Apple Boot Camp
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As if there weren’t enough confusion already in the Mac vs. Windows arena, Apple has gone and created a new application for OSX called Boot Camp. Boot Camp, now in public beta, burns all Windows-required drivers to a CD, and allows you to install Windows XP on Mac hardware, right next to OSX. Keep reading to find out more about how and why Apple made this possible, and what responses this move is triggering.
There used to be two basic terms to explain platforms, "Mac" and "Wintel." Wintel, of course, stands for Windows on Intel. Then slowly other players entered the fray, such as AMD, Linux, Cyrix (now defunct), and those two names were no longer enough to describe your platform in one word. But you still knew where you stood, as far as what software runs on what platform. Windows is going to run on Intel and compatible, OSn (different versions of Mac software) would run on Mac hardware, and Linux, well, Linux runs wherever it wants to run.
Then Intel and Apple made a deal, and announced that Apple would begin manufacturing Macs based on Intel chips. While this caused a big ruckus among enthusiasts, Apple and Intel moved ahead with it and those machines are now on the market. So now, we have Windows on Intel, and OSX on Intel. The solid lines that once stood between hardware and OS compatibility are rapidly blurring.
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