Not alot of mystery to it. Apple used to control the hardware used in Macs by using mostly proprietary architectures. And they were extremely careful about which software was allowed to run on Macs (they are still much more rigid than MS). So it was hard to kill one. That started changing with the original iMacs, which used standard, off the shelf components and architectures for the most part, thereby reducing costs greatly. Next, the original and VERY, VERY archaic and tired MacOS was replaced by the Unix-based OS X. This gave them an extremely flexible and lightweight base for their current system. Last, Apple switched from the IBM/Motorola Power architecture to the ubiquitous Intel x86 architecture. This allowed them to get the performance gains they wanted with the benefit of the economy of scale built into buying x86 chips. So the conversion to the PC platform is now complete. It's just that the platform is running OS X. Unless like me you are running OS X AN WinXP in a dual-boot format using Boot Camp (I actually haven't booted to XP on the Mini for quite awhile). When booted to XP, the process is complete. I am literally using a classic "PC." Just happens that the hardware came from Apple.
