Re:10.7 Lion drops support for PowerPC applications
by nathos on Sunday February 27, 2011 @12:44PM
(#2268326)
For the most part, I'd say Apple's compatibility efforts have been equally impressive:
* 'Classic' support enabled Mac OS 9 apps to run on OS X for many years.
* Rosetta allowed for apps written for a completely different processor architecture to run on Intel (until 10.7, aparently).
Apple also made these moves before the bulk of 3rd-party applications were running natively on the new systems/architectures. The fact that Apple has been able to change low-level OS & processor architectures over the past 10 years is quite a feat.
Re:10.7 Lion drops support for PowerPC applications
by jwatzman on Sunday February 27, 2011 @01:13PM
(#2268403)
And don't forget what I think is the most impressive, the transition from 68k to PowerPC. When they first did this, parts of the kernel were still compiled for 68k.
* 'Classic' support enabled Mac OS 9 apps to run on OS X for many years.
* Rosetta allowed for apps written for a completely different processor architecture to run on Intel (until 10.7, aparently).
Apple also made these moves before the bulk of 3rd-party applications were running natively on the new systems/architectures. The fact that Apple has been able to change low-level OS & processor architectures over the past 10 years is quite a feat.