Re: G4 power Mac and OS X
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg26945] Re: [mg26891] G4 power Mac and OS X
- From: "Gareth J. Russell" <russell at cerc.columbia.edu>
- Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 20:00:11 -0500 (EST)
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
Hi, There is a difference between a 'G4 version' and an 'OS X' version. Mathematica (4.0) already runs fine on the OS X public beta in Classic mode -- I have used it extensively that way. This means, of course, that it does not get the advantages of OS X. I expect it will still work in the first proper release. Wolfram have just announced that they are developing a version that will run natively in OS X, although there is no timeframe. They don't say whether this will be a 'Carbonised' version of the existing code, or a newly-developed Cocoa application. I strongly suspect a Carbon version, because switching to Cocoa is a much bigger job. Version 5 perhaps? Either way though, Mathematica will get all the unix-like advantages of OS X. As for a 'G4 version', the question is whether the code will take advantage of the Altivec processing units that are part of the G4 (in the Classic OS or OS X). These can speed up certain functions by a factor of around 10. But, I would bet no particular optimization for this in the first OS X release, again because they probably want to get a stable version out the door first. Even in the worst case (Carbon version, no Altivec optimization), Mathematica on Mac OS X will be a great combination! Gareth