I’m old enough to remember when Mac used propriety chips in their computers. They were called “PowerPC” or PPC. Proprietary chips mean proprietary code to run them. . Such as it was with the old OS X operating systems. Right around 2005 Apple announced it would transition to Intel chips which most of the rest of the world was running on already. It opened up a new world of software and hardware to the Mac.
People found they could run OS X on Intel PC’s (aka Hackintosh).
Now here we are again 16 years later and Mac has gone their own route and selected another proprietary chip, the M1 which is ARM based and not X86. When you think ARM, think Raspberry Pi.
The advantages to doing this are MANY. Apple controls the hardware build and can write tight code for that specific hardware. The chips are FAST.
THE DOWNSIDE HERE IS THAT YOU LOSE LEGACY COMPATIBILITY. That old hardware you have connected to USB may not work anymore. That old hunk of software you love may not work anymore. Or the software you love may have to run on top of something called “Rosetta 2” which allows Intel apps to run on ARM OS’s. So there could be hiccups with that as well.
So lets get to my experience: Continue reading