Apple's M1 Chip Gave the MAC a Second Life
Postedabout 2 months agoActiveabout 2 months ago
macworld.comTechstory
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Apple M1 ChipMAC HardwareIsa Changes
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Apple M1 Chip
MAC Hardware
Isa Changes
The introduction of Apple's M1 chip is seen as a significant event that revitalized the Mac line, with discussion around the history of Apple's ISA changes.
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- 01Story posted
Nov 19, 2025 at 2:45 PM EST
about 2 months ago
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Nov 19, 2025 at 2:45 PM EST
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Nov 19, 2025 at 4:08 PM EST
about 2 months ago
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ID: 45984150Type: storyLast synced: 11/19/2025, 9:29:53 PM
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All the vendors that were using 68k either switched (Sun Microsystems, Apple) or went out of business (Amiga, Atari).
The PPC Macs were really nice though and even gave decent performance running 68k apps because they had a good emulator even then.
By the mid-2000s I think PPC had a good story for servers and workstations and even game consoles (Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 all used some kind of custom PPC) but I think Apple wanted to make laptops and PPC was not power efficient for that. That was around peak Intel where AMD shocked them out of their complacency and before "we're number one why try harder?" set in again.