Hackintosh
As I write this, $10,000 is the magic number. In fact, let's be specific here. The magic number is $10,870. I am, of course, talking about the pot over at Windows XP on Mac, a site put up by one Colin Nederkoorn of Houstan, Texas, to *strongly* incentivize the rapid development of a true dual boot WinXP/Mac OS X machine. Mr. Nederkoorn is taking donations that will go to the first person to demonstrate the two operating systems playing nice on the same machine, sans virtualization/emulation.
For those of you who might not be familiar, last month Apple announced the availability of the fruits of their announcement last year that they would be moving away from PowerPC chips and embracing a partnership with Intel. Since the Intel CoreDuo-powered iMacs came out (and MacBooks this month), hackers have been scrambling to find ways to get longtime software rivals Windows and the Mac OS to peacefully coexist on a single piece of hardware. A sort of computing holy grail, if you will.
I don't pretend to be overly familiar with the hurdles associated with such a task, other than the fact that Intel's new CoreDuo chips use the extensible firmware interface (EFI) as opposed to the BIOS used in today's PCs. Each is a basic set of instructions that ensure proper operation of hardware before the OS even loads, and the presence of EFI makes the task significantly more difficult.
For me, the larger issue lies not in the fact that this might be accomplished - it's largely a matter of when, and to what degree. What's more interesting is Apple's position...officially neutral. No plans to actively support it, but no move to inhibit such hacks, either. Seems like a surprising move for a company known for keeping an iron grip on the relationship of OS/hardware on the platform.
Ultimately, this will float in the hacker/niche user space. Mr. Nederkoorn wants a dual-boot machine for work, which is a great idea in theory, but until major manufacturers officially offer support for Frankenstein marriages like this one, the project won't get too far. Hackers and modders can throw down the "we're not the mainstream and don't want to be" card, but let's face it - the more resources you can marshall to a project, the better it can be, and developing for a piece of hardware without manufacturer support can be, well...this one's pretty easy to figure out.
I'm going to be following this one with interest. Mr. Nederkoorn's contest runs through March 23, 2006, and if no one wins, the money goes to charity. A victory either way.
For those of you who might not be familiar, last month Apple announced the availability of the fruits of their announcement last year that they would be moving away from PowerPC chips and embracing a partnership with Intel. Since the Intel CoreDuo-powered iMacs came out (and MacBooks this month), hackers have been scrambling to find ways to get longtime software rivals Windows and the Mac OS to peacefully coexist on a single piece of hardware. A sort of computing holy grail, if you will.
I don't pretend to be overly familiar with the hurdles associated with such a task, other than the fact that Intel's new CoreDuo chips use the extensible firmware interface (EFI) as opposed to the BIOS used in today's PCs. Each is a basic set of instructions that ensure proper operation of hardware before the OS even loads, and the presence of EFI makes the task significantly more difficult.
For me, the larger issue lies not in the fact that this might be accomplished - it's largely a matter of when, and to what degree. What's more interesting is Apple's position...officially neutral. No plans to actively support it, but no move to inhibit such hacks, either. Seems like a surprising move for a company known for keeping an iron grip on the relationship of OS/hardware on the platform.
Ultimately, this will float in the hacker/niche user space. Mr. Nederkoorn wants a dual-boot machine for work, which is a great idea in theory, but until major manufacturers officially offer support for Frankenstein marriages like this one, the project won't get too far. Hackers and modders can throw down the "we're not the mainstream and don't want to be" card, but let's face it - the more resources you can marshall to a project, the better it can be, and developing for a piece of hardware without manufacturer support can be, well...this one's pretty easy to figure out.
I'm going to be following this one with interest. Mr. Nederkoorn's contest runs through March 23, 2006, and if no one wins, the money goes to charity. A victory either way.
posted by Ryan at 1:52 AM
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