On Sat, 12 Feb 2000, Miles Nordin wrote:

> The main point is that when Apple says in their user's groups,
> commercials, presentations, whatever, that they are an ``open
> architecture,'' what they mean is that you can use cheap PeeCee
> peripherals with Mac's because they've arranged to provide the right plugs
> on the machine and the right closed-source drivers.
> 
> There is nothing at all ``open'' about their architecture.  Everything
> besides MacOS that runs on their stuff still happens only after months of
> blood/sweat/tears.

That's not true, and hasn't been for a number of years.  The specs for
_current_ machines are out there, both in the form of Darwin drivers
(well, maybe not for the G4 yet) and in the form of lists of industry
standard chips that are used.  There's enough information to support
almost everything in the current machines.  The reason it takes months is
that it takes time to add support for a chip, even with docs....  (Been
there, done that.)

The reason the mac68k port (and to a lesser extent, the ppc port when
trying to support older machines) has trouble getting docs is that the
docs virtually don't exist anymore.  Sure they exist somewhere, but nobody
at Apple can say where.  They're probably on someone's shelf somewhere,
but you'd have to ask a _lot_ of people to find them, then they'd have to
be checked for bad language, etc.  And even then, there would be numerous
errors, since the docs weren't meant to be publicly available when they
were written.  However, it is possible to get the data if you beg the
right people and make enough waves.  :-)

BTW, if there's a specific part on 68k for which you need information,
email Kevyn Shortell, the free OS liason, at kevyn@apple.com and ask if he
can track down the information.  Also, I'm told that it's easier for Apple
to find vendor docs on chips than to find Apple-specific docs on machines,
so bear that in mind.  :-)


> Their position is very clearly that they don't want
> anything but MacOS running on their computers. The BeOS does not run on
> any Macintosh that shipped with a G3, nor on any powerbook, because Apple
> won't release specs.

That's Be's corporate line and it's bull.  I have heard from former Be
employees that many (most?) of their drivers came from MkLinux with only
minimal (framework) changes.  They yank drivers from other places for a
quick and dirty port of their OS to Macs, but then don't ever do anthing
with it and focus on Intel.  No different from MS with their ppc port of
NT.  Be is using lack of documentation as an excuse to not continue Mac
development, but in reality, it is their lack of motivation.  Period.



Later,
David