There is a great pair of articles discussing the history of the PowerPC architecture on the Ars Technica website.

Check them out:
PowerPC on Apple: An Architectural History, Part I
PowerPC on Apple: An Architectural History, Part II

These are great reading for the pseudogeek. I say the pseudogeek, and not the ubergeek, because the ubergeek would already know all of this information, and it is too generalized. But for we geeks out there who also have lives, this is great reading, providing interesting facts and history, but without going overboard in depth.

My timing for blogging about these articles (which I’ve actually had bookmarked on my desktop for months) is ironic, being that it comes shortly after Apple’s announcement that it will be switching to the x86 architecture for future Macs over the course of the next 1-2 years.

I know, I have yet to blog about this; I have full intentions to. I purposefully did not blog about it when I first read about it, because first reactions sometimes can be very inaccurate ones. But the time is now ripe for comments, so I will be making some soon.

Again, with a bit of tongue-in-cheek irony, it is notable that the Ars Technica author wrote these articles at the behest of Mac enthusiasts, after he wrote a similar historical documentary on the Pentium line (Part I, Part II). I smell a “Part III” in the works!