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I remember the Rosetta era when they switched from PPC to Intel and had their VM layer inbetween. You could go to your process list and see what was using x86 v
by djsumdog 9y ago
I remember the Rosetta era when they switched from PPC to Intel and had their VM layer inbetween. You could go to your process list and see what was using x86 vs PPC via Rosetta and later even x86 64-bit. Eventually Rosetta was removed from the default install and I think it's gone entirely now, so you can't run really old PPC apps without an older version of MacOS and an older Mac.
- striking 9y agoYeah, if Apple tried to emulate Intel's ISA they'd very likely get sued. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davealtavilla/2017/06/09/intel-puts-microsoft-and-qualcomm-on-notice-regarding-windows-10-x86-emulation-on-snapdragon-devices/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/davealtavilla/2017/06/09/intel-...
- jsjohnst 9y agoExcept isn't X86_64 ISA technically property of AMD, not Intel? I know some of the later stuff (SIMD / AVX / SSE / etc) is Intel, but technically I think they could leave that off and still be successful assuming that would be all that's needed to not be infringing (which I don't know if that's the case or not).
- monocasa 9y agoIt's x86_64 is so obviously inspired by 32/16-bit x86 that practically speaking, it's patented heavily by both.
- Vogtinator 9y agoSoftware emulation is fine (otherwise QEMU would be pretty dead), it's just hardware accelerated emulation and actual HW implementations of the ISA that Intel does not like.
- monocasa 9y agoThere's no real case law on that, unfortunately. And Intel has been making claims that they could start to litigate. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/09/intel_sends_arm_a_shot_across_bow/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/09/intel_sends_arm_a_s...
- lightedman 9y agoI know the x86 instruction set up to at least the 486 has had its patents expire. Intel wouldn't win on every claim.
- jsjohnst 9y agoI've heard of people using Rosetta up till 10.9 (but they had to rig the install). Not sure if anyone has tried it past 10.9.
- monocasa 9y agoA Rosetta equivalent that runs x86 on ARM is way harder from a pure technical perspective than running PPC on x86. Going from a weak memory model to a strong one is waaaaay easier than the reverse.