Say, remember a couple of months ago when IBM mentioned its plans to start shipping 90-nanometer processors by the end of the calendar year? And remember how we fomented a rabid wild-eyed frenzy of violent anticipation among our viewers by blithely and irresponsibly leading you to assume that said year-end 90-nanometer chips would include updated G5s that would propel the Power Mac ever deeper into its current role as the darling of the tech set? Well, um... never mind.

That was just... that was a typo. Yeah. That's it.

Not that G5s won't hit 90 nanometers at some point, of course, so don't go bludgeoning yourself with the Disappointment Stick, or anything. It's just that the "end of the year" thing isn't really playing out the way we'd hoped. It turns out that IBM is slated to discuss 90-nanometer G5s at the IEEE International Solid State Circuits Conference in mid-February, and chipmakers at those shindigs generally talk about their coolest, most cutting-edge technology (translation: "stuff we haven't shipped yet and probably won't ship for a while"), so when Uncle Steve starts pulling surprises out of his hat at January's Macworld Expo, the odds are pretty good that 90-nanometer G5s won't be among them.

However, there's still plenty to grin about in that manic and unsettling manner that keeps people from sitting next to you on the bus. AppleInsider reports that there still might be a Power Mac speed bump in January, with processors running at speeds as high as 2.5 GHz-- albeit in the same old 130 nanometer flavor. What's more, IBM's 90-nanometer G5s ought to ship really soon after the ISSCC gig, so we can expect "second generation Power Mac G5 units" (the G2 G5?) "by early March of next year." And if you're a just a little too pessimistic and/or reasonable to believe that Apple would ship a new Power Mac just two months after a significant speed bump, well, AppleInsider does leave the door open for dual-2.5 GHz G5s to hold off appearing until March's big product rev. Besides, what's a couple more months to slavering Mac fans? The dual-2.0 GHz G5 is still plenty competitive with the fastest personal computers the competition has to offer-- and after the Motorola G4 years, frankly, we can do two months standing on our heads.

Incidentally, if big, hulking slabs of perforated aluminum sitting stationary on a desk don't get your motor running, there's good news for your inner road warrior, too: as pointed out by faithful viewer Josef Schneider, The Register notes that IBM's 90-nanometer G5 presentation at ISSCC will include discussion of that chip's new "PowerTune" technology, which can automatically scale the processor's voltage and dial down its clock speed for power-saving purposes-- and if a smaller-process chip with built-in power management functions isn't one Gigantor step closer to the holy grail of a PowerBook G5, we don't know what is. March ahoy!