Production Sound & Video

38 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – Winter 2021 38 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – Winter 2021 In today's technological zeitgeist, the assembly line of advancement and progress is rarely deterred by anything. Faster processors, nicer screens, and larger storage devices are always just around the corner, ready to supersede last year's latest and greatest gizmos and gadgets. Annual releases and product refreshments are so much the norm that not even a global sickness that caused the planet to lurch into lockdown could slow the wheels of change. Few have demonstrated this as dramatically as Apple with the release of their new line of M1 Silicon processor computers. For Local 695 technicians and artists, this could be a game changer. To understand the signifi cance of this launch, some historical context is necessary. Many of the earliest Apple computers, beginning with 1984's Macintosh 128K, featured 16 and 32- bit processors designed by Motorola. Though revolutionary for the time, these units quickly began to show their age and Apple sales lagged compared to their primary competitor, by James Delhauer The New M1 Processor from Apple Microsoft. In 1991, Apple and Motorola joined with IBM to form the AIM Alliance, a group dedicated to developing the next generation of computer processors to compete with hardware being developed by Intel and AMD for Windows- based personal computers. This alliance led to the unveiling of the PowerPC processor, which Apple adopted into their identically named PowerPC line of computers beginning in 1994. These chips would remain the company's primary units in their Power Macintosh, PowerBook, iBook, iMac, and Xserve line of computers for more than a decade but they were not without their drawbacks. This hardware still struggled to meet the competition and software routinely used by Windows users was diffi cult to port to Apple units, limiting user options and product utility. Nonetheless, these chipsets have been credited with bringing the company out of the niche enthusiast market and into mainstream prominence, especially as Hollywood productions began to adopt them into the earliest digital post- production workfl ows. However in 2006, Apple abandoned the AIM Alliance and elected to integrate more commonly used Intel-brand hardware into their computers going forward. The widely known Macbook, iMac, Mac Mini, and Mac Pro machines of the last fi fteen years have all been powered by semi-customized Intel central processing units, as well as graphics processing units from Intel, Nvidia, and AMD. These computers have become so ubiquitous within the entertainment industry

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