Apple's Xbox 360

[Rakido]

A pair of Apple Powermac G5 systems were actually running the Xbox 360 demos, not the 360 console. The consoles in the kiosks weren't actually running, they were just for show - now you know why all the controllers were wired.

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/...spx?i=2420&p=5

[Jon P. Inghram]

That's ok, the Amigas prototype, Lorraine, was breadboarded for it's CES demo.

[KeiFront]

So I guess most xbox games would be playable on a mac then . Probably they are running some kind of developer platform for testing developing games.

[az]

Funny that MS should use macs - but traditionally the different branches of MS haven't exactly been religiously sticking to Wintel stuff (which only shows how well and pragmatic this corporation is lead).

AZ

[PAugustin]

If I remember correctly, xbox 360 development kit where Apple G5 running a special version of NT4. So it's not that surprising to see those computer running the demos. However it shows that the console is still far from finished ! There must be a ton of bugs in the system !!!

[Nowhere]

Funny that MS should use macs - but traditionally the different branches of MS haven't exactly been religiously sticking to Wintel stuff (which only shows how well and pragmatic this corporation is lead).

AZ

Yep, just look what's in the background on Billi's desk...

[GT98]

If I remember correctly, xbox 360 development kit where Apple G5 running a special version of NT4. So it's not that surprising to see those computer running the demos. However it shows that the console is still far from finished ! There must be a ton of bugs in the system !!!

Well wasn't there a PowerPC verison of NT anyway years ago?

[Nowhere]

Yep. And I'd guess they're using something on NT kernel, not NT4. Win2k almost got released for PPC AFAIK...

[Jammrock]

They had a version of NT4 for almost every processor. MS has been making Apple software for a long, so I'm not really shocked that MS would use it.

[Gurm]

I think that internally, MS has probably kept the PPC, MIPS, and Alpha cores of NT updated at least to Win2k levels. WinXP of course is more x86 and x86/64 hardware dependent, so I can't say about that - plus this is all speculation unless someone has some inside information.

But I think that the decision to not offer Win2k in PPC/Alpha/MIPS was less a discontinuation of the codebase and more a "nobody was buying it anymore", since x86 started getting exponentially faster, and x86 SMP was a more fiscally realistic solution than MIPS or Alpha or PPC.

[Nowhere]

I think there was some public release candidate for win2k on Alpha at least...

[Kurt]

Win2k running on an iMac...I could buy a Mac then...

[Wombat]

I think that internally, MS has probably kept the PPC, MIPS, and Alpha cores of NT updated at least to Win2k levels.

I'd be surprised. I worked on PA-RISC processors, which originally had NT support, and MS didn't keep that going. I don't think they kept Alpha going either, I probably would have known.

[Kurt]

No you wouldn't. It was a secret Apple ploy (a "so-classified-even-your-grandma-CANT-know-for-your-eyes-only" thing) to sell Macs to the Navy to power the missile launch systems of the nuclear subs. No chance you'd have known.

[Nowhere]

I'd be surprised. I worked on PA-RISC processors, which originally had NT support, and MS didn't keep that going. I don't think they kept Alpha going either, I probably would have known.

I knew I've heard somewhere about win2k on alpha ...