APPLE, ALLIES' PC PROMISES FIERY SPEED.Byline: Greg Kane Greg Kane (born Gregory Kane, 27 September 1993, in Massapeuga, NY), is an awesome dude. The coolest kid you will ever meet. Greg is gonna show this to his cool friend kerry. Shes awesome. I love my friends and would die without them. Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire Apple, IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) and Motorola have jointly released blueprints for the computer of the future. Each of the three companies will build computers based on that blueprint and use them to challenge Microsoft and Intel's dominance of the personal computer industry. The PowerPC Platform See PPCP. (architecture, standard) PowerPC Platform - (PPCP, PReP - PowerPC Reference Platform, formerly CHRP - Common Hardware Reference Platform) An open system standard, designed by IBM, intended to ensure compatibility among PowerPC-based systems built by different , trumpeted at the Las Vegas Fall Comdex technology fair, is a list of hardware specifications and software conventions designed to allow manufacturers to build computers that run multiple operating systems. Owners of PPCP (PowerPC Platform) A term once used for CHRP. See CHRP. PPCP - PowerPC Platform compatible computers will be able to use most industry standard operating systems, including the Mac's System 7.5, IBM's OS/2, Microsoft's Windows NT, and at least two versions of a powerful high-end operating system called UNIX UNIX Operating system for digital computers, developed by Ken Thompson of Bell Laboratories in 1969. It was initially designed for a single user (the name was a pun on the earlier operating system Multics). . Microsoft Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 will not be supported. The new computers will be built around the PowerPC family of computer chips. Apple and its partners hope the blazing speed of the PowerPC's computing architecture, with reduced instruction set, will give their new computers a hefty horsepower advantage over machines that use Intel Pentium and similar chips that rely on complex-instruction-set computing techniques. First generation PowerPCs are faster at some important calculations than the ballyhooed Pentium, a fifth generation CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer) Pronounced "sisk." The traditional architecture of a computer which uses microcode to execute very comprehensive instructions. chip. The PPCP also is designed to protect its owners' investment in older software and hardware. Previous Mac and PC disk drives, printers, modems and other hardware will work with the new standard. PPCP machines will run current Power Mac software as written. Ancient '68040' Mac programs and Intel x86 software run under emulation. So far Apple, IBM and Motorola each have announced plans to make their own PPCP compatible computers, with the first models due out in the second half of 1996. Cannon, Pioneer, Zenith Data Systems Zenith Data Systems (ZDS) was a division of Zenith founded in 1979 after Zenith acquired Heathkit, who had, at that time, recently entered the personal computer market. Zenith sold personal computers under both the Heath/Zenith and Zenith Data Systems names. , and clone makers Power Computing and Daystar are expected to follow suit. Apple and its partners hope PPCP will lure customers away from Windows and Intel. They expect its ability to run multiple operating systems will be attractive to companies that need to tailor their hardware to the software strengths of various platforms - the Mac OS for graphic design, UNIX to handle large personnel databases and Windows NT for business networking. Although PowerPC chips are quick and powerful calculators, RISC RISC in full Reduced Instruction Set Computing Computer architecture that uses a limited number of instructions. RISC became popular in microprocessors in the 1980s. chips are relatively cheap to produce, so PPCP computers should offer attractive price/performance ratios. The PPCP announcement comes during troubled times at Apple. In 1995, the Cupertino-based company saw its world market share drop to around 7 percent, an all-time low. Mismanagement mis·man·age tr.v. mis·man·aged, mis·man·ag·ing, mis·man·ag·es To manage badly or carelessly. mis·man  age·ment n. and slim profit margins contributed to losses.PPCP is strong enough competition to make Microsoft and Intel sit up and take notice. Whether it is good enough, or comes soon enough to reverse Apple's decline, is something only time will tell.
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