?"

Few to no desktop application need to address more then 4GB or memory. For them to use 64b addressing gains them nothing and in fact could slow them down a little because of having to move around 64b addresses (twice the size as they currently use).

In general 64b addressing is needed but 64 integer can be helpful... For applications that need more then 32b of address memory well... post Panther may support that ability.

Also note that for those applications that do need more then 4GB at a time they, depending on what they do and how they do it, could launch additional processes (each process gets its own 4GB address space) to use more of the available 8GB of physical RAM.

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07/28, 04:16pm | report spam | close Reply |
Just wait.....

...until it OS X is completely 64-bit and all of the zealots will come out of the woodwork claiming victory. You don�t have to understand how a computer works to use it. Most of the posts on this board prove that every day.

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Apple: Panther simply a tweaked 32-bit OS

updated 12:25 pm EDT, Mon July 28, 2003

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Unnecessary inflammation.

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Hrm.

It IS an issue

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