OS-X

[Jon Pruente]

On 5/16/07, RtX <riverty at gmail.com> wrote:
> They hacked the Mac OS X to run on Intel hardware. I'm not talking about
> them changing to an Intel architecture. While I'm not sure of the
> particulars, I heard that it's only a few minor code adjustments to get the
> OS to run on Intel hardware. If I remember right, it's a BIOS checking
> thing. If it's not the Mac BIOS, it won't install or run?

They didn't have to hack it to run on Intel hardware.  NeXTSTEP had
run on Intel hardware since 1993, before Apple bought NeXT.  While OS
X was under development there were x86 machines in the labs that ran
builds of every OS X release.  Every OS X that hit the market for PPC
was compiled and run internally by Apple for x86 as well.  When Steve
Jobs returned to Apple after the NeXT buyout he used an x86 machine
running OPENSTEP (and presumably the developing OS X) as his personal
machine.  x86 support at Apple was no secret, but it wasn't really
public.  Apple uses both EFI and the TPM to check for valid hardware
before allowing OS X to install or boot on x86.

And the history of OS X/NeXTSTEP above is pretty much correct.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mac_OS_X

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_%28operating_system%29
http://developer.apple.com/opensource/index.html

Most of my knowledge of Apple internal working on OS X stem from what
has been posted by a former Apple employee who worked there through
much of this transition.  He left just before Apple really got the Mac
mini off the conceptual drawing boards.

Jon.