Back in the 70’s when Apple was only a sparkle in Steve Jobs’ eye IBM created a processor family called the PowerPC range, of course when Apple first started up they used Motorola processors and through there great success used a whole range of processors from Motorola, one of the most notable was the 68000. But this is a story about the future and not the past. So lets jumpy forward to 1994 when Apple began to use the PowerPC line of processors, starting with the PowerPC 601, then 603, 604 and moving onto the G3, in 1999 Apple introduced the G4 and it still stands proud in the Mac market but not for long, there is a new kid on the block; Intel. Of course in 2003 Apple gave us the PowerPC G5 that runs side by side with the G4.
Timeline
Most notable during the transition to PowerPC systems Apple used a translation routine that booted with the OS and it is estimated that early PowerPC systems were up to 95% emulated and with the introduction of OS X in 2001 the systems became native to PowerPC code.

On June the 6th of this Steve Jobs stood up on the stage and announced that Apple would make another transition to the x64 (x86) platform, similar to the previous transition Apple is using a dynamic translation system known as Rosetta to emulate as much PowerPC code as possible.

The big question is how will the naming work, anybody who has been around those new to the Apple world will know that the computers are often recognised by there processor family and it has become common place to call the PowerMac G5 just the G5, with this massive brand recognition will Apple choose to throw it away and start a new or will it continue to name there processors in this fashion. Of course G3, G4 and G5 technically have no relation to the chip or manufacturer at all they are simply branding techniques much like Pentium and Celeron. For example the PowerMac G3 used 4 different processors during its lifetime, all manufactured by Motorola, they go by the names PPC 740/750/745/755 and you probably recognise that the current G5 processors are in fact PPC 970MP’s. So is there any harm in Apple continuing the trend and upgrading all its machines to the G6 processor, this may a problem when the average consumer noticed the PowerBooks jump from G4 to G6 in a matter of hours.
PowerPC 970
Apple has another alternative and that is to introduce a whole new naming scheme, Apple may opt to use Intel’s fancy naming such as Pentium 4 although this processor line was half merged with the Pentium D, or for the mobile computers the Pentium M. This just doesn’t seem Apple style and the website will end up looking too much like Dells with all the confusing names, if Apple do one thing very well its branding processors to make life simple.

Its obvious that this is an end of a great era, with Apple likely to drop the Power from the beginning of some of its computer as it will no longer be using the POWER line of processors and it may well begin to use its recently trademarked “Mactel”.

What do you think?

Next Week - Emulation