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Comment by j45 | Hacker News Reader

Maybe Apple has figured out something better than a unified memory architecture.

It's hard to rule out their ability to create silicon that is a step change.

I wasn't really trying to comment on what Apple could or could not pull off. Just pointing out that Notebookcheck seems to be misunderstanding what they're reporting on from Ming-chi Kuo, and the headline itself seems to be something Notebookcheck made up rather than something from Kuo's rumors. So this whole thread is even more baseless than it appears at first glance, but it would still be interesting to have an informed discussion about the pros and cons of unified memory for consumer SoCs, and alternatives.

They didn't even figure out unified memory - even original xbox (20+ years ago) had that.

And SGI O2 30 years ago.

Great reminder. I should have been clearer that I meant in the current context the note was being made about Intel and AMD working on things that apple's not.

Nvidia Jetson are all unified memory as are the raspberry pis.

CHIP memory

I think the Apple II frame buffer was in a unified system memory.

Ha ha, right! And with interlaced rows, 7 pixels per byte, and a cockamamie color generation scheme, it had a hardware "graphics decelerator".

And yet it is legendary for running all sorts of great games (Ultima, Bard's Tale, Wizardry, Castle Wolfenstein, Robotron, Prince of Persia, Maniac Mansion, Choplifter, Lode Runner, and many, many others.)

I still want to try last year's Wizardry remake – which actually emulates the original Apple II code (or subsequent NES code), with a capability of displaying the original interface if desired.

UMA is trivial if you have so little RAM that bandwidth doesn't matter.

The original XBox (2001) had 64MB. I think my PC from 1998 had that.

Good point - maybe this is a part of Apple's reasoning, or there's something else architecturally.

For sure, they aren't always the first, but they do seem to scale through some things in their own way. Got me my first fastest cpu laptop with meaningful battery life.

The Amiga had unified memory almost 40 years ago, at least for the first 512K to 2 megabytes (depending on hardware, which Agnus chip, etc.)

Not to mention nearly every Intel and AMD desktop that has a small iGPU on board, even for the chips not marketed that way.

The Mac 128k in 1984 had unified memory.

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