Cross-Platform Universal Emulation?

[MacRumors]

A story published by Wired News reports Transitive Corp. of Los Gatos, California has developed a product called QuickTransit, offering the possibility of emulation at near-native speed. It fully supports accelerated 3-D graphics and 80 percent computational performance on the main processor according to Wired. This means Macs could run Windows-native or Linux-native software with no recompiling necessary, with no noticeable loss in performance. This software version of a rosetta stone has reportedly been aquired by six different PC manufacturers with public announcements to come later this year. Transitive launched the software on Monday with versions for Itanium, Opteron, x86 and Power/PowerPC chips.

Transitive is attempting to move away from the term 'emulator' to describe their software, embracing instead 'hardware virtualization.' Their keen to keep away from emulator, since up until now that term has suggested "things that are very slow" according to Transitive's President & CEO Bob Wiederhold.

[AmigoMac]

I don't know what to say ... Cool, of course but it will shake the market... maybe not... I want to see it first working, until then.. Wow!

[mgargan1]

so lets hope this take some marketshare away from microsoft... good luck...

[eroyce]

Finally I can start using OS X on my Dull I got from work!

[sushi]

Originally Posted by Macrumors

A story published by Wired News reports Transitive Corp. of Los Gatos, California has developed a product called QuickTransit, offering the possibility of emulation at near-native speed. It fully supports accelerated 3-D graphics and 80 percent computational performance on the main processor according to Wired. This means Macs could run Windows-native or Linux-native software with no recompiling necessary, with no noticeable loss in performance. This software version of a rosetta stone has reportedly been aquired by six different PC manufacturers with public announcements to come later this year. Transitive launched the software on Monday with versions for Itanium, Opteron, x86 and Power/PowerPC chips.

Transitive is attempting to move away from the term 'emulator' to describe their software, embracing instead 'hardware virtualization.' Their keen to keep away from emulator, since up until now that term has suggested "things that are very slow" according to Transitive's President & CEO Bob Wiederhold.

Nice if true.

Time will tell.

Sushi

[dizastor]

Are we sure this isn't an Early/Late April fool's joke? The CEO's name is Weinerhold after all...

[AmigoMac]

Originally Posted by eroyce

Finally I can start using OS X on my Dull I got from work!

You may not install Mac OS X in a non-apple computer .. it will be piracy :eeK: Maybe you care, may be not

[spinko]

at last ??

[Grimace]

What an awesome gift to us all!!

[swissmann]

Seems too good to be true. Would Apple allow their OS to run on someone else's hardware or if you buy the OS do they have no more say in the matter?

[the_mole1314]

*vaporware*cough*vaporware*

[fuzzwud]

sounds like great news, but I don't care anymore. what was that last company that claimed have great emulator but ended up admitting the news was fabricated?

[AmigoMac]

Let's start the poll: Would you install Mac OS X in a non apple computer? (According to the last news/rumor)

It looks very impressive, maybe will be the end of VPC and we won't wee VPC 8 ... if it's true, apple should license/buy that and take advantage of it...

[arnette]

Something to follow up on. I just finished fooling around with Virtual PC 6 last week. Man, that program is S-L-O-W. ANY emulator would be welcome but one that drastically improves the standard speed right now would be fantastic.

[allroy]

I can run Windows XP on my G5!

[Abstract]

Forget vapourware.

I've been here for a couple of years now, and I remember an earlier news report claiming something very similar. It could be the same product, I guess, or it may be another attempt by someone else. But if it is, then what happened to the earlier announcement? It was a long time ago, but maybe that was vapourware.

And the easiest way for Apple to prevent people from using OSX on a WinPC is by making Mac OSX expensive has hell to buy separately without a system, say $700. That way, it makes sense to pay for the hardware as well, which will be a ripoff, of course.

[mum4d]

Originally Posted by eroyce

Finally I can start using OS X on my Dull I got from work!

I think this means you can run PC software on a Mac or Mac software on a PC.

Not run Mac OS on a PC or WindowsOS on a MAC

[AirUncleP]

It was just a matter of time. I'm all for it.

[varmit]

and how much will this cost.

[Abstract]

Oh okay. Well, that's not as exciting, but exciting nonetheless. Now you really CAN run Doom 3 on a Mac with 80% performance.

[nagromme]

It's nice that it exists for PowerPC too. I hope the hype is genuine.

I suspect Apple's interested "just in case," whether they ever ship a product with it or not. And MS shouldn't care too much either... if someone wants to buy a copy of Windows for their Mac, MS won't mind taking the money. (Sales of VPC might suffer, but MS still sells you the OS.)

Get ready for people to scream "Apple is dead!" because people will buy cheap PC clones and buy the "emulator" and buy OS X instead of buying a Mac.

No. Sure, some people will, but it may or may not run and will not be ideal. Think of all the Mac-specific hardware the OS has to support... just emulating the CPU/GPU isn't the end of it. And people will blame the emulator not the OS, so this is a way for people to try OS X on their box and if it DOES work at all they may just get a Mac next time. Another Switcher gateway--in other words, it would increase Mac hardware sales, not to mention lots of OS sales.

I DO NOT think Apple should sell OS X for x86--not even with an "emulator" or whatever. It would be a support nightmare and kill the integrated OS+Mac experience.

But if someone ELSE sells a way to get OS X on x86, and Apple warns against it, they have their cake and eat it too. They support only Mac, but people will still unofficialy buy OS X for other hardware... and then feel the need for REAL hardware to go with it!

EDIT: this will emulate parts of Mac OS maybe, NOT allow Mac OS as a whole to run. See my post below.

[wingman8472]

Originally Posted by eroyce

Finally I can start using OS X on my Dull I got from work!

I dont thank it works like that. Its not for running OSX on and X86 computer but rather for running x86 programs on a ppc platform (windows programs on OSX) or (OSX programs on Windows or Linux) Kind of like X11

Sounds very cool.

[kerb]

id be so happy if it meant you could run OSX on a regular Pentium/Athlon machine!

after using my PowerBook for a few months I clean installed windows xp on my laptop and put Mandrake Linux on another PC and they feel so stupidly complicated. I reinstalled XP SP1 and I had 200megs of updates to install to make my computer "secure"!!!! I then installed SP2 and apparently my soundcard was a security risk, so it disabled it! Then it wouldnt let me access the internet as I didnt have a virus scanner installed so that was a security breach.

Then Mandrake is a bit better as you can do alot more "under the hood stuff" but only if you are VERY computer literate. OSX does powerful if you want and useability if you are a regular user. If it could run stabley and fast on a regular machine it would be fantastic. I wouldn't even bother dual booting.

[morkintosh]

Originally Posted by greenmonsterman

Are we sure this isn't an Early/Late April fool's joke? The CEO's name is Weinerhold after all...

I'm going to have to agree with this suggestion until I see something working, or at least a link that doesn't return an empty document ...

[DWKlink]

Anyone else having trouble getting to Trasitive's website? Maybe they're overloaded since this news just hit.

Seems like this is a bit of marketing hype, but if it were to be true, would be pretty awesome.