“For our [Mars] landing site work, we always get the highest-end desktop Mac we can find, so we just got one of the G5s with dual 2 GHz processors and 8 GB of RAM,” Matt Golombek, a planetary geologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told the E-Commerce Times.
Scientists: The Latest Mac Converts
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did they mis-print the 2GB processor? I mean that makes no sense at all.
I was never a Mac fan before OS X. I’d always been a Windows and Solaris user, having done most of my studies and development on UNIX. With Mac OS X, Apple has a solid product that academia and people in industrial research are beginning to shift to. Macs are soaking up the people who have coasted on commercial UNIX workstations for some time but are in need of a major performance and productivity boost.
Powermacs make a great workstation, IMO. And powerbooks make a great portable.
Games still suck, however.
Games still suck, however.
Which is why God invented game consoles.
🙂
I’m sure they’re not playing too many games at JPL.
People are dropping their SGI, AIX, HP-UX, etc workstations as fast as they can now that Linux and OS X have popped up. I can understand the migration to Linux (money issue), but I am actually suprised at how much support has been thrown behind OSX (and especially the new G5 hardware). Most custom scientific *NIX software (that we use) is very actively being ported to run on OSX.
The ability to run most of their custom scientific software with the conveinence of Office applications has to be the driving force. Plus I think after using SGI’s for years, people are sick and tired of that incredibly ugly UI. Now instead of having multiple computers on a desk (or inconveinent rebooting in the case of Linux), they can have one machine that does it all.
but I am actually suprised at how much support has been thrown behind OSX (and especially the new G5 hardware)
Why are you surprised? The Mac w/OS X provides these folks with the best of both worlds: a UNIX workstation-class machine, a non-ugly UI, and nice integrations with the reast of the world (e.g., Windows networks, Microsoft Office, etc.) Seems like a very scientific…err…rational choice.
And Powermacs are an absolute bargain when it comes to workstations. A decked out Dual G5 with 8GB RAM a huge disk, and a massive LCD comes in at about $9k. A similar setup Itanium or PA-RISC or SPARC workstation from HP, IBM, SGI, etc could easily cost $20k to $40k.
Has your lab at Purdue switched to Powermacs, Kai? Our lab is the first to go all-Mac, all-the-time here.
Can the Altivec unit process DOUBLE precision floating-point operands yet? The first implementation by Motorola only dealt with single precision floats, which surprised me why scientific communities – whom care more about accuracy – would consider the PPC chips as superior for scientific work.
Now that IBM has their own version of Altivec I wonder if they made it double precision capable by now. I mean sure the PPC might still have a great FPU and more registers compared to x87 but take Intel and AMD’s vector units that have best of both, double precision and SIMD.
We keep getting the point release, but how about
the future, what will we see in OS XI (11 for
the romanly impaired)? FreeBSD 5.x introduced
major enhancements for multitasking, however,
Mac OS X is built on the mach microkernel which
is already suited very well to multitasking, so
what, if anything, can Apple do to make such a
leap to a version eleven? Will it be integrated
voice and touch screen capabilities, will it
be the inclusion of some grid like architecture,
or will they probably convert the 32-bit architecture
to native 64 bit (boo, that would be a cop-out).
I think that the ‘X’ is simply a huge market strategy
for them, and to add an ‘I’ to it would cannabilize
the ten schema. Maybe they’ll just release point releases
for another 3 years, how long did 9.x.x last?
64 bit native would be cheap, I would love to see
something innovative in their next release. That’s
not to say quartz extreme, cocoa, etc aren’t great
innovations, it’d just be sad if Apple couldn’t be the
ones to take nix to the next level. What is the evolution
of nix? It really hasn’t changed all that much since
its inception (maybe for the better). Yeah, so they
added new interfaces and added better capabilities here
and there, but what’s the next step? Will XI be the killer
application, or just another point release equivalent?
While I agree that it will be fun to see where Apple goes with the future of the Mac OS, I think they have a current (and effective) strategy of moving forward incrementally and (somewhat) predictably. This stability is good for many reasons, and, in the end you probably get the same amount of advancement, only in smaller doses, over time. This is a better approach overall than the “big bang relase”.
Maybe they’ll just release point releases
for another 3 years, how long did 9.x.x last?
Mac OS 9 lasted around 3 years… Mac OS 7 lasted 7 years.
And, arguably, we already have OS XI (depending on how you consider such things). Mac OS X 10.3.2 is not the same as Mac OS X 10.0.0.
Doesnt the rover have Power PC chips?
…unfortunately they seem to have garnered a rather poor reputation amoung the people here. The idea of “IBM processors just like you used to have in your RS/6000s” is somewhat appealing, but shaking the old Mac stigmas is a tough thing to do.
Unfortunately, our next purchase will probably be a bottom of the barrel Linux cluster again for cost reasons, rather than an XServe cluster attached to a G5 workstation.
Steve will always want the “next big thing” but I think the most significant factor over the next few years for scientific computing will be optimizations. There is ALOT of room for optimization in OSX. Most of the effort up to this point has been making the OS useful, now that Panther is out they can go back and start optimizing much of the unix core that has been neglected to this point. Apple has a decent history of highly optimized software.
Back right after the first Powermacs were released, you HAD to have the motorola optimized math libs to see decent performance out of a PPC mac, by OS 9 the Apple math libs were faster. For all of its drawback’s OS 9.x was pretty darned fast.
Kai said:
“The ability to run most of their custom scientific software with the conveinence of Office applications has to be the driving force.”
Bingo. You install the software. You run the software. Can you open word file or an email? You can open and run your fancy scientific program and not need to memorize 9 jillion special CLI commands. Click and run.
Oh and minimal setup and troubleshooting from the campus IT people … always a good thing.
Kai also said:
“Plus I think after using SGI’s for years, people are sick and tired of that incredibly ugly UI.”
It could also be the curdle the fecal matter in your intestines prices charged by SGI for their hardware. A G5 tower with everything maxed out costs $9k. At SGI, $9K gets you started.
Can the Altivec unit process DOUBLE precision floating-point operands yet?>>
Yes, per the comments made by Prof. Varadarajan at this link:
http://www.apple.com/hardware/video/virginiatech/virginiatech_240.h…
I am actually suprised at how much support has been thrown behind OSX (and especially the new G5 hardware).
I’m not. When you watch a $5K workstation sit unused for three or four months because the same Linuxheads who bray that Linux is the way to go can’t be bothered to sit at the machine for a few hours and make the OS cooperate with the video card, and you will understand why not.
As this (http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Saving_Liv…) story illustrates, performance has always been a thing for Steve. So, you are right. They will keep squeezing and squeezing.
I’m not. When you watch a $5K workstation sit unused for three or four months because the same Linuxheads who bray that Linux is the way to go can’t be bothered to sit at the machine for a few hours and make the OS cooperate with the video card, and you will understand why not.>>>
Shhhh! Or the linuxlots will show up and call you stupid for not wanting to go to the CLI and type cthuluspeak or knowing what commands to type. Because having to take HOURS to make stuff just work is fun and it’s what we should all want to do because that’s real computing.
Them scientists is stupid for picking a solution with hardware that works right out of the box. You lose so many valuble hours that could be spent at the CLI rooting around in config files that way.
“I’m sure they’re not playing too many games at JPL.”
Are you kidding, they have a awsome driving game. You drive this little vehicle through a obstical course. The difficulty isn’t to hard, but you only get 2 tries, so if you wreck or get smashed by a alien it’s all over, and loading up a new game takes a few years.
There are just as many Windows -> Mac converts as there are Mac -> Windows converts. My brother-in-law, who really is a rocket scientist, just bought a Dell after being a loyal Mac user for 15+ years.
He is one of the reasons I bought my first Mac, a Centris 610. Do other Mac users feel betrayed when a friend switches to the dark side? I know I sure did.
I’m switching all my Mac boxes from OS X to linux. When I get a G5, I’ll be baptizing it with Linux. Instead of a powerbook, I’ll be purchasing a palm pda with with accompanying accessories.
I find myself trying to use OS X like I use Unix/Linux. I’ve come to realize although OS X might be slapped on top of a Unix, it is not designed for Unix users. I’m tired on Linuxifying OS X. I tried hard the other day to get Gentoo’s portage working on OS X, I ended up screwing up the whole system. Don’t ask me why I did that?
I like Apple’s hardware, so I’ll just run Linux on it. As for OS X itself, when I compare it to GNOME, I’m not impressed. GNOME still remains a more powerful desktop environment to me. I even dare say more integrated. But after installing the 2.6 kernel when it launched, I had made up my mind. It’s linux henceforth.
On the desktop GNOME/Linux isn’t as polished as OS X, but it is exponentially more powerful. Unfortunately, I happen to be poweruser. If I ever decide to buy a laptop, it will most likely be a powerbook. And if I can run Linux perfectly on it, then so shall I. Yes, it’s unfortunate, but “all that glitters is not gold”.
When I get a G5, I’ll be baptizing it with Linux
And this shows a linuxhead in his purest. It’s not a practial issue, it’s a religous issue for some people.
If I ever decide to buy a laptop, it will most likely be a powerbook. And if I can run Linux perfectly on it, then so shall I.
That’s fine, people need to see examples of what not to do.
Even though he used some religous language he did specify that Gnome to hime is more unified and Linux is more powerful for him on G5 hardware compared OS-X. Picking on a few statements because of the language and using them as a generalisation for the rest of the community is not a very good way to get your point across.
Root’s comments are more than Linux fanatacism
Given Steve Jobs recent business decisions, I would prefer to stay away from Apple but, I do like the PPC G5 architecture. Hopefully IBM will colaborate with the PC industry to wrestle PPC architecture from Apple’s grasp and allow for the creation of an open PPC architecture to compete with x86, something that would give Jobs nightmares (based on how he treated Apple clones in the past).
I can dream can’t I?
<em>I tried hard the other day to get Gentoo’s portage working on OS X, I ended up screwing up the whole system.</em>
I love Portage too, but why the hell were you trying to get it to run on OS X? Are there even any Darwin package maintainers using Portage? Try Fink next time. It’s not nearly as good, but at least it works!
Hopefully IBM will colaborate with the PC industry to wrestle PPC architecture from Apple’s grasp and allow for the creation of an open PPC architecture to compete with x86
Yes, PPC is so closed, and Apple has such a strong grip on it that we’d never see Pegasos boards that can accept G3s or G4s….
Oh, wait. Nevermind.
Given Steve Jobs recent business decisions, I would prefer to stay away from Apple but, I do like the PPC G5 architecture. Hopefully IBM will colaborate with the PC industry to wrestle PPC architecture from Apple’s grasp and allow for the creation of an open PPC architecture to compete with x86, something that would give Jobs nightmares (based on how he treated Apple clones in the past).
I may be slightly mistaken, but not long after the first Macintosh appeared on the market, and failed to achieve complete dominance in the marketplace (due to IBM’s successful PC), Apple CEO John Skully essentially gave Steve Jobs an ultimatum by going to the board and saying they either do things his way and forget Steve’s input, or Skully would be leaving. Steve Jobs was all but ousted, soon after sold all his Apple stock and started up NeXT. During his tenure at NeXT, he further developed his ideal computer user experience. Also, it was later that John Skully decided to drop the clone makers, and to this day, that decision is his greatest regret while serving as Apple CEO.
The whole thing was ironic, because it was Steve Jobs that hired John Skully away from Pepsi Co., to be Apple’s new CEO, in order that Steve Jobs could personally attend to the creation of the Macintosh.
Of course, this comment was written on a PowerBook G4, 12″, revision A.
-Karrick
…NEXTSTEP 3.3 on SPARC. That was awesome computing, and NetInfo, though not perfect, made distributed network administration a joy.
I’ve had a TiBook for two years, but, aside from its portability, it’s not much better than my 1989 NeXT Cube.
Linux on a fast Athlon can be a real joy, once configured. Mandrake 10 Beta is looking good. I just built a box into a sweet and silent Lian Li aluminum case, and it is a fince poor-man’s G5.
I wish they hadn’t botched up Mail.app and Services in OS X. And CUPS has totally fubarred lpr to the old OpenStep print server. NeXT had it right. OS X is a krufty bastardization of a dreamlike OS.
I saw the future in 1992, with NEXTSTEP 3.2. Too bad we’re not there yet.
Even though he used some religous language he did specify that Gnome to hime is more unified and Linux is more powerful for him on G5 hardware compared OS-X. Picking on a few statements because of the language and using them as a generalisation for the rest of the community is not a very good way to get your point across.
My name vanashed from my last post, probably because I cleared my form history. Anyway, GNOME *may* be more unified. BUT, there are only so many apps for gnome, and many of the popular apps such as Mozilla and Openoffice aren’t unified. So no, it’s not more unified than OS X. It’s certainly not more integrated either.
And powerfull?!? Please, mr. root, would you try to explain what you mean by that? It’s easy to claim that Linux is more powerfull, but much much harder to backup. In what regard? Application performance? Server performance? Thread performance? File system performance? Such a blanket statement is totally meaningless.
Honestly, I didn’t think his post warrented any sort of logical attack. I figured it spoke for itself, and fanatic came out loud and clear.
Oh, and I’m not generalising to the entire Linux community. I’m talking specifically about Linux fanatics, a much smaller but more vocal and annoying group. Honestly, I can’t ever get excited about Linux when I know that <insert positive news about linux> is causing these linux fanatics to jump up and down proclaiming all of Linux’s greatness without any sort of logic, evidence or sanity.
I’m still out on Linux, tried various editions down the years and played around for interest but still not committed to it. Much prefered BeOS but that’s me. If only I could have an OS that gives BeOS elegance and seemed performance especially in media on an open hardware platform with software that adhere’s to open standards and follows the KISS principle, I’d be happy.
Nothing there yet and I’m really sick of Windows especially for media creation (re: music where Windows sucks). Sigh.
“As for OS X itself, when I compare it to GNOME, I’m not impressed. GNOME still remains a more powerful desktop environment to me. I even dare say more integrated.”
Your kidding right? You must not know of the frameworks apple offers that allow you to integrate your app into lots of things like the Address Book,etc. I’ve tried GNOME and I don’t even like it on Linux. The only DE I can get anything meaningful done on is KDE and KDE apps are now being ported to OS X like crazy.
If you like doing things the hard way then so be it. I’d rather not spend half of my day trying to figure out how to do something or configure something that would otherwise be simple. You sound like some windows people coming to Mac OS X saying “Mac OS X should be like windows” when nothing else is like windows but people somehow have these unrealistic expectations of things. Personally I’d just love it if Linux people would admit Linux isn’t easy to use and work on making it easier. Some people are still in denial.
OPTERON?
hey the’re cheaper and (even IBM said so) better than the PPC 970 (G5)
opteron cheaper?
show me.
looking around at xicomputers and such, when i configure an equal machine, the opteron costs more then the dual g5.
so perhaps you’d like to drop some links. i’m in the market for an opteron dually.
>>(even IBM said so)
i’ll believe it when the source is IBM.
I remember a lecture series given by Matt Golumbek + colleagues given at JPL after Pathfinder. Back in the days when I wasn’t a softie…
One of the geologists image processor people had Martian stereoscopic images that were processed not by IRIX, HP-UX and the like, but…. (wait for it..) Photoshop 5 or 6! They made custom filters, but the off the shelf processing did the trick! I think they were using Win95 back then though.
I too find that the old Mac stigma can be hard to fight. One of my co-workers always includes some line about “bank loan” needed for a new Mac, “over priced toy for the rich” also be heard. He’s quite a skilled Photoshop user, and loves mentioning that he does just fine with Windows. Others, like my father, think Apple and cannot think further then education. “Their called Apple for a reason, right?” goes his thinking. Still others more “their only good for graphics.” An up hill battle, eh? The only think I patiently request Apple do is //dropp// the single button mouse already! The mouse is no longer new to most of us, and my mother has proven that a second mouse button does not through her off for long! Mac OS X makes wide use of contextual menus, having to press a freaking key on the keyboard + click to access them is /harder/ and far less /intuitive/ then a second mouse button! I understand the thinking behind such a move in the begining, but my god get over it! To be honest I never took the Mac too seriously until I heard about project Rhapsody, then I paid attention and shortly there after bought my first Mac, anticipating its “eventual” release – then waiting four years for Mac OS X. 🙂 Worth the wait tho.
My 2.5 year old son loves the 1 button mouse,
the two button mouse with scroll wheels allows him to completely screw up the desktop.
But, that’s just him. :^)
well there friend.. I live i Canada and I just tossed together a very similarly configured machine for $7200
http://www.atic.ca
it even has a radeon 9600XT in it and 200+GB HDD (seagate I didn’t want to go over board with a raptor)
and for alittle mor you can move up to the opteron [email protected], and it scales SO well too!
“My brother-in-law, who really is a rocket scientist, just bought a Dell after being a loyal Mac user for 15+ years.”
What was his reason? A specific program not available on the Mac?
I am a linux user and admin, and I have used dozens of ‘nixes over the years. I really do like OSX, but for the love of God, the hardware is ridiculously expensive!
I wish that I could justify spending the money on a G5 system, but there is no way that I can make myself do it (although a Powerbook is a possibility if I find myself buying a laptop).