Expect that to happen as vendors start to follow Apple reciently announced Mac OS X Universal Logo ProgramCubert said:
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Notes on Apple's Rosetta Technology
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adobe univeral
well, i guess all the pros are waiting for photoshop to be universal, i read somewhere that maybe all code has to be rewritten. guess a lot of work.
cs 2 was released around may last year, so i wounder when the new version will be released or if there'll be an update for the actuall version.
(guess not!)
adobe should have to do a lot with the integration of macromedia, anyway!
well, i guess all the pros are waiting for photoshop to be universal, i read somewhere that maybe all code has to be rewritten. guess a lot of work.
cs 2 was released around may last year, so i wounder when the new version will be released or if there'll be an update for the actuall version.
(guess not!)
adobe should have to do a lot with the integration of macromedia, anyway!
SiliconAddict said:You are making the assumption I'm a moderator, I'm not.
Oh yes, there's nothing like the feeling of erasing important data just when you're getting ready to go to bed.
tiramisu said:well, i guess all the pros are waiting for photoshop to be universal, i read somewhere that maybe all code has to be rewritten. guess a lot of work.
I doubt what you "read somewhere" is even close to being true given that photoshop already runs on Intel hardware since they have a Windows version. So there core code is already able to deal with Intel including many optimizations for x86 (even SSE code).
Likely the biggest issue they are hitting is having to switch from Code Warrior (or some custom build environment) to one that can produce universal binaries.
Of course they could have been under taking a large rewrite for other reasons... (possibly some really bad / old UI glue used on Mac OS X)
I have had confirmation from Quark that QuarkXpress 6.x will work via Rosetta but would not give performance details. As for Adobe it looks like there will be no updates for current apps (CS CS2) but the next release, CS3 will be Intel friendly. And that is due later this spring, fingers crossed.
All these people complaining about being charged for the whole app again, did you not watch the keynote?
$49 to "crossgrade" a Pro app, you give them your discs, they send you back a disc with a UB on, which you can use on ANY Mac, be it Intel or PPC. I see that as a good deal.
I thought it was quite well known that the Pro apps would run like crap on the Intel Macs, I remember reading about Rosetta being similar to running an old G4.
It's been a long time since Apple announced they were switching, so any sensible people would have either bought the last wave of PPC computers to keep them going for a few years, or just waited for the UB versions to come out and got an Intel Mac.
$49 to "crossgrade" a Pro app, you give them your discs, they send you back a disc with a UB on, which you can use on ANY Mac, be it Intel or PPC. I see that as a good deal.
I thought it was quite well known that the Pro apps would run like crap on the Intel Macs, I remember reading about Rosetta being similar to running an old G4.
It's been a long time since Apple announced they were switching, so any sensible people would have either bought the last wave of PPC computers to keep them going for a few years, or just waited for the UB versions to come out and got an Intel Mac.
Sorry. I need some real quick clarification. Is Classic supported in the new MacBook Pro or not? I haven't been able to find a straight forward answer on this yet. I know there's no booting into OS9 (of course), but I'm looking to see if Classic will still open OS9 apps. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanx.
Peace said:
100% correct. This has been in the Universal Binary Guidlines since the first version available months ago.
Os9
Too true!
My dad has to use OS9 for printing/plotting CAD drawings via RIP onto an HP plotter! The only reason is that HP won't update the drivers to OS X!
The best solution is to get a newer plotter, but as he's a one-man-band architect, money's too tight to mention (at least that's what he's always told me at christmas and birthdays!!! - but hold on, he's just bought the new 20" iMac!!!)
Well, at least I'll get to play with iLife '06!
maxp1 said:Guess that's the end of the line for that.
Good ridance.
(sadly this isn't quite true, there will still be people using their old graphite Macs with OS9 a decade from now. )
Too true!
My dad has to use OS9 for printing/plotting CAD drawings via RIP onto an HP plotter! The only reason is that HP won't update the drivers to OS X!
The best solution is to get a newer plotter, but as he's a one-man-band architect, money's too tight to mention (at least that's what he's always told me at christmas and birthdays!!! - but hold on, he's just bought the new 20" iMac!!!)
Well, at least I'll get to play with iLife '06!
I for one take just a light sprinkle of X-Bench scores with my salt.SiliconAddict said:
But I WILL be supremely interested in real-world app tests.
It would be cool to have one number that says "this computer is X times faster than this one." But that will never happen. So looking at each individual app and task--some Rosetta temporarily, some already Universal--is how speed must be measured.
I hope to see sites with tables of app tests: G4, G5, Core Duo.
nagromme said:
I agree with you on this. Here are the things I would like to see.
1) Fan noise, is the new MacBook as quiet as the latest G4 PB.
2) Battery life.
3) Sleep reliabilty and speed. (ie slow response, hanging apps, etc)
4) Rosetta real world app performance vs PPC app performance.
5) Native intel version app performance on MB vs. ppc native version on PB.
Bengt77 said:
You really must be kiddin' me with your response. First of all, because I would by her her own Mac, you conclude I can't set boundaries? I can and set those, but I really don't see anything wrong with buying her a Mac. Better than laserguns and that kind of stuff from the toystore. And for the camera, it's a 100 bucks Kodak thingie. And guess where she plays the most with from all the toys that Santa and the family brought her? Yes, the iPod and the camera. She turns on the iPod when she goes to bed and falls asleep with the music. And in the weekend she is running around the house to make pictures from her brother and placemats and tables etc. And then she wants to load them in iPhoto on my powerbook. So what's so bad about given her her own Mac? She has several Barbie's, Bratz, dolls, but she just doesn't play with that.
And because I already have screen, keyboard and mouse, the Mac mini is the best solution. And indeed, it will be the cheapest one available. But it will not be used. That's just a personal trade, I just can't buy anything used. I wish I could, but I just can't do that.
I am glad you have your opinion and you wouldn't do this for your kids, but I was really surprised with the conclusion you drew.
Classic emulation and Rosetta
Since Rosetta emulates applications built for OS X, and since 'Classic' was built for OS X, why can't Rosetta emulate Classic? Is there a software or hardware reason that Rosetta can't do this? If Classic can be run on a G5 that won't boot into OS9, why not on Intel?
There are many scientific apps that run on classic (yes, maybe the unpaid developers should update them), and others that are used by a variety of people (games, etc. - see previous posts). It is a shame that years and years of software development will be rendered obsolete. One of the great things about Macs has always been backward compatibility.
(no bytes the first time, trying again...)
Since Rosetta emulates applications built for OS X, and since 'Classic' was built for OS X, why can't Rosetta emulate Classic? Is there a software or hardware reason that Rosetta can't do this? If Classic can be run on a G5 that won't boot into OS9, why not on Intel?
There are many scientific apps that run on classic (yes, maybe the unpaid developers should update them), and others that are used by a variety of people (games, etc. - see previous posts). It is a shame that years and years of software development will be rendered obsolete. One of the great things about Macs has always been backward compatibility.
(no bytes the first time, trying again...)
As many of you already are aware of, Im sure this whole first slate of Intel Macs is alot like a developer kit, only available to anyone. Sure the road has a few bumps in it right now, but things will all be smoothed out within a year Im sure.
At least this is what this all seems to me. Altivec on Rosetta isnt ready yet, but will be soon, and Im sure continued development with it will make it as fast as Altivec running with/on an G4/G5. Apps of any kind will be ported and run fine. Like many are saying; it's only a transition...
....which is why Im saving my money...
At least this is what this all seems to me. Altivec on Rosetta isnt ready yet, but will be soon, and Im sure continued development with it will make it as fast as Altivec running with/on an G4/G5. Apps of any kind will be ported and run fine. Like many are saying; it's only a transition...
....which is why Im saving my money...
daveslc said:
One thing that would be a problem is that Classic also contains a 68000 emulator and support for it. So Rosetta would have to be able to handle 68000 code that is translated into PowerPC automatically. I think this is mostly a question of: "How many more machines would we sell if we support this? "
But I think that Apple should definitely offer one G4 machine for quite a while, so that customers can run Classic if they have to. Performance is not very important, because if you run a Classic application, then even an iMac is five times more powerful than the machine that your application was developed on.
Flowbee and MarcelV,
Just curious, do you guys really let your kids expose to devices that output such high volume? I'm pretty sure you guys take all necessary precautions. But I was just wondering what steps you took to keep your kids out of harms way.
When I was playing with my first iPod (borrowed), i turned off the "Sound Check" when playing some japs rock music and almost blew my ear off. lol...
Just curious, do you guys really let your kids expose to devices that output such high volume? I'm pretty sure you guys take all necessary precautions. But I was just wondering what steps you took to keep your kids out of harms way.
When I was playing with my first iPod (borrowed), i turned off the "Sound Check" when playing some japs rock music and almost blew my ear off. lol...
irock said:
The earbuds are too big for her ears, or her ears are just too little. Sometimes she is sitting in the living room with her earbuds in, but not often. She really uses it in her room using a speakerset with it. Kinda 'boombox' thingie that was for sale at RadioShack. If she was wearing the earbuds all the time, I would have the same concerns as you.
Rosetta & unix apps - Mac-on-Linux?
Will Rosetta translate unix applications compiled under GCC and PowerPC? Or ones that use X11 on the PowerPC with OSX?
This doesn't seem to be covered anywhere on the web. I ask, because it opens a possibility of porting VMs (virtual machines) over to Intel, and running PowerPC environments that way.
Mac-on-Linux (and its OSX version, Mac-on-Mac) use a virtual machine environment to let you run any PowerPC operating system on other PowerPC hardware. Hopefully using Rosetta will let you do this on Intel as well. After all, they work on G3 PowerPC Macs!
(And another thing, how many other good PowerPC emulators do you know?)
Yes, this is all leading towards running OS9 (or Classic within PPC-Tiger) on an Intel Mac.
I know everyone's happy to see the back of Classic, but I have a few old applications that are only available as binaries. I have a bunch of classic games to keep, and the OSX version of Dumpster is buggier than its OS9 counterpart.
It's a shame though, that Classic-Rosetta glue wasn't made by Apple, since Classic gave a very good application-level compatibility to the system.
CK.
Will Rosetta translate unix applications compiled under GCC and PowerPC? Or ones that use X11 on the PowerPC with OSX?
This doesn't seem to be covered anywhere on the web. I ask, because it opens a possibility of porting VMs (virtual machines) over to Intel, and running PowerPC environments that way.
Mac-on-Linux (and its OSX version, Mac-on-Mac) use a virtual machine environment to let you run any PowerPC operating system on other PowerPC hardware. Hopefully using Rosetta will let you do this on Intel as well. After all, they work on G3 PowerPC Macs!
(And another thing, how many other good PowerPC emulators do you know?)
Yes, this is all leading towards running OS9 (or Classic within PPC-Tiger) on an Intel Mac.
I know everyone's happy to see the back of Classic, but I have a few old applications that are only available as binaries. I have a bunch of classic games to keep, and the OSX version of Dumpster is buggier than its OS9 counterpart.
It's a shame though, that Classic-Rosetta glue wasn't made by Apple, since Classic gave a very good application-level compatibility to the system.
CK.
Nah...Could be done, but Apple doesn't care; nor do the arrogant
The 68K emulation is a non issue. The 68K emulation would not be on top of Transitive/Rosetta, translating those instructions to x86 code. 68K emulation enabled by MacOS 9.x is encapsulated within another emulation layer, the PPC. Rosetta would translate the PPC to x86 directly. Sound slow? Sure it is--- but if they pulled it off, it would feel speedy enough. 68K apps were designed for vastly slowly systems; even two layers of emulation would not bring a 2GHz Dual Core processor to a speed slower than a 25Mhz 68040. 68K apps could easily be faster than the machines they were originally designed to run on.
After all, such emulation is hardly new or even difficult---what gives Transitive its edge is performance. There is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. The technical difficulties imposed by Transitive are no doubt related to tradeoff's in Rosetta's design, sacrificing some PPC compatibility for speed. The list of PPC incompatibilities is far broader than just Classic. The current design of Classic and the emulation environment it creates for running MacOS 9.x problem falls just outside of that compatibility-performance maginal line.
The solution to this is obvious and inexpensive, but it requires Apple to give a damn. They really don't. NeXT-Apple harbors a dark hostility to all things Apple created prior to Job's Second Coming (I would include the decision to switch from PPC to have been influenced by that attitude.) Jobs has a history of this behavior----long ago, he pitted his own Apple // team against the hot new Mac/Lisa team during his first term, and mercifully strove to orphan the // users because he was convinced of the superiority of the New. Right or wrong is irrelevent---it is very consumer unfriendly. And Apple loves it when you just buy everything new. This is also consumer unfriendly. And unnecessary.
The solution would be to use something OTHER than Transitive for Classic PPC emulation. Classic would be a x86 app translating PPC on its own. Keep Transitive for everything else. As designed, Classic is really just an application that runs directly on MacOS X...there are a few hooks into the OS to make things look, superficially, integrated. The hooks aren't emulated, and if you don't use them, they exact no performance or stability penalty.
Apple has tons of code to build a new x86 classic from. (1) Classic itself and the OS hooks into MacOS X which are processor agnostic to begin with, assuming Apple bothered to port the code to the Intel version of MacOS 10.4.4 (2) Star Trek ran Classic MacOS directly on x86 (3) The System 7.x environment they created for AIX, and the version of MacOS 6.x and 7.x that run on SPARCStations. (4) OpenSourced x86 Mac emulators, which include Mini vMac for Toaster mac emulation, Basilisk II for excellent 68K emulation and Shapeshifter, which can run up to MacOS 9.1 with its OWN PPC emulator. (5) MacOS 9.x itself. Apple owns this and could easily tweak it if they gave a flying fluck to run Classic apps better in an emulated environment. Call it MacOS 9.3, or just update the Classic Support files under MacOS 9.2.2 like they did with every new release of Mac OS X on PowerPC.
Not a lot of effort by Apple would be needed. Some smart Apple interns working with the open source community could do it quickly. Put it under the Apple GPL. Apple has done this many times already with a lot less useful open sourced software than providing a bridge for 20,000 software titles to keep running.
I realize that many relatively wealthy Mac users could care less about this, or teens with Daddy's deep pocket, and Mac users tend to be upperly mobile. Of course some of us have children and mortgages and would rather not waste money on expensive to replace software that may only get occasional use, but the "thank God Classic is dead camp" is obviously not in this camp. Of course I never understood the cry for LESS compataibility or FEWER functions, esp when it is well understood it isn't expensive and has no downside from a stability or performance basis. More recent Mac converts could care less too---they probably have no older Mac software. This hurts Old Timers like myself with some specialized older apps that still run under Classic, don't want to spend the money to replace them with inferior products (yup, some of the older stuff is flat out superior, esp in the sciences). Even most Kid's games I have require Classic. Given Turing's insights, there is no reason to orphan 20K apps just because of some short-sighted Mac users who are unable to place themselves in the shoes of people like me (a failure of empathy---but a common fault. But most people are just that--common) and because Jobs doesn't value backwards compatibility personally, multi-billionaire he is, and has openly embraced the blatantly consumer unfriendly practice of planned obsolescence.
And don't you just love the "create your own computer museum" camp, to run older software? Yeah, I have the space for that. I buy an elegant new iMac Intel to reduce wires and clutter and have to keep a toaster mac around for my really old apps, a Quadra for my System 7 apps that don't run under Classic, and a PowerMac for the PPC. Maybe I should charge admission.
Or maybe Apple could learn from Turing and provide that same capability in software for their thousands of loyal old timers like me and the majority of the education market. It isn't hard; it just requires a company to give a crap.
gnasher729 said:
The 68K emulation is a non issue. The 68K emulation would not be on top of Transitive/Rosetta, translating those instructions to x86 code. 68K emulation enabled by MacOS 9.x is encapsulated within another emulation layer, the PPC. Rosetta would translate the PPC to x86 directly. Sound slow? Sure it is--- but if they pulled it off, it would feel speedy enough. 68K apps were designed for vastly slowly systems; even two layers of emulation would not bring a 2GHz Dual Core processor to a speed slower than a 25Mhz 68040. 68K apps could easily be faster than the machines they were originally designed to run on.
After all, such emulation is hardly new or even difficult---what gives Transitive its edge is performance. There is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. The technical difficulties imposed by Transitive are no doubt related to tradeoff's in Rosetta's design, sacrificing some PPC compatibility for speed. The list of PPC incompatibilities is far broader than just Classic. The current design of Classic and the emulation environment it creates for running MacOS 9.x problem falls just outside of that compatibility-performance maginal line.
The solution to this is obvious and inexpensive, but it requires Apple to give a damn. They really don't. NeXT-Apple harbors a dark hostility to all things Apple created prior to Job's Second Coming (I would include the decision to switch from PPC to have been influenced by that attitude.) Jobs has a history of this behavior----long ago, he pitted his own Apple // team against the hot new Mac/Lisa team during his first term, and mercifully strove to orphan the // users because he was convinced of the superiority of the New. Right or wrong is irrelevent---it is very consumer unfriendly. And Apple loves it when you just buy everything new. This is also consumer unfriendly. And unnecessary.
The solution would be to use something OTHER than Transitive for Classic PPC emulation. Classic would be a x86 app translating PPC on its own. Keep Transitive for everything else. As designed, Classic is really just an application that runs directly on MacOS X...there are a few hooks into the OS to make things look, superficially, integrated. The hooks aren't emulated, and if you don't use them, they exact no performance or stability penalty.
Apple has tons of code to build a new x86 classic from. (1) Classic itself and the OS hooks into MacOS X which are processor agnostic to begin with, assuming Apple bothered to port the code to the Intel version of MacOS 10.4.4 (2) Star Trek ran Classic MacOS directly on x86 (3) The System 7.x environment they created for AIX, and the version of MacOS 6.x and 7.x that run on SPARCStations. (4) OpenSourced x86 Mac emulators, which include Mini vMac for Toaster mac emulation, Basilisk II for excellent 68K emulation and Shapeshifter, which can run up to MacOS 9.1 with its OWN PPC emulator. (5) MacOS 9.x itself. Apple owns this and could easily tweak it if they gave a flying fluck to run Classic apps better in an emulated environment. Call it MacOS 9.3, or just update the Classic Support files under MacOS 9.2.2 like they did with every new release of Mac OS X on PowerPC.
Not a lot of effort by Apple would be needed. Some smart Apple interns working with the open source community could do it quickly. Put it under the Apple GPL. Apple has done this many times already with a lot less useful open sourced software than providing a bridge for 20,000 software titles to keep running.
I realize that many relatively wealthy Mac users could care less about this, or teens with Daddy's deep pocket, and Mac users tend to be upperly mobile. Of course some of us have children and mortgages and would rather not waste money on expensive to replace software that may only get occasional use, but the "thank God Classic is dead camp" is obviously not in this camp. Of course I never understood the cry for LESS compataibility or FEWER functions, esp when it is well understood it isn't expensive and has no downside from a stability or performance basis. More recent Mac converts could care less too---they probably have no older Mac software. This hurts Old Timers like myself with some specialized older apps that still run under Classic, don't want to spend the money to replace them with inferior products (yup, some of the older stuff is flat out superior, esp in the sciences). Even most Kid's games I have require Classic. Given Turing's insights, there is no reason to orphan 20K apps just because of some short-sighted Mac users who are unable to place themselves in the shoes of people like me (a failure of empathy---but a common fault. But most people are just that--common) and because Jobs doesn't value backwards compatibility personally, multi-billionaire he is, and has openly embraced the blatantly consumer unfriendly practice of planned obsolescence.
And don't you just love the "create your own computer museum" camp, to run older software? Yeah, I have the space for that. I buy an elegant new iMac Intel to reduce wires and clutter and have to keep a toaster mac around for my really old apps, a Quadra for my System 7 apps that don't run under Classic, and a PowerMac for the PPC. Maybe I should charge admission.
Or maybe Apple could learn from Turing and provide that same capability in software for their thousands of loyal old timers like me and the majority of the education market. It isn't hard; it just requires a company to give a crap.
Lacero said:
Although I've read this, I've also read that Apple has said that Final Cut Studio will run, just abysmally slow. Unusable.
David
I tested Rosetta in action at my local Apple store (Plano, Texas) on their Intel iMacs. Office worked great, the performance was at the same level when I used my 15" powerbook.
I downloaded a couple long Word documents off the Internet and scrolling and editing did not cause any slow downs.
It seems for non-intensive apps (i.e. audio and video) Rosetta is a home run for Apple.
I downloaded a couple long Word documents off the Internet and scrolling and editing did not cause any slow downs.
It seems for non-intensive apps (i.e. audio and video) Rosetta is a home run for Apple.
maxp1 said:
Hopefully not. Making programs that are barely 5-years-old at this point obsolete would sort of suck. There are still lots of Classic-only apps out there and I have loads of children's programs I bought only a few years ago for my daughter that would be perfectly good for her little brother when he's old enough. There's no reason to leave all that behind.
I can understand Apple's indifference to it at this point, but I'm hoping some of the Windows applications that emulate Classic will make their way over to OS X now that the Mac is running on Intel chips. I don't mind doing it via a third-party, but I would hardly say that Classic is dead.
And it's time Apple make OS 9 a free download too--maybe even open source the thing just for the hell of it.
Need Classic for Outlook
I guess I wont be upgrading to one of those nice new Macbooks.
I used to use Apple Mail to access my companies mail system but when they upgraded Exchange they cut off all access except for Outlook. I think the Sys admin has it in for me. He say's it's a security issue and since I'm the only Mac user he's not willing to do any investigation to see how I could be turned back on.
So I need to run Classic to run Outlook to read my mail. Nothing else works not Entourage, not Outlook Web Access, nothing. (Some quirk of the VPN wont let me access OWA)
If someone knows of an Outlook compatible mail client please let me know. I don't care about calendar and all the rest I just want to be able to send & receive mail. The old Mac Outlook sucks big time. No HTML, No imbeded images, The address systems a mess.
I know Novel has some plugin for it's Linix mail program that emulates Outlook. But that doesn't help me.
I guess I wont be upgrading to one of those nice new Macbooks.
I used to use Apple Mail to access my companies mail system but when they upgraded Exchange they cut off all access except for Outlook. I think the Sys admin has it in for me. He say's it's a security issue and since I'm the only Mac user he's not willing to do any investigation to see how I could be turned back on.
So I need to run Classic to run Outlook to read my mail. Nothing else works not Entourage, not Outlook Web Access, nothing. (Some quirk of the VPN wont let me access OWA)
If someone knows of an Outlook compatible mail client please let me know. I don't care about calendar and all the rest I just want to be able to send & receive mail. The old Mac Outlook sucks big time. No HTML, No imbeded images, The address systems a mess.
I know Novel has some plugin for it's Linix mail program that emulates Outlook. But that doesn't help me.