What is Rosetta

What is Rosetta and what does this mean

Shockwave Player has not yet been ported to run natively on the new Intel-based Macintosh computers and currently only runs in Rosetta emulation mode. To install and use Shockwave Player on an Intel-based Macintosh, you will need to run the browser in Rosetta emulation mode. Follow the instructions below to launch your browser in Rosetta emulation mode.

Rosetta is the emulation technology that Apple has built into OS X that allows it to run PowerPC applications on Intel-based processors. Explaining this requires just a little bit of history.

Up until a few years ago, Apple's computers used a different type of microprocessor (PowerPC, made by IBM) than was found in the typical Windows-based computer (x86, made by Intel or AMD). In 2005, Steve Jobs announced that Apple would transition its products from PowerPC processors to Intel processors. As of mid-2006, all of Apple's computer offerings are built with Intel processors such as the Core Duo, Core 2 Duo, and Xeon.

The processor transition was major for Apple because applications written for PowerPC processors cannot be run natively by Intel processors. So, Apple told its developer partners that they would have to begin rewriting their applications for the new processors. Apple introduced the concept of the Universal Binary to denote an application that would work with either PowerPC or Intel-based Macs. For any applications that have not yet been rewritten to be Universal and remain PowerPC-only, Apple wrote Rosetta into OS X, allowing PowerPC code to be executed by the current Intel processors. It runs completely without user interaction whenever a PowerPC application is launched.

Hopefully that wasn't overly detailed, but that should give you an idea of what Rosetta is.

Here's the nutshell of what joshbrez was saying:

1. Macs used to use PowerPC chips
2. Macs now use Intel chips
3. Rosetta lets programs made for PowerPC chips run on Macs with Intel chips

The only real downside to Rosetta is that complex apps like Photoshop are significantly slower. Smaller apps like Shockwave should run just fine.

Brilliant explanations, thanks makes total sence.