Nvidia’s Jim Black chats about Mac products, strategy

On Wednesday night this reporter had a chance to talk with Jim Black, a developer relations account manager for Nvidia Corp. Our chat was part of the weekly QuickTime streaming Webcast produced by The Mac Show, hosted by Shawn King and Hilary Percy.

Black is no stranger to the Macintosh market. He’s a former Apple manager who worked with game developers for several years, and helped to manage Apple’s development of technology like OpenGL. Black left a while ago to join up with Nvidia Corp., and has been there ever since.

Nvidia is Apple’s newest supplier of graphics chips for the video cards that power most of its newly revamped line of Power Mac G4 systems. Many Mac users, especially gamers, are enthusiastic about Apple’s inclusion of Nvidia-based graphics cards into Power Mac G4 systems. The company has a good reputation with PC-compatible computer users, who have been able to get its chips installed in OEM configurations and from third-party board integrators for several years.

In the course of our discussion, Black touched on several issues of import to Macintosh users. He briefly recapped Apple’s announcement regarding Nvidia products from last month’s Macworld Expo. We also discussed Nvidia’s technology roadmap, both for the past and the future, and Black reiterated Nvidia’s support for the Mac in future chip designs. Black also talked about Mac developer support for the new graphics technology, and attempted to answer the question, “Why do I want an Nvidia-based card versus the competition?”

To listen to our interview yourself, we encourage you to visit The Mac Show’s Web site Archive page and listen to the archive for Jan. 31 — it features Eric Dahlinger of Powerlogix. If you’re only interested in our segment, fast-forward your QuickTime software to about the 15 minute mark — that’s where Black and I begin talking. Streaming and downloadable versions are available, depending on what version of QuickTime you have installed.