OSX and 64-bit [Re: First working Win64 program!]

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2012-08-13 09:04, Russel Winder wrote:

> <semi-rant>
> Apple's strategy appears to be that computers are non-upgradable,
> non-repairable, disposable items that last until the next release:
> everyone is supposed buy the latest version as soon as it comes out and
> so be on the latest kit(*).

But their products last a lot longer than that. I have had my MacBook 
since around 2006. I had to change battery and I've upgraded the RAM, 
except from that everything is working great.

> Therefore Apple don't care about backward
> compatibility in the way some other manufacturers do, e.g. JDK for the
> last 17 years. Of course sometimes this backfires, cf. many white
> MacBooks which have 64-bit processors but 32-bit boot PROMs. OSX detects
> this and will not boot 64-bit. This leads to extraordinary problems
> trying to compile some codes where the compiler detects 64-bit processor
> and assumes a 64-bit kernel API. To build some applications I first have
> to build the whole compiler toolchain so as to deal with this mixed
> chaos.

I never had any problems with 32 vs 64bit on Mac OS X. All system 
libraries ship with universal binaries (32 and 64bit) and it's dead easy 
to compile for multiple architectures.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg