I have a tablet. It's main job is to run mpd so I can play music in the living room. It was free.
To an Alien having two identical devices with the same processor and operating system and one is just bigger could seem very strange. From your post Cal it might seem you are an absent minded tech tart, but I know that's not the case 😀
I'll be honest, I detest the Iphone work gave me and airpods even more so. I did rebuild my late Brother in laws macbook and imac to give to my elder daughters and the screens are beautiful but they are not for me. I do however admire both the engineering that goes in them and the social engineering that apple started when the newton failed in order to make themselves the must have for many they are today. The Mx silicon is a 30 year journey which shows they planned ahead and for 90% of jobs it's all the compute power and memory you need. Not server grade though, which is fine as that is not the market being targeted.
To an Alien having two identical devices with the same processor and operating system and one is just bigger could seem very strange. From your post Cal it might seem you are an absent minded tech tart, but I know that's not the case 😀
I'll be honest, I detest the Iphone work gave me and airpods even more so. I did rebuild my late Brother in laws macbook and imac to give to my elder daughters and the screens are beautiful but they are not for me. I do however admire both the engineering that goes in them and the social engineering that apple started when the newton failed in order to make themselves the must have for many they are today. The Mx silicon is a 30 year journey which shows they planned ahead and for 90% of jobs it's all the compute power and memory you need. Not server grade though, which is fine as that is not the market being targeted.
There is nothing to say that of they want Apple couldn’t twist Apple Silicon to make a dedicated server chip. Given the size of Apple’s cloud presence and the huge amount of power used, an Mserver could really pay dividends if they decided to move in this direction.
Apple typically only does things if they can make money doing so. Tighter integration between hardware & software tighter and more complementary… for instance there are a few instructions that are specifically to make the work of Rosetta easier and the result of running Intel code on an Mx chip is faster than many Intel chips. BTW: Rosetta is not emulation, the first time you run an Intel ap Rosetta compiles that code into Mx code and executes that subsequentailly.
I expect the ability to run multiple instances of Windows, even DOS, at the same time under Parallels could have Intel developers moving to Apple Silicon.
dave
Apple typically only does things if they can make money doing so. Tighter integration between hardware & software tighter and more complementary… for instance there are a few instructions that are specifically to make the work of Rosetta easier and the result of running Intel code on an Mx chip is faster than many Intel chips. BTW: Rosetta is not emulation, the first time you run an Intel ap Rosetta compiles that code into Mx code and executes that subsequentailly.
I expect the ability to run multiple instances of Windows, even DOS, at the same time under Parallels could have Intel developers moving to Apple Silicon.
dave
Absolutely no interest within apple to address the server market. Not enough markup. They used to be the largest global user of oracle exadata which back then were hoofing great 3 rack database servers stuffed full of SPARC processors and batsrad expensive, but not worth them trying to do in house. When they can work out how to make 100% markup on a server I am sure they will launch one other than the mini line.
But the whole point of the Mx chip was to get speed by getting the memory in the chip with the processor. No cache misses, no sitting twiddling thumbs or messy out of order pipelines. But this doesn't work well will many workloads outside of domestic use, where it is perfect now the tech has matured.
But the whole point of the Mx chip was to get speed by getting the memory in the chip with the processor. No cache misses, no sitting twiddling thumbs or messy out of order pipelines. But this doesn't work well will many workloads outside of domestic use, where it is perfect now the tech has matured.
Not the whole poimt, but getting rid of all the buses that slow things down and eat power is a huge gain in raw speed. Just don’t try to upgrade (add RAM whatever), but fortunately for the 90% more than enuff speed and memory.
I am eager to see if Apple can pull off an M3 Extreme. Hopefully 3nm architecture reduces cooling needs sufficiently for them to glue 4 x M3 Max together and not have it melt down.
dave
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I did see a used Apple all-in-one when I was out shopping today. Trouble is, the Industrial Design is so good on all those, you cant tell what year its from just by looking at it.
That is right, one needs to switch it on or look up the type number as written somewhere on the casing. Make sure to start with a Mx version just to have longer support with newer OSes (that are free BTW).
The Mac Mini M1 is the most affordable of all.
The Mac Mini M1 is the most affordable of all.
I love typing text messages with ten fingers instead of one. I love having email/calendar/contacts/photos sync seamlessly. I love having devices that just get out of the way and allow me to work. They're not attention-grabbing. Won't alert me that nothing is wrong (MS Security Essentials I'm looking at you!!). I love having a powerful unix terminal at my fingertips.
Tom
I haven't used macOS before. I have a had a lot of downtime over the years due to troubleshooting drivers, chipsets, firmware, corrupted data and such. Am I setting myself up with a false expectation to be mostly of these issues with the M2 Mini? I had FreeCAD frequently crashing or taking forever to load. Starting from a clean install again on a HP Elitedesk i5 and yet to reinstall FreeCAD or any other large programs as media monkey is already again going slo-mo with selecting and controls and things randomly. As well as Wi-Fi mouse randomly being erratic after Windows 10 Pro clean reinstallation. This didn't happen before wipe and all the drivers are up-to-date
Thanks and regards
Randy
Thanks and regards
Randy
All I can say is that once you go Mac- you never go back.
None of the windows issues you mention have never been an issue with a Mac. Mostly because it isn't Windows OS.
The only problem I ever had was with a CD with photos getting stuck in the drive. Went online and it showed how to remove with two plastic cards. Caused by the sticker applied was sticking up around the edges. Bingo, bango, duck soup.
I had a PC since 1988 until 2008. Never looked back. I run Fusion 360 on the Mac, music server. My son uses ProTools on his MacBook, says it runs better with MacOS.
None of the windows issues you mention have never been an issue with a Mac. Mostly because it isn't Windows OS.
The only problem I ever had was with a CD with photos getting stuck in the drive. Went online and it showed how to remove with two plastic cards. Caused by the sticker applied was sticking up around the edges. Bingo, bango, duck soup.
I had a PC since 1988 until 2008. Never looked back. I run Fusion 360 on the Mac, music server. My son uses ProTools on his MacBook, says it runs better with MacOS.
I expect there could be issues with some Intel apps given they have to be translated to run at all. Is FreeCAD native Mx yet?
dave
dave
Support for Mac could be Intel or Mx… both will run, potential for bugs greater if you are running th eIntel version on Mx.
dave
dave
I used Wintel desktops and laptops for 20 years. I wrote code in VB, C++, C #, and Java on those machines. I also created hundreds of spreadsheets for clients in Excel. I switched to an M1 Air laptop 2 years ago. Man! What a breath of fresh air. Slim, well made, beautiful keyboard, slim, well made all aluminum, and quick. Once you go Mac you never go back!
Intel is a mile behind Apple.
Intel is a mile behind Apple.
I need to make sure my XP VM will work on an M processor machine. If the VB6 Apps worked that would suffice. Windows 11 arm is useless.
Wvwn on a Mac Excel is a POS. I spent a year trying to get a business forcasting tool built in Excel. I could do the same (well actuallt way better), in a month in Trapeze (object oriented spreadsheet, that handles matrices (at leat the 2 dimensional ones i used).
Unfortunately a REALLY good piece of software that was ahead of its time.
I didn;t di much other commercal software. A WP under CP/M on a KayPro. Assembler code for 6809 short float routines (and a Forth interpreter). And some stuff in Forth & Intel (286) assembler. Other than Trapeze the closest i got to programming on te Mac was an assembler course that in the winter was on the Mac, but in the summer course i took it was IBM 360 assembler. Again. I made it look like high level code and heavily self documenting. In Uni i did Algol W, Fortran, PL1, Cobol, a weak version of Pascal.
Got a Mac 128 in 1984, been there since.
dave
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I should clarify. I never write code on a Mac. Never. Work related stuff I do on Wintel. For my own personal pleasure I use a Macbook M1 Air.
I purchased a 13inch M1 macbook pro as. Soon as they came out. I know it’s not the fastest but it’s blazing compared to my 2008 27 iMac! Runs a 4K external monitor and a doc sorts the i/o.
I like the enclosed ecosystem many complain about. Customer service, I have found, is excellent. I had a white MacBook and the rubber gasket that surrounded the screen dropped down in front of the display. First time they fixed it. Second time they replaced the machine and copied my hd over. A £800 machine! That I can get behind
I like the enclosed ecosystem many complain about. Customer service, I have found, is excellent. I had a white MacBook and the rubber gasket that surrounded the screen dropped down in front of the display. First time they fixed it. Second time they replaced the machine and copied my hd over. A £800 machine! That I can get behind