As we all know (or most of us, at least) Apple has announced its switch to Intel chips. Now, what I am wondering is, will this mean the end of PCI card flashing? I know that currently, to get PCI cards made for Windows working on Macs, their firmware has to be flashed. Under Linux on x86 machines I understand that PCI cards do not need to be flashed. Will this be the same for Macs in the future, under x86 architecture?
Anonymous
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My guess is that it will be true for video cards because the developer transition kit shipped by Apple runs on a generic Intel motherboard with a generic Intel graphics chipset. Ethernet cards already work, assuming that drivers are available. SCSI/SATA/IDE cards won't work unless Apple make the OS X boot procedure 100% PC compatible.
Phil
The answer lies in if Apple will use the aging bog-horrid BIOS setup, or use a custom OF-BIOS transaltion layer, or use Intels new firmware thing-ama-bob. Unless they go for pure oldschool BIOS, it's probably still gonna need flashing of some sort, as new Intel Macs won't be using just any old off the shelf parts. Apple isn't going to do MS one better and write supported drivers for all the old cards floating around. Apple x86 doesn't immediately imply sudden support of all x86 hardware. Drivers are drivers, it's just that with OF basic functionality was possible through easily accessing a cards ROM.