[rescue] Solaris on a PPC

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

There was a time when Apple was trying to re-invent itself as a software
vendor. They and IBM had come up with a "standard" PPC machine design
and would support MacOs any machine that fit the standard.

The idea was that you could buy a Mac from Apple, or an RS/6000 from
IBM, or a Motorola Star<whatever> or a Power Computing or UMax computer,
depending upon your finances and performance/support requirements.

In order of price I think it was: 
IBM > Apple > Motorola > (Power Computing / UMax) (highest to lowest)

Proposed (and possibly available) operating systems were MacOS(8?), AIX, OS/2,
Solaris (hence the 2.5.1). Apple also supported a Linux development effort.
AFIK, Mr Gates did not contribute Windows/NT to the effort.

It all died when Steve Jobs was given back Apple. Among other things he did,
was to "kill the clones" i.e. stop support for non Apple hardware.
The Linux effort was canned because of the GPL. BSD's "artistic license"
was considered better as it allowed Apple to keep it's modifications
proprietary and the new software team was familiar with BSD. :-)

Apple has not given up on the idea of being an OS vendor, they continue to
produce, for internal use only, an OS X port for the Intel line of processors,
codenamed "marklar".

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson
MobilEye Vision Technologies Ltd, R.M.P.E House, 10 Hartom St. Har Hotzvim
Jerusalem, 91450 Israel Tel: +972-2-5417-356 Cell: +972-55-667-090
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