Comment by bayindirh
6 months ago
Apple always phases out these kinds of technologies after some time to keep the ecosystem tidy and give a last push to developers to abandon legacy code.
In this iteration, it might also allow some simplification of the silicon since Mx chips have some black magic to mimic x86 (mostly in memory access IIRC) to allow Rosetta to work that fast. IOW, Rosetta 2 is not a software only magic this time.
I remember using the first Rosetta to play Starcraft on my Intel Mac. It also got deprecated after a year or two.
So leaving things behind despite some pains is Apple's way to push people forward (e.g.: Optical media, ports, Rosetta 1, Adobe Flash, etc.).
If they hadn't deprecated 32 bit we would still be able to play Halo on mac.
This is the perfect comment because 1) it’s true, and 2) it can be read as supportive, a complaint, or just a neutral observation.
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The problem is, keeping older architectures alive creates an exponential workload, grinding everything to halt.
So, even though I feel what you are saying, we can't have every nice thing we want, at the same time.
What has been so impressive about the last 5 years of MacOS releases?
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Apple's contempt for compatibility makes for poor game platforms. It's also a drain on developers who have a continual maintenance burden just to keep things running with each year's new edition of iOS.
Is there not an emulator at this point?
It's really hard to get normal people to deal with emulators so that you can build a community. And the original Halo allocated memory in a weird way that often screws things up.
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Not sure it's only about tidiness. Rosetta 1 was licensed from a third party and Apple didn't want to keep paying the license fees.
I don't know if this is the situation with Rosetta 2.
I read a comment somewhere, possibly here by an ex-Apple engineer who claimed that they optimized the thing mathematically for the performance it exhibits.
So, considering its silicon parts, Rosetta 2 is more of an Apple endeavor and technology.
On the other hand 5-7 years a very typical timespan for Apple. So, I don't think licensing fees were that important while ending support for it.
The original Rosetta was based on technology from Transitive which, as I recall, IBM bought. Don't know where Rosetta 2 fits in and any licensing associated with the original Rosetta was a long time ago.
> It also got deprecated after a year or two.
It was five years, from 2006 to 2011. Rosetta 2 will have been there for seven years (currently at five).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software)
To clarify, the complete sentence in my mind was "...after a year or two I got my Intel Mac". I got mine in Q3 2008, just before Unibody ones introduced.
So, I effectively got 2 years out of Rosetta 1, but didn't meant to say Apple supported it for two years only.
Sorry for the confusion.
Looks like I can't edit my comment anymore to clarify.