Marklar Muck
by James Baxter
01/01/2003
It seems that almost as long as the Macintosh itself has been around there has been a demand for the MacOS to be ported to x86. First it was the ill fated "Star Trek" project and then came "Rhapsody" project. As most of you know, Rhapsody is what eventually became MacOS X. There are more and more rumors surfacing that MacOS may once again be heading for the x86 this time in the project dubbed "Marklar".
First I will go over a little history which most of you reading this may already know. In the early days of MacOS X development when it was still called Rhapsody, the OS was able to boot and run on both x86 and PPC hardware. This harolds back to what Rhapsody was based off of which is of course NeXT Step. Given its Unix underbelly it was relatively simple to keep the systems in parity. Rhapsody has a series of environments called "boxes" that represented the different types of APIs that would be used. The x86 version had what was known as the "Yellow Box". This was an environment similar to what we now know as "Classic". Instead of running MacOS 9 it ran Windows software. But, a decision was made early in development to scrap the x86 plans and concentrate souly on the PPC version.
Fast forward to present day. Apple has a now proven OS that has made even the most skeptical PC user jealous. MacOS X is definately the biggest thing to happen to computers since the original MacOS back in 1984. It brings the power of Unix and the simpicity of the Mac to a whole new level. It makes unix geeks happy and it makes grandma's happy (the test of any product). MacOS X can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it. PC users look at the Mac and see the price tag. Even though Macs are cheaper than they used to be they still put a serious dent in your wallet and are far from the "impulse buy" price range. With more and more people becoming disgusted with Microsoft Windows and the new (excuse me while I toss my cookies...there all better) "trust worthy" computing initiative companies such as Apple and even Linux compaines have a real chance to make a dent in the x86 OS market. This is where Marklar comes in.
From reports I have gathered Marklar has been a pet project over at Apple. It was not meant to be a released product at all. But, as the OS progressed it became more and more evident that an x86 version of MacOS X was entirely possibly with very little effort. The rumors I have been hearing is that Apple is considering releasing the x86 version to the public when Longhorn, the next version of Windows (probably Windows NT 5.1.1) will be released with its new "Palladium" technology. Palladium is the new Digital Rights Management software that will be in Longhorn and supposedly can work at the hardware and software level to make sure you are playing nice with your computer. In other words, it can spy on you and make sure you are not downloading illegal software, music, porn, Death Star plans, or any other naughty things off the internet. When Longhorn is released the shit is not only going to hit the fan it is going to make people ask "Who painted the room this lovely shade of brown?" Marklar is what some industry analysts are saying will be Apple's true way back into the computer market.
So, that said. Will Apple release Marklar? No. Why? Because it would be suicide. Apple is first and foremost a hardware company. That is where its margins are. They live off sales. That is why Apple states very little about upcoming hardware. Intel can boast all the want about " we will have a gazillion megahertz in the year blah blah" and " in two months we will have something much faster" and so forth. Apple can't do that. If they were to come out today and say the PowerPC 970 would be out for sure on September (insert day here) how many G$ towers would they sell? People would just wait and get the new machines. So, if Apple was to release an x86 version of MacOS X it would be company suicide. Yes it would sell a ton of copies, but Apple's hardware sales would virtually cease. Not good business. Why would someone buy an expensive G4 when they could buy a decent P4 machine and get near equal performance for half the cost? Sure the G4 macs are better in alot of ways, but the average consumer just does not care. They see one thing..."Megahertz". They will see a PC at which appears to be over twice as fast and half the cost and not know that a G4 based Mac can keep up with it step for step.
So, if they arn't going to release Marklar as a product what are they going to do with it? THe thing that makes the most sense to me is Apple may make cheaper Apple branded PCs. It may start as just a server at first and then span to the consumer market. This server could be marketed as a cheaper alternative/entry level server as an alternative for the XServe. If it did span to the consumer market it would be marketed as an iMac/eMac I believe. It will be marketed as a way for people to get into the Mac world and not leave their Windows world completely behind.
Why would this be a viable option? For several reasons. A commercial version of MacOS X would be hell on Apple. One of the reasons MacOS X runs so well is there are very few limited machines it runs on compared to the PC world. Microsoft and Linux developers have to think about every possible combination of hardware and software. MacOS X can be specialized. If they made only one or two models that ran on x86 chips they can make absolute sure that Marklar is rock solid and near 100% bug free.
Another reason is quite simply profit. x86 hardware is cheaper than PPC hardware. Apple would make much higher profits on these machines. If they were to sell an iPC with Marklar loaded they would still be getting hardware money. So, that solves the problem of killing hardware sales. Well what about Marklar? Couldn't someone take the disc and install it on a non Apple x86? No. All the machine would need is a special ROM. Marklar would look for that and possibly a few other hardware keys and would not boot otherwise. Apple could easily pull this off.
Finally, it would be a nice transition for people in the PC world coming to the Mac for the first time. If the Yellowbox as we used to know it was included, or possibly another emulator such as WINE or Bochs, it would allow Windows users to run their beloved PC applications at near full speed and compatibility.
The biggest question I have about Marklar is what kind of programs will it run? Carbon and Cocoa apps can be ported relatively easy to x86 in theory. Would Apple and developers go the Linux route and have x86 and PPC builds of all software? Will we have to compile our own applications in the terminal? I hope not. I believe Apple is smarter than this. I believe they will develope a sort of FAT binary similar to the way apps were written during the 68k to PPC days. Seperate slim down versions would most likely be available as well. What I imagine is an installer that either asks or intelligently determines whether you have a PPC or x86 processor and installs the correct version.
Well, this is how I see it. This is not rumor. This is not fact. I have no inside info. I'm not Steve Jobs' golfing buddy. This is pure conjecture on my part. If Marklar is indeed real then an Apple branded PC seems to be the far most likely and less damaging option for its release. I think if they did this they would win alot of new converts and seriously start pushing Apple into this decade...century...millenium even with a a bang!
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