What is the technical difference between a Mac and a PC that both have the Intel Dual Core processor?

Question

I am trying to determine the technical differences between the two computers, that makes it possible to natively load the Mac OS X on the Intel Mac, but not on the Intel PC (such as a Dell); and yet both computers can natively load Windows Vista.

What I am getting at is:

If the technical difference is in the chip itself, would the Intel chip that is made for the Mac work in the Intel Dual Core PC, and natively operate Mac OS X on the PC?

If the technical difference is another form of hardware that exists in both the Mac and the PC, what is it, and is it transplantable from the Mac to the PC, or, can that hardware be reconfigured in the PC to "convert" the PC into a Mac?

The reason why I am asking these questions is because I have a Sony Vaio UX Micro PC that I would love to convert into a Mac.

P.S., I do own quite a few Macs. The MacBook, the Mac Mini, and the 24" iMac. I will soon be setting up an X Server system.

The only "PC" I have is the Sony.

What I want, is to "legally" run Mac OS X on the Sony Micro PC and use the software to set-up a VPN connection to my other Macs via the Sprint 3G network.

I can do that with the Macbook, but I would like a much smaller Mac PC the size of the Sony Micro PC.

Here is a link to a PDF brochure that shows how small the Micro PC is.

http://b2b.sony.com/Solutions/b2b/data/repository/original/vol0/56/ux280p_healthcare_sellsheet_web_final_01f40a811003a45f7b8ce1fc1f3a59a8a067f9ca.pdf

Here is a link to Sony website:

http://b2b.sony.com/Solutions/subcategory/notebooks/ux-series

Answer 1

The only main hardware difference between the New Macs and a PC would be the use of Intel's new EFI instead of the normal BIOS.

The only thing preventing a PC from running Mac OS X is because they use a BIOS as basicly the firmware of the PC, while Macs use a EFI.

OSX will only support EFI, Vista on the other hand supports both BIOS and EFI.

There's a project to modify OSX to run on computers using BIOSes instead of EFIs here http://www.osx86project.org/

Otherwise, there's basicly no way you can modify your PC to run OSX

P.S.
The thing Don is mentioning are the Old Macs, the Old Macs are 100% not compatable with PCs but the New Macs that can run Vista are the ones I'm talking about.

Answer 2

It doesn't work like that. The Operating Systems are completely different. Unix Based Open Source type of Programing is used and has nothing whatso ever to do with the Hardware and the Intel Chip that is used. The reason for the switch is the speed gain. The Mac Platform is completly Different than the PC.
The Software that is written are completly different. You may be able to use some Internal Hardware Components on both but thats all Like Burners Zip Drives and even then you will need to Download Operating Specific Software.
Don

Answer 3

You may want to 'have it out' with this on a dedicated forum. There are a LOT (LOT,LOT) of issues to go through, bigbluelounge.com is a good Mac Audio based forum, I know a few there that would love to wrestle with this question.

2 quick & painful answers: the chip in the Sony unit is not a dual core, it is a single core and much lower in the intel family, so there is no way to get a Mac-intel chip into it, "no matter how ya slice it". You can't "legally" do it anyway, part of the Apple licensing agreement.

Looks like a nifty experiment though, would love to hear how it turns out. Unfortunately, posting here I don't think you will be able to get enough 'back & forth' discussion. What you will get is a lot of pc trollz. There are other forums that are better suited, I just don't know of any other than bigbluelounge.

Answer 4

PC's use a BIOS chip and Macs use an EFI (electronic firmware interface) chip, however, the difference comes with the fact that Apples EFI has what's called a TPM (trusted platform module) that OS X looks for when it's being loaded. If the computer doesn't have the TPM, then OS X won't install.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

thats like trying to convert a chrysler into a toyota. you can run parralell OS's. on a mac you can run windows, but not but i dont think you can run osx on sony. maybe if you find a geek and feed em lots of doritos and m & m's eventually..............