Comments on: Apple’s Atomic War

By: Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 13:42:01 +0000

aw yeah.. intel atom going crazy..

By: Apple’s Cyber Monday Deals: Bummer

Apple’s Cyber Monday Deals: Bummer — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:43:39 +0000

[...] My favorite Apple-related Cyber Monday deal? Dell’s offering the Mini 10v netbook for $279, after $119 in instant savings. That’s not much to spend for what remains probably the best hackintoshable netbook out there, even despite Apple’s latest attempt foil at-home modders by removing Atom support in Snow Leopard. [...]

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:27:08 +0000

I decided to browse through the kernel code in 10.6.2 (now that it’s out), and here is what I found.

What specifically “killed” the Atom is in xnu-1486.2.11/osfmk/i386/cpuid.c, around lines 600.

In the past, the kernel would check if the CPU family was 6, and if the model number was higher then 13. This basically means any Intel CPU newer then the Pentium M – Dothan (used in the Apple TV) was supported.

The new code now specifically checks for family 13, 14 (Yonah), 15 (Merom), 23 (Penryn), 26 (Nehalem), 30 (Fields), 31 (Dales), and 46 (Nehalem_EX). The Atom is 28, so it doesn’t pass the check, and hits code at line 649 that panics with “Unsupported CPU”.

Interestingly, in xnu-1486.2.11/osfmk/i386/cpuid.h, code was added to define families 28, 30, 31 and 46. Even though the kernel now panics with 28, “CPUID_MODEL_ATOM” is defined where it wasn’t before.

I can’t say for certain why the change was made, but to me, it was a rework of a previous flawed check (is CPU family 13 or higher), and replaced it with one that checks for exactly what the kernel wants. There is a decent bit of code in the kernel that is optimized specifically for certain processors, so it makes sense to improve the high level checks.

Oh, and there is a comment in cpuid.c that says “suck it atom hackers”.

(Certain parts of this post in regards to code comments may or may not be true).

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:48:05 +0000

Apple will never introduce an Atom-based gadget, because they know that every second ARM chip totaly kicks Atom’s ass while consuming far less energy… Atom is a piece of junk and if it wasn’t for Windows (which doesn’t really run on anything else but x86), netbook manufacturers would laugh Intel out of the door with it…

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:46:26 +0000

For those of you complaining about apple:

Just like you feel you have the right to do whatever you want with purchased software, Apple has the right to update their software in ways which they feel benefit them the most. They aren’t suing anyone who is doing this, or even threatening those of you who did. They are well within their rights.

Now you can debate about whether this is beneficial to Apple or not, as they seem to be pissing off a few loyal customers. But Apple has decided that they will benefit more from removing Atom compatibility than from keeping it.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:41:46 +0000

Sorry, but I love when people say things like, “I have spent xxx dollars on Apple products so I am now allowed to use their IP and not be a pirate”

Guess what, you can spend all the money in the world on a product and that still only entitles you to the products or services that you *actually* paid for. Shocking.

Finally, in regards to the above article, Apple has long been obsessed with user experience and work hard to test their software/hardware combinations. If anyone is taking their IP and using them in an unintended manner, I feel it is completely within the sphere of reasonable action to only support “Supported Platforms” regardless of other combinations that may work (chicken waving, etc).

By: John

John — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:26:44 +0000

I wonder if dropping the atom has more to do with the fact that most of apples CPUs are now 64 bit. Only some of the old core solos aren’t. As 10.6 progresses the 64 bit architecture they will stop supporting older 32 bit only systems.
But again, this seems wierd, the machines they are dropping were never going to make them any money anyway, but actually was being used by probably their best customers. The ones willing to to to great lengths to get OS X to work where it was never intended. This would mean those going to buy a netbook will now probably just run it on WIn7 or Linux. The looses will be the OS X application developers as people will end up using more Windows only software, and potentialy Apple fans might work out they can live without OS X after all. Some may perminantly switch away.
But then as Apple are perfectly happy to sue their best customers, I guess this shouldnt come as a suprise.

By: TexasYellowDog

TexasYellowDog — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:35:58 +0000

Screw all of you assuming we all pirated OS/X to get it on our netbooks. My purchase of the Leopard family pack DVD was a sale. The first sale doctrine says I can do whatever I want with it. No after the sale EULA can convert a sale into a license. See the recent decision against Autodesk in the resale of Autocad. I love Apple products, and by all accounts, the Soup Nazi’s soup was the best in town. But you still have to put up with the Soup Nazi to eat it.

By: joebrofosho

joebrofosho — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:19:31 +0000

I for one think apple did the right thing, people pay alot of money to use their OS, and people hacking the OS are making a mockery of all of us who actually did it the right way. Thank You Apple

By: dtizzle

dtizzle — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:40:15 +0000

Good article. I used to run a Wind using Leopard and it worked so well it became my full time machine until I upgraded to a Macbook Pro. I think part of the reason for this may also have been speaking to something ryemac3 said – you dont think its piracy and if Apple offered a lowcost/small form-factor you’d buy it. But they don’t, at least for the moment. In Apple’s mind, someone buying a hackintosh-netbook might be seen as a missed $1000 sale for a Macbook (or Pro). Let’s be honest, and avoid the perennial debate about the ‘value’ of Mac soft- and hardware, and say that Apple sees no business sense in selling a $300 computer. That is because it runs the same software with comparable performance (the Wind was an excellent machine) with greatly diminished margins.