Mac Studio

[Andropov]

I used to write software at AMD that we used to design the chips. One thing I wrote was called agincourt. It was what we called a circuit classifier and static checker - it would look at the circuit netlist (the list of transistors and their interconnections) and try to Figure out what each circuit was, and whether it met certain rules.

Agincourt? Any relation to the Battle of Agincourt?

Apple did the exact opposite, completely revitalizing the Mac with their own custom SoC, new industrial designs, and macOS getting a complete overhaul.

New APIs to write for macOS too (UIKit on the Mac, SwiftUI...).

 

[Cmaier]

I admit that @Cmaier's enthusiasm is infectious. I'm used to him being strictly logical and rational, while occasionally displaying his trademark acerbic humor and wit. Apple must have done something remarkable if it gets a veteran CPU architect's enthusiastic attention.

Over at "the other place", he compared the time we are now living in to the computer wars of the 80s. Back then you could walk into a software store (yes, they actually existed) which had isles for a half-dozen computer systems, each running different operating systems, with substantially different underlying hardware architectures.

Then things got boring. Microsoft dominated with Windows. The classic Mac OS was religated to 1-2% marketshare mainly used for desktop publishing and graphic arts. Linux was nothing more than a curiosity, at best. RISC designs slowly disappeared from desktops and workstations.

Even as competition improved, CPUs didn't. It wasn't too long ago that Intel had stagnated at 4-cores because AMD wasn't competing, and nobody else challenged them. Apple seemed to have little interest in updating the Mac. I recall TidBITS running an article about how the Mac was quickly becoming a device for older generations, and once those folks essentially died out, the Mac would likely go with them. The Mac would become a legacy product, a side project of the iPhone company.

Apple did the exact opposite, completely revitalizing the Mac with their own custom SoC, new industrial designs, and macOS getting a complete overhaul. AMD is back in the game, forcing Intel to innovate, including getting into graphics cards. New desktop ARM designs are coming from the likes of Qualcomm and Nvidia. Microsoft is trying new and interesting things with Windows.

The traditional desktop computer market hasn't been this exciting in decades, and it's great to see, after experiencing stagnation for so long.

Remember Egghead?

The reason I turned down a job at Intel and instead first worked on a PowerPC and then on a sparc was that I really really wanted something other than x86 to be competitive. Sadly I had to give in, because working with good people and enjoying my job actually mattered (and the awesome team for the PowerPC was scattered when we couldn’t get more funding).

 

[Cmaier]

Agincourt? Any relation to the Battle of Agincourt?


New APIs to write for macOS too (UIKit on the Mac, SwiftUI...).

Yep. My boss was Belgian and a complete tool, and the name annoyed him. Agincourt was scriptable with Perl and provided a c++ sdk. All the class names were prefaced with bs_ which he assumed meant bullshit but actually meant “Belgium sucks.”

On the first day he met me when he joined after i worked there for years, he said “I hear you’re very indispensable around here”

I blushed and said thank you.

He continued “the graveyards of Europe are filled with the corpses of indispensable people.”

I promptly applied to law school, attended every night, graduated first in my class, and four years later resigned gloriously (the way I should have from macrumors) and now here I am.

 

[Runs For Fun]

So this thing is fast! I had to reboot for a 600 some MB iOS update for the Studio Display
Upon logging back in all of my apps started simultaneously. I literally had a bunch of windows open at the exact same time. I thought the M1 MacBook Air was fast

 

[Cmaier]

So this thing is fast! I had to reboot for a 600 some MB iOS update for the Studio Display
Upon logging back in all of my apps started simultaneously. I literally had a bunch of windows open at the exact same time. I thought the M1 MacBook Air was fast

That is awesome.

 

[Hrafn]

Remember Egghead?

Yes, I loved looking at the possibilities of software I couldn't afford to buy. I used to buy from Egghead.com when you had to send POP, UPCs and receipts for the full discount, and I still get adds for hardware from them. Amazon now, though, same as Woot!

 

[Roller]

Got a shipping notice for my Mac Studio today — should have it next week. The bad news is that the Studio Display won't arrive until at least 9 days later. And I won't be able to return the iMac I'm trading in until I get the display and transfer everything over, which may be near or beyond the end of Apple's two-week return period. Apple support said to call them if that happens.

 

[Cmaier]

Got a shipping notice for my Mac Studio today — should have it next week. The bad news is that the Studio Display won't arrive until at least 9 days later. And I won't be able to return the iMac I'm trading in until I get the display and transfer everything over, which may be near or beyond the end of Apple's two-week return period. Apple support said to call them if that happens.

Awkward.

 

[Runs For Fun]

Got a shipping notice for my Mac Studio today — should have it next week. The bad news is that the Studio Display won't arrive until at least 9 days later. And I won't be able to return the iMac I'm trading in until I get the display and transfer everything over, which may be near or beyond the end of Apple's two-week return period. Apple support said to call them if that happens.

Man that sucks.

 

[DT]

Yeah, I would think if the intent is to trade a device for a device replacement, the latter of which might have more than one product/component, they'd give you some X days after the entire order showed up (which I guess is the "call them if that happens" angle)

 

[Roller]

Yeah, I would think if the intent is to trade a device for a device replacement, the latter of which might have more than one product/component, they'd give you some X days after the entire order showed up (which I guess is the "call them if that happens" angle)

When I placed the order, I don’t recall any way to associate the trade-in with the item that would arrive last, but I would have expected Apple to do that. In any case, if I’m nearing the end of the trade-in window and know the display will be late, I’ll tell them to replace the first trade-in with another. Apparently they don’t extend the two weeks you have to return the item. Sorta sucks given how much money I’m dropping on this stuff.

I’m also not looking forward to the frustration of having a Mac Studio that I can’t use. But not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, for sure.

 

[DT]

Plug it into a TV

 

[Roller]

Plug it into a TV

Yeah, I’ve been thinking of other displays I could use temporarily. I have an old 27” ACD, but I don’t think it’ll work with the Mac Studio.

 

[DT]

Yeah, I think you'd need an adapter. Does your iMac still support target display mode? You know, where you can use an iMac as an external display for another machine.

 

[Roller]

Yeah, I think you'd need an adapter. Does your iMac still support target display mode? You know, where you can use an iMac as an external display for another machine.

Unfortunately not. My iMac is from 2017. A few years ago, I wanted to use an even older iMac as a display with the 2017 iMac, but Apple limits it to running Catalina or earlier.

 

[Andropov]

On the first day he met me when he joined after i worked there for years, he said “I hear you’re very indispensable around here”

I blushed and said thank you.

He continued “the graveyards of Europe are filled with the corpses of indispensable people.”

My first employer's main client was also trying to get rid of 'indispensable people' and 'knowledge wells'. They went from a small team of highly skilled people to a throw bodies at the problem approach. Quality was going down significantly when I left. I always thought that the problems management had dealing with so many people were textbook parallelization problems, but with people instead of threads.

I promptly applied to law school, attended every night, graduated first in my class, and four years later resigned gloriously (the way I should have from macrumors) and now here I am.

Ha! I've been planning on something quite similar myself. I'm applying to med school next year.

Got a shipping notice for my Mac Studio today — should have it next week. The bad news is that the Studio Display won't arrive until at least 9 days later. And I won't be able to return the iMac I'm trading in until I get the display and transfer everything over, which may be near or beyond the end of Apple's two-week return period. Apple support said to call them if that happens.

I sent my trade-in MacBook Pro a day late And they received it several days after I shipped it. The trade-in period may not be heavily enforced, the day the 14-day period ended I got a reminder email asking if I was still planning to trade it in. I'd just call Apple if the Studio Display finally arrives out of that period, they'll provide an extension for sure.

 

[Joelist]

Actually a nice little video about the pitfalls of benchmarking - he alludes to the issue Geekbench has on Apple Silicon where the bursty nature of the test makes AS look artificially low.

 

[Yoused]

I always thought that the problems management had dealing with so many people were textbook parallelization problems, but with people instead of threads.

Threading is like warp-factors. Performance goes up, but the effort required to make a multithreaded app function well is typically comparabe to the performance improvement. Sometimes greater. There were a few times at work when I thought how much faster I could this done if I had another of me – until I imagined how difficult I would be to get along with.

 

[Andropov]

Threading is like warp-factors. Performance goes up, but the effort required to make a multithreaded app function well is typically comparabe to the performance improvement. Sometimes greater. There were a few times at work when I thought how much faster I could this done if I had another of me – until I imagined how difficult I would be to get along with.

Some projects can be parallelized with relative ease and is something worth doing. Some don't. The problem is, if you have 40 people in a project, you're gonna need some senior devs with a good understanding of the project, managing who does what and how. Otherwise you end up with a frankenstein project, where different parts of the app have different architectures, or duplicated code that does the same thing in different ways (since it was not known that the other code existed at all). And you have zero visibility on what other people are doing. You can set up sync meetings for small teams, but it's unmanageable for teams of dozens of people. And then the senior devs in charge of directing the project burn out, or change jobs, and management just adds more juniors at the base of the project.

 

[Nycturne]

Some projects can be parallelized with relative ease and is something worth doing. Some don't. The problem is, if you have 40 people in a project, you're gonna need some senior devs with a good understanding of the project, managing who does what and how. Otherwise you end up with a frankenstein project, where different parts of the app have different architectures, or duplicated code that does the same thing in different ways (since it was not known that the other code existed at all). And you have zero visibility on what other people are doing. You can set up sync meetings for small teams, but it's unmanageable for teams of dozens of people. And then the senior devs in charge of directing the project burn out, or change jobs, and management just adds more juniors at the base of the project.

I'd be laughing if this wasn't so accurate.

The frankenstein projects I see a lot of are the ones full of half-completed transitions.