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> Apple could pull a “Rosetta” a second time on the Mac You mean a third time though! The mac went through three architecture transition, and each came with an
by roblabla 7y ago
> Apple could pull a “Rosetta” a second time on the Mac
You mean a third time though! The mac went through three architecture transition, and each came with an emulator to keep compatibility for a while. The first one was when they went from Motorolla 68000 to PPC, and they built the Mac 68k Emulator[0] to keep software going.
I also think they could pull it off again. Microsoft has shown us that it's possible to run a lot of x86 software on ARM64 with little noticeable impact[1]. It would, however, require immense engineering effort.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_68k_emulator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_68k_emulator
[1]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/porting/apps-on-arm-x86-emulation https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/porting/apps-on...
- ken 7y agoIf you don't limit the discussion to "Macintosh", Apple had a 4th architecture (and a 3rd 'transition'): 6502. There were third-party software emulators for 6502-on-68K, but Apple only provided a hardware one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIe_Card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIe_Card
- classichasclass 7y agoOfficially, yes. Unofficially, there was Gus (65816, if you want to be pedantic, though Gus necessarily ran Apple II software as well). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIGS#Gus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIGS#Gus