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Rosetta
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Rosetta
 

Information About

Rosetta (software)





| Information

  Developer Apple Computer
  Operating System Mac OS X
  Genre Emulator
  Website http://wwwapplecom/rosetta


Rosetta is a lightweight Dynamic Translation Emulator for Mac OS X distributed by Apple . It enables applications compiled for the PowerPC family of processors to run on Apple systems that use Intel Processor s. It is based on Transitive Corporation 's QuickTransit technology. It is a key part of Apple's strategy for the Transition Of Their Macintosh Line from PowerPC to Intel processors, enabling pre-existing Mac OS X software to run on the new platform without modification. The name is a reference to the Rosetta Stone , whose discovery made it possible to comprehend and translate Egyptian Hieroglyph s.


FEATURES

Rosetta is included, pre-installed with the operating system, on Macintosh computers that use Intel's Core processors. It translates G3 , G4 , AltiVec , and OpenGL instructions, but it does not translate software that requires the G5 -specific features of later Apple systems; such applications have to be modified by their developers to work on Intel-based Macintoshes. However, there are very few applications that strictly require the G5 processor, so compatibility with most applications is possible.

According to Apple, applications with heavy user interaction but low computational needs (such as version to work on Intel-based Macs.

In general, Rosetta does ''not'' run the following:
  • Applications built for Mac OS 9 or below.

  • Code that inserts preferences into the System Preferences pane.

  • Applications that require a G5 processor.

  • Kernel extensions, and applications that depend on them.

  • Bundled Java applications or Java applications with JNI libraries that can’t be translated.

  • Java applets in Rosetta-translated applications. That means a PowerPC-only web browser application (such as Microsoft's Legacy Internet Explorer For Mac ) will not be able to load Java applets; an Intel-ready version of the browser is needed (such as Safari , Camino , or Firefox ).



OTHER USES OF THE NAME



SEE ALSO

  • Universal Binary - combined x86/PPC applications that run natively on both processors.



EXTERNAL LINKS