[OS X TeX] TeX and Apple's possible transition to RISC

[David Thompson]

Good afternoon Richard…

I’ll echo the opinions of several others… I’m not really concerned. I moved from linux/Winder$ to a PowerBook in 2003 because I learned that OS X was really BSD with a pretty face. That meant all my favorite tools from linux would be available under OS X through a shell.

I’m still stuck with Winder$ because certain numerical modeling software I use as a professional runs on that platform. Winder$ has improved over the years. But I’ll be stuck with it for the forseeable future, or at least until I retire from my profession.

If Apple abandons the unix-based system, I’ll just set up another linux box and live happily in that environment. The alternative is to stick with my Winder$ system add in the *nixy parts that are missing, just like I did back in the 90s. I’m not really anticipating that Apple will do that, but one never knows and it’s their playground.

It will be interesting, in any event. RISC used the be the Next Big Thing. Heh...

David B. Thompson, Ph.D., PE, PH
Civil engineer/hydrologist

On Apr 5, 2018, 10:55 -0700, Richard Seguin <riseguin at earthlink.net>, wrote:
> There are rumors that Apple may be transitioning from Intel to its own RISC processors beginning as early as 2020. There are speculations that Apple will also attempt to merge MacOS with or into iOS, and some people are even applauding this last possibility. Would either of these pose potential problems for TeX software and the front end software that we use with TeX? I know that iOS is much more locked down than the current MacOS, and, for example, the TeXShop install seems to put something into the root drive since it always asks me for my password. I usually use BBEdit and Skim together with some “TeX integration scripts” that could conceivably be forbidden in an iOS version. It seems recently that Apple has no qualms about giving developers and users big headaches in advancing its vision.
>
> Richard Séguin
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