Problem running certain older applications

stevo-m · Feb 22, 2007

Recently I've tried to install a few applications which are quite old.. an example being 'Virtual Springfield', which was out in 1997 or thereabouts, and says 'Power Mac' is supported. I assumed that any higher OS would be able to run it as well (I'm running OS 10.4.8) but the icon has a cross through it and when I try to run it I'm told that it is not supported.

This has happened with a couple of other programs as well, most usually older games, but I would like to be able to run these. Is there a way?

Thanks.

Brown Study · Feb 22, 2007

I don't have an Intel Mac, so please excuse my Rosetta ignorance: Does it start automatically when you load a PowerPC app, or would you have to tell it specifically to run Virtual Springfield and the other PPC apps?

stevo-m · Feb 22, 2007

Well, I do own an Intel Mac and I really have no idea about Rosetta! I'm sure I read somewhere that it was an 'invisible' program that was just built into the OS, so I assume it doesn't physically have to be started.. but if that is correct then it isn't working for my machine because none of these apps will start at all.

Brown Study · Feb 22, 2007

Click on the desktop to get into the finder, then go under the Help menu and type in Rosetta.

I tried that on my machine, but it's a Power PC, and no info came up. I've been checking the web but can't find out anything worth reporting, other than an article that says Rosetta can't run apps using Altivec.

Someone with an Intel machine would have much better advice.

Brown Study · Feb 22, 2007

Found this.

This technology allows PowerPC applications to run on top of x86. Rosetta is a built-in part of OS X, so it is fully automatic and seamless - the user does not need to take any extra steps to get a PowerPC-only application to run in such a manner. Rather, they simply launch it as they always would, and Rosetta invisibly translates the application's instructions so that they work with the Intel processor. So what's the problem? This translation process eats up additional CPU power, so applications that run under Rosetta will suffer from a decrease in speed when compared to how they would run on a PowerPC chip. In addition, according to Apple's documentation, Rosetta is incapable of running the following:

* Classic Environment, and subsequently any Mac OS 9 or earlier applications
* Screensavers written for the PowerPC
* System Preference add-ons
* Applications which specifically require the PowerPC G5
* Kernel extensions
* Java applications with JNI (PowerPC) libraries

stevo-m · Feb 22, 2007

Thanks for this.

Re. the part that says Rosetta is incapable of running 'Classic Environment, and subsequently any Mac OS 9 or earlier applications'.. I'm confused. If the point of Rosetta is to run PowerPC applications on Intel Macs, but it can't run applications designed for use on Mac OS 9.. doesn't that completely contradict the whole point? Maybe I'm missing something. Does anyone know any more about this?

I also tried to look it up on Help but there wasn't much about it.

Brown Study · Feb 22, 2007

If Virtual Springfield and your other old apps run only under OS 9 or earlier, then you're out of luck. Years ago, Steve Jobs declared OS 9 to be "dead," and Apple ended its support of it, which is why, shortly after his announcement, I bought the G4 I'm still using.

This G4 not only runs OS 9 in OS X's Classic environment, it boots into 9, which I have on a partition. And OS X's Classic environment requires OS 9 to be present, but Intel Macs can't run OS 9. So there is more to an app's requirement that it be PowerPC. It must be a PowerPC app that runs under OS X.

My version of Photoshop, Version 7, runs under 9 and X, so I can boot into either of those systems, haul up the same pix and continue work on them in either OS. But if I ran that same version of Photoshop in an Intel Mac, it could run only the OS X part of it through Rosetta. I could not run the OS 9 version.

the8thark · Feb 22, 2007

I own Virtual Springfield. Box and all. It's a OS 9 app. So apart from emulating OS9 you're kinda out of luck on intel. And I'm presuming your other games are OS 9 only too.