Intel CPU detection in MacOS X

Don’t ask me what I was doing when I found this… 🙂 I just noticed that when you do a ‘strings’ on the MacOS X login application, loginwindow.app, it does some CPU detection, and in part of that CPU detection it’s looking for Intel CPUs.

[TiMonkie:loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS] rose% pwd

/System/Library/CoreServices/loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS

[TiMonkie:loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS] rose% strings loginwindow | grep Intel

Intel 486

Intel x86

[TiMonkie:loginwindow.app/Contents/MacOS] rose% strings loginwindow | grep Pentium

Pentium

Pentium Pro

Pentium II

The Aqua/Quartz foundation that MacOS X is built on comes from OpenStep, which once ran on x86. I wonder if this is legacy, or if Apple is really planning something… (just feeding the rumor mill) ;-p