by , 1:00 PM EST, October 31st, 2000
While the OS X on Intel rumbling has quited over the last month or so, one organization is out to keep the idea alive, and is doing everything they can to see OS X ported to work on Intel processors. OS X On Intel (osxonintel.com) has been collecting signatures since the release of OS X Beta, and the petition is now 20,000 strong and growing.
All of the problems that Motorola has been having producing faster G4 processors, coupled with the fact that Intel is merely weeks away from introducing their 1.5Ghz Pentium 4, has Mac users desperate for something more. Getting the latest and greatest operating system running on the world's fastest processors sounds like a good plan. According to OS X On Intel:
They have it, we want it. Mac OS X on the Intel platform. It's a beautiful OS, with all the power of a BSD environment. We know it will run on the Intel platform, we know our hardware will handle it. Apple wants to sell G4's, plain and simple. Although the G4 is a very nice PC, it doesn't make sense to purchase a completely different machine just to try an OS that may be nothing more than PrettyBSD. (You know, perhaps the open-source crowd could come up with some nice OpenGL interface over BSD if Apple won't come through :) Lets face it, Windows works, but it's got some serious shortcomings. I'm sure that OS X won't ship with all the software you'd like to use, but with a BSD environment you are free to download and compile anything you require. I mean, who doesn't want to "stick it to Microsoft" every so often? The ball is in your court Apple; would you like a real piece of the desktop pie (not just high-end implementations), or are you content to let Microsoft continue to dominate the end-user market?
�The purpose of this web site is to let Apple know that OS X on Intel is a path worth pursuing. Most either cannot or will not buy the Apple hardware necessary to run this operating system. Some would like to use OS X on additional computers, not just Macintosh machines. We know that this OS will run on Intel platforms, there are even early beta copies of Mac OS X for Intel. Although this operating system is Apple's property to do with as they wish, the Intel platform has dominated the PC industry. Ignoring this platform will be a mistake on Apple's part. With the rising popularity of alternative operating systems for Intel such as linux, the time may be ripe for Apple to introduce it's first Intel operating system.
You can add your name to the petition, and find more information, at the OS X On Intel web site.