• TechNotes
• Mac OS X's advanced technologies: Carbon & Cocoa, 64-bit systems, AltiVec

We frequently receive inquiries from users about various Mac OS-related technologies and their possible implementation in ArchiCAD. Below we have summarized the questions and give our responses to them.

Q: What is Cocoa?
A: Cocoa is the native application environment of Mac OS X. It is based on NeXTStep, the operating system from which Mac OS X was developed. If an application is written in this environment it will run only on Mac OS X, but not on earlier versions (such as Mac OS 9).

Q: What is Carbon?
A: Carbon is another application environment of Mac OS X. It was designed to provide a migration path for developers moving from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X. If an application is written in this environment it will run both on Mac OS X, and on Mac OS 9.

Q: Is Cocoa better than Carbon, since it is the 'native' application environment of Mac OS X?
A: No. Each provides different routes to the same core system routines. The choice of whether to develop a Cocoa-based or Carbon-based application depends on the purposes of the developer.

Q: How did Graphisoft decide on the appropriate Mac OS X environment for ArchiCAD?
A: When ArchiCAD was developed for Mac OS X we had to support a Mac OS 9 user base. In accordance with this ArchiCAD developers chose the only appropriate solution that is, the implementation of Carbon.

Q: What will be the situation after dropping the support for Mac OS 9?
A: Since Carbon runs programs just as well as Cocoa, there would not be any benefit in rewriting even parts of the code base in Cocoa. However, since Mac OS X supports compound program codes it is possible to use Cocoa for future development if it becomes more appropriate for actual projects.

Q: What is the result of running ArchiCAD on a 64-bit processor-based system (such as Apple's new G5 (PowerPC_970) computers and Mac OS X 10.3)?
A: 64-bit processors offer the opportunity for programs to address significantly larger range of memory than the current 32-bit processors' 4 Gigabyte limit. This, however, has no direct influence on the computing rate. Current computers do not exploit the 4 Gigabyte memory limit. Even so, Graphisoft keeps up with the changes and is closely following the developments of the 64-bit environments.

Q: How will WikPedia:AltiVec (the Velocity Engine of G4 (PowerPC_G4) and G5 processors) work with ArchiCAD?
A: Motorola built AltiVec into the G4 and G5 processors. It is a set of several processor instructions that can boost the processing of certain data types significantly. These instructions are mostly beneficial to streaming audio/video, modem and flat graphics programs. It is doubtful ArchiCAD can reap great benefits from its use.

Some useful links for further information:

Apple's official Cocoa page: http://developer.apple.com/cocoa/

Apple's official Carbon page: http://developer.apple.com/carbon/

Apple's Official AltiVec (Velocity Engine) page: http://developer.apple.com/hardware/ve/

Apple's page about 64-bit processors and optimization: http://developer.apple.com/performance/g5optimization.html

REALBasic (a development software) about Carbon and Cocoa: http://www.realsoftware.com/realbasic/cocoa.html

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