Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Mac/x86-What about Classic?

T

The Lamprey

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 17, 2004
19
0
Overlooking border and beach
From all the news about the switch to Intel and and the new branch for mac x86 programming, has anyone talked about the future of the old Classic applications? Will we still be able to use OS 9? What about all the applications that we have for classic?, I know that most of the apps have been port over to osX and run just fine, and mostly only a small percent still use classic, I know that myself that I rarely even open a classic app. however, it is useful for item that i need to run. Will apple use a extra emulator to be used? a possible Mac-on-linux(probably not since it is a virtual machine and depends upon the processor structure and ROM) or use softmac express. There haas been intrest in the new MOM(Mac-on-Mac) Emulator which is very promising.

In addition What of the Fate will Altivec Have, Is it on life support? or will the new x86 processors be custom made for Apple, specifically and increase in the multimedia components? There was talk of a Multi architecture processor a while back that will run multi operating systems using a software layer to switch inbetween the two. What over happend to this? I was very suprised about the annoucement of the switch, specifically when IBM announced the Cell processor and other chips from IBM, running above 3Ghz, this was promising for Apple but, we have not heard of anything about this. From all the information about the IBM roadmap was interesting and their chips derived from the Power 5-6 were very promising for apple and the Apple Customers were hoping for the best, A very big Blow to IBM for it's failure.

Well a bright spot is that the Switch should allow peripherals to be come cheaper, it is easier to adapt hardware to the x86 that to PPC from more vendors than from a few. PCI ExpressX16 boards, Raid boards, and others can be adapted more easily.

In addition, what of the Value of the hardware being dropped? Steve says that PPC and Intel will be supported for many years to come but what of consumers choice in the matter, what will they go for? As a MacHead myself I have a big decision to make in buying my next computer. Now I am running a G4 AGP, from the original 500 Mhz to a 1.4 Ghz chip and from a Rage Pro 128 to now a Radeon 9800 Pro with 128 Mbs of Ram. Now I have a hard choice to make the Almost $7000 that I was saving up to buy a new Power Mac 3 Ghz when they were supposably gonna come out, now being left scratching my head and being told to sit back down and wait a little bit before purchasing a new computer. What should I buy now? I love the 30 in Cinema Display, but what is gonna Run it? I am now left here waitng to jump in to either a near Dead PPC or a new Intel Machine. A problem that is hard to answer. Now I am thinking of Spending $3000 for a down payment for a new car instead. oh well...


Well that's all for now some questions to be answered, Please post comments.
 
The Lamprey said:
From all the news about the switch to Intel and and the new branch for mac x86 programming, has anyone talked about the future of the old Classic applications? Will we still be able to use OS 9? What about all the applications that we have for classic?, I know that most of the apps have been port over to osX and run just fine, and mostly only a small percent still use classic, I know that myself that I rarely even open a classic app. however, it is useful for item that i need to run. Will apple use a extra emulator to be used? a possible Mac-on-linux(probably not since it is a virtual machine and depends upon the processor structure and ROM) or use softmac express. There haas been intrest in the new MOM(Mac-on-Mac) Emulator which is very promising.

In addition What of the Fate will Altivec Have, Is it on life support? or will the new x86 processors be custom made for Apple, specifically and increase in the multimedia components? There was talk of a Multi architecture processor a while back that will run multi operating systems using a software layer to switch inbetween the two. What over happend to this? I was very suprised about the annoucement of the switch, specifically when IBM announced the Cell processor and other chips from IBM, running above 3Ghz, this was promising for Apple but, we have not heard of anything about this. From all the information about the IBM roadmap was interesting and their chips derived from the Power 5-6 were very promising for apple and the Apple Customers were hoping for the best, A very big Blow to IBM for it's failure.

Well a bright spot is that the Switch should allow peripherals to be come cheaper, it is easier to adapt hardware to the x86 that to PPC from more vendors than from a few. PCI ExpressX16 boards, Raid boards, and others can be adapted more easily.


Well that's all for now some questions to be answered, Please post comments.
Click to expand...

Alti-Vec is dead, but the Intel processors have much better technology called MMX, I believe, (only from comments I have read here and other places, I am not an expert on this) so they should be able to tap into that. From everything I have seen and read I think Classic will be gone after that as well. They will figure if you need to run a Classic program use a PPC Mac which will still be in huge supply. By the time all the decent PPC Macs are gone, OS9 will be like trying to run an Apple IIe program. That is my thinking anyhow.
 
This PDF at Apple's Developer site will answer many of your questions.

From what I can gather, Rosetta will not support Classic apps. I'm not sure of the technical reasons why (Classic is just an application that runs on top of OS X, after all), but OS 8 and 9 apps are specifically excluded from the list of things that Rosetta will run. From Appendix A of the PDF:

What Can Be Translated?

Rosetta is designed to translate currently shipping applications that run on a PowerPC with a G3 processor and that are built for Mac OS X.

Rosetta does not run the following:

  • Applications built for Mac OS 8 or 9
  • Code written specifically for AltiVec
  • Code that inserts preferences in the System Preferences pane
  • Applications that require a G4 or G5
  • Applications that depend on one or more kernel extensions
  • Kernel extensions
  • Bundled Java applications or Java applications with JNI libraries that can't be translated
Click to expand...

Basically I think the AltiVec and G4/G5 exceptions are the same thing - if an app requires G4 or G5, that means it wants/needs AltiVec. The System Preferences one seems weird to me - I wonder why that is? The rest all make sense.

As for supporting AltiVec code for developers, Appendices B and C of that same document go over the x86 equivalents. It looks like this will be an extremely useful reference for a lot of developers moving forward.
 
Wait...the G5 had AltiVec added by Apple after it's first incarnation as the Power4. Would it be possible for Intel to add AltiVec to the chips it supplies Apple?
 
Woah! Slow down! Breathe! :)

With respect to Classic...I think people just sadly need to move on. All the switchers can attest that there is really nothing that cannot be done in OS X that can be done in Classic, although one might *like* a Classic app better.

With respect to the setup you were buying...what exactly do you need/want to do with a $7000 computer? Is this something you're really pricing out, or just a fantasy? I don't mean that to be crass...I just mean that most people who buy such expensive hardware have pretty specific goals for it. They don't spend that kind of money just for obsolescence prevention, when they could buy three fairly-high-end computers for a similar price. If you have a specific purpose in mind, then decide if the products you need to do what you want are available. If they are, who cares about obsolescence? It'll do the job you want. If you don't have a specific need for this kind of hardware then just wait it out.

And also try not to panic about every detail of everything. The Apple Cinema Display you mentioned already works on PCs that support Dual Link, AFAIK. And the video card in those PMs is almost identical (ROM notwithstanding) to one provided on PCs. So the Intel switch has nothing to do with that, does it?

But I think the bottom line is that *COMPUTERS ARE NOT AN INVESTMENT PURCHASE*....they don't appreciate in value. They don't maintain. You buy them, you use them, you enjoy them. That's pretty much it. It's a hard thing to accept, but it's the truth.
 
People do need to move on from classic, it's old, outdated and just won't be compatible forever. 10-20 years from now I'm sure people will complain about OS X stuff not being compatible with whatever is out at that point, but oh well, that's how computers work. A lot of DOS programs aren't compatible with current windows systems and a lot of 68k programs don't run properly on ppc setups...big deal.
 
The Lamprey said:
In addition, what of the Value of the hardware being dropped? Steve says that PPC and Intel will be supported for many years to come but what of consumers choice in the matter, what will they go for? As a MacHead myself I have a big decision to make in buying my next computer. Now I am running a G4 AGP, from the original 500 Mhz to a 1.4 Ghz chip and from a Rage Pro 128 to now a Radeon 9800 Pro with 128 Mbs of Ram. Now I have a hard choice to make the Almost $7000 that I was saving up to buy a new Power Mac 3 Ghz when they were supposably gonna come out, now being left scratching my head and being told to sit back down and wait a little bit before purchasing a new computer. What should I buy now? I love the 30 in Cinema Display, but what is gonna Run it? I am now left here waitng to jump in to either a near Dead PPC or a new Intel Machine. A problem that is hard to answer. Now I am thinking of Spending $3000 for a down payment for a new car instead. oh well...


Well that's all for now some questions to be answered, Please post comments.
Click to expand...

Well I use my machine to do A lot of Video editing, and have upgraded it Last year to 1.4. I *was* gonna Purchase a new 3 ghz Machine when it came out. but we'll see. Every "Common Mac" User is not rich and are working class, so We have to scrimp and save to get the best products. I myself have been saving up for three years for a New "High End" Computer, Something that Won't be Ancient in a few years, my Computer now is almost five years old. Still works, but a bit slower. Went through at least ten HD's since but still chuggin'. I "really" like the Big 30", That's why the $7G. 1/2 for cpu, 1/2 for Display. And going to windows in never the answer.

(for anyone's interest, just for kicks I tried to install Win Xp on a HD image using QEMU for OSX, Took more than 12 hours. ouch :(

check out his http://maconmac.bastix.net/
 
Abercrombieboy said:
Alti-Vec is dead, but the Intel processors have much better technology called MMX, I believe, (only from comments I have read here and other places, I am not an expert on this) so they should be able to tap into that.
Click to expand...
That's quite enough FUD from you! Alti-Vec is actually superior to MMX/SSE. Research before you post. And this isn't a subjective thing, Alti-Vec is just plain better.
 
Tilmitt said:
That's quite enough FUD from you! Alti-Vec is actually superior to MMX/SSE. Research before you post. And this isn't a subjective thing, Alti-Vec is just plain better.
Click to expand...

Indeed, Altivec is much better than mmx/sse. While Rosetta will not handle altivec code, since Panther's introduction, Apple has recommended using the Accelerate framework, which abstracts the vector code from the assembly/c calls originally required. This framework will be ported to Intel, so only some tweaking and a recompile should be needed to get the code working again. No need to learn the sse assembly instructions or whatever. So I suspect that for as long as MacOS X supports both architectures (which should be for at least a few years after the intel machines debut), vector code will continue to be improved and altivec will be supported as part of universal binaries.

crackpip
 
Abercrombieboy said:
Alti-Vec is dead, but the Intel processors have much better technology called MMX, I believe, (only from comments I have read here and other places, I am not an expert on this) so they should be able to tap into that.
Click to expand...

When i read this, I actually laughed out loud! No offense to you at all, as you said, you're not to know, but MMX was introduced in a Pentium 1 166mhz. It had little/no effect on multimedia apps. Was a joke at the time! Altivec is hardcore processing. Much much better.
 
By the time we get the first Mac/x86's, it will be 2006, but PowerPC ones will still be sold. By the time most of the lineup are Mac/x86, it will be 2007.

Anyone still needing Classic in 2007 will be quite outdated, lol.
 
joecool85 said:
People do need to move on from classic, it's old, outdated and just won't be compatible forever. 10-20 years from now I'm sure people will complain about OS X stuff not being compatible with whatever is out at that point, but oh well, that's how computers work. A lot of DOS programs aren't compatible with current windows systems and a lot of 68k programs don't run properly on ppc setups...big deal.
Click to expand...

Quite a big deal for some actually. I work in a design studio. When InDesign was released we decided to switch from Quark. We had not upgraded Quark since version 4 (Classic only) as it was a very large unwarranted expense. Also InDesign can open Quark 4 but not 5 or 6. A large number of our projects do not warrant immediate conversion to InDesign if only small edits are required. Next time we upgrade hardware we will either have to do all Quark 4 work on an old workstation or convert everything to InDesign our expense. I still use a couple of classic apps that are absolutely vital for our work. Their development has ceased years ago, so I would have to find alternatives... and I have found no equivelant in years of looking. Backwards compatability is a very big deal for some.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back