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Transitive is providing the engine used in Apple's Rosetta software, which translates software for its current machines using PowerPC processors so it can run on forthcoming Intel-based Macintoshes. "We've had a long-term relationship with them," Transitive Chief Executive Bob Wiederhold said Tuesday.
As a program runs, Rosetta translates its PowerPC instructions into corresponding x86 instructions. Although there are limits to what programs it can translate, the software promises to ease the transition that current Apple customers and software developers face. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs on Monday demonstrated Rosetta during a keynote address, showing it running PowerPC versions of Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Word and Excel--three applications essential to the success of the Macintosh line.
What's new:
A Silicon Valley start-up called Transitive is supplying Apple Computer with a crucial bridge to enable the move to Intel-based computers.
Bottom line:
Apple and Transitive face performance challenges. Success has been elusive for computer makers trying to support one chip's software on a machine with a different chip.
Jobs' Rosetta demonstration went smoothly--he loaded and edited several documents--but both Apple and Transitive face performance challenges with Rosetta. Success has been elusive for computer makers trying to support one chip's software on a machine with a different chip.
"History says that binary translation basically doesn't work," said Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff. "The day may come when someone can do a good enough job with it, but that concept has been thrown out there many times in the computer industry, and it's always fallen flat on its face."
But Los Gatos, Calif.-based Transitive is willing to set high expectations when comparing software compiled natively for the new processor to that compiled for the older processor and running on the new one.
In the case of Transitive's first customer, Silicon Graphics Inc., software for the older processor generally reaches at least 80 percent of the speed of native software, Wiederhold said. But that high score stems partly from the fact that the SGI systems are used for graphics tasks, which have little or no translation penalty, he said.
With more computationally intense tasks, the performance of translated software is between 60 percent and 80 percent of native software, Wiederhold said.
Another skeptic is Nathan Brookwood of Insight 64. "Everybody always has said 50 (percent) or 60 percent and delivered 30 (percent) or 40 percent," he said. Among those who have tried: Digital Equipment Corp.'s FX!32 to run x86 Windows programs on computers with Alpha chips; Hewlett-Packard's Aries software to run HP-UX software for PA- RISC chips on Itanium; and Intel's IA32-EL software to run software for x86 chips on Itanium.
Jobs was satisfied, though. During his demonstration, Jobs said translated software runs "pretty fast," though his presentation's slide said performance is "good (enough)." His demonstration computer had a 3.6GHz Pentium 4 and 2GB of memory.
Apple, though not known for bending over backward to support users of older Macs, has some experience helping users with processor transitions. When it changed from Motorola 680x0 processors to PowerPC in 1994, it included emulation software that would let users run the older software on the newer machines.
CEO, Transitive
And Wiederhold is delighted to have Apple as a customer. "Like many start-up companies with breakthrough technology, there's a lot of skepticism about the technology itself--whether we can meet the claims we discuss," he said. "Getting proof points out there is very important to our success."
One thing that's unclear is whether Rosetta will work in the other direction--translating x86 software for use on PowerPC Macs, something that could significantly expand Transitive's revenue sources. That feature, by ensuring future Mac software will work on older-generation machines, could help convince potential PowerPC-based Mac customers not to put off their purchases.
Transitive last fall released a version of QuickTransit that would support such a feature, but Wiederhold wouldn't comment on whether Apple plans to use it.
However, Apple hopes programmers will create what it calls "universal binaries"--software that includes versions for both processors in one
See more CNET content tagged:
IBM PowerPC,
Apple Computer,
bridge,
Steve Jobs,
Intel Itanium
I have more at my blog where I did a special report on the keynote and the aftermath:
The Useless Information File. No information is Useless. http://wwwUIFile.BraveLog.com
And yes, Steve is probably a bit ticked that IBM wouldn't provide A: A 3GHz or faster chip for the Powermac line, let alone a G5 chip for a laptop. He's thinking bigger and broader and wants faster chips for all lines of the hardware his company builds.
I was freaking out at first, but after some calming, I have found that this will be a smart move for the future, and will probably yield price drops across the board. IF these chips make the new machiens and software run faster with the same stability of the PowerPC Chip, it's definately worth it. And besides, the PowerPC software will still be around for a couple of years.
As soon as a dual core or 2.5 GHz Powerbook is introduced witht eh Intel chip, I will have one.
They haven't tested this for the last 5 OS versions for nothing. I'm sur e they've done they're research and your "blog" tyupe journalism means nothing to them, or anyone who realizes what's going on.
Will Windows compatibility hurt Apple?
Will free "Intel Inside" marketing hurt Apple?
I don't think so.
I have more at my blog where I did a special report on the keynote and the aftermath:
The Useless Information File. No information is Useless. http://wwwUIFile.BraveLog.com
And yes, Steve is probably a bit ticked that IBM wouldn't provide A: A 3GHz or faster chip for the Powermac line, let alone a G5 chip for a laptop. He's thinking bigger and broader and wants faster chips for all lines of the hardware his company builds.
I was freaking out at first, but after some calming, I have found that this will be a smart move for the future, and will probably yield price drops across the board. IF these chips make the new machiens and software run faster with the same stability of the PowerPC Chip, it's definately worth it. And besides, the PowerPC software will still be around for a couple of years.
As soon as a dual core or 2.5 GHz Powerbook is introduced witht eh Intel chip, I will have one.
They haven't tested this for the last 5 OS versions for nothing. I'm sur e they've done they're research and your "blog" tyupe journalism means nothing to them, or anyone who realizes what's going on.
Will Windows compatibility hurt Apple?
Will free "Intel Inside" marketing hurt Apple?
I don't think so.
What is the most heavily used and support processors on the market? x86. I think they are trying to compete. IBM has not allowed them such competition with the latest PowerPC chips. I think it is also a software decision as well. If software companies don't have to rewrite their code to support a different processor then we might start seeing more Mac supported software.
If Apple puts as much thought into designing x86 PC as they did the PowerPC you might just start seeing more and more Apple computers everywhere. I know this idea sucks, but if you could buy a Apple computer and run Windows on it along side Mac OS then it may also give people the insentive to dump Windows for Mac OS.
Frankly, Linux has been falling short on the Desktop market. I like linux, but it isn't a Windows replacement yet. Maybe Mac OS can pick up the slack and give Windows some real competition.
Then again maybe we are stuck with Windows for ever and everything else is wishfull thinking.
I'm still NOT going to buy a Mac anytime soon. However I'm watching this develop with a more open mind than in the past.
NWLB
****
http://www.nwlb.net
If Apple can build a x86 system like they build a PowerPC systems now I am going to be very excited. I still remember going to an apple store that was very quiet and asking if the computer was on because it was so quiet. I also think that Apple spends more time and money to find the best way to build a system.
What I really hope for in the short term is Mac OSX available for the x86 platform regardless of computer manufacturer. It's not that it would do me any good to buy it, but I still would just to play around with it.
What is the most heavily used and support processors on the market? x86. I think they are trying to compete. IBM has not allowed them such competition with the latest PowerPC chips. I think it is also a software decision as well. If software companies don't have to rewrite their code to support a different processor then we might start seeing more Mac supported software.
If Apple puts as much thought into designing x86 PC as they did the PowerPC you might just start seeing more and more Apple computers everywhere. I know this idea sucks, but if you could buy a Apple computer and run Windows on it along side Mac OS then it may also give people the insentive to dump Windows for Mac OS.
Frankly, Linux has been falling short on the Desktop market. I like linux, but it isn't a Windows replacement yet. Maybe Mac OS can pick up the slack and give Windows some real competition.
Then again maybe we are stuck with Windows for ever and everything else is wishfull thinking.
I'm still NOT going to buy a Mac anytime soon. However I'm watching this develop with a more open mind than in the past.
NWLB
****
http://www.nwlb.net
If Apple can build a x86 system like they build a PowerPC systems now I am going to be very excited. I still remember going to an apple store that was very quiet and asking if the computer was on because it was so quiet. I also think that Apple spends more time and money to find the best way to build a system.
What I really hope for in the short term is Mac OSX available for the x86 platform regardless of computer manufacturer. It's not that it would do me any good to buy it, but I still would just to play around with it.
The painful, painful part of the 68k->PowerPC transition was for developers. Back in those days, direct memory acces was common, MacOS had no facility for multiple architectures, function pointers and memory references were all 68k-specific things, etc. With MacOS X, for large portions of it, this is a port BACK to x86, and all of those problems were solved long ago with Carbon and Cocoa.
in pre-OS X days that wouldn't fly, but for he most part, pre-OS
X apps were well run, and with the faster processors, there was
not much noticeable speed loss.
Going back further, the transition from 68000 code to PPC code
again left some apps in the dust. Usually the software
companies came up with upgraded versions. Some apps were
just abandoned.
Full details have slipped my memory, but from my beginnning
on a Fat Mac, with multiple model changes following, I never felt
constrained by the processor changes, What effec tthere was was
dwarfed by the impact of software manufacturers' market driven
decisions aboutt product survival
The painful, painful part of the 68k->PowerPC transition was for developers. Back in those days, direct memory acces was common, MacOS had no facility for multiple architectures, function pointers and memory references were all 68k-specific things, etc. With MacOS X, for large portions of it, this is a port BACK to x86, and all of those problems were solved long ago with Carbon and Cocoa.
in pre-OS X days that wouldn't fly, but for he most part, pre-OS
X apps were well run, and with the faster processors, there was
not much noticeable speed loss.
Going back further, the transition from 68000 code to PPC code
again left some apps in the dust. Usually the software
companies came up with upgraded versions. Some apps were
just abandoned.
Full details have slipped my memory, but from my beginnning
on a Fat Mac, with multiple model changes following, I never felt
constrained by the processor changes, What effec tthere was was
dwarfed by the impact of software manufacturers' market driven
decisions aboutt product survival
Emulation is execution of "foreign" binaries in place; this is what Apple 68K emulator has done since the introduction of PowerPC in 1994. There is a performance hit (although modern PowerPC processors can now run 68K binaries faster than they ever ran on a 68K Mac).
Translation is conversion of foreign binaries to "native" binaries. Back during the 68K-to-PowerPC transition, Apple worked with a company (Echo Logic) to offer binary translation capabilities to ISVs. The technology wasn't widely successful, but the reasons had at least as much to do with changes in APIs and runtime architectures as it did with the instruction sets; the PowerPC-to-Pentium conversion is a very different problem. But what's interesting to note is that some of the binaries produced by the Echo Logic translation were actually more efficient than the original code.
I could go on at lenth, but I'm not getting paid to do it... ;-)
Emulation is execution of "foreign" binaries in place; this is what Apple 68K emulator has done since the introduction of PowerPC in 1994. There is a performance hit (although modern PowerPC processors can now run 68K binaries faster than they ever ran on a 68K Mac).
Translation is conversion of foreign binaries to "native" binaries. Back during the 68K-to-PowerPC transition, Apple worked with a company (Echo Logic) to offer binary translation capabilities to ISVs. The technology wasn't widely successful, but the reasons had at least as much to do with changes in APIs and runtime architectures as it did with the instruction sets; the PowerPC-to-Pentium conversion is a very different problem. But what's interesting to note is that some of the binaries produced by the Echo Logic translation were actually more efficient than the original code.
I could go on at lenth, but I'm not getting paid to do it... ;-)
I assume Steve Jobs is a pretty smart guy and that there are a lot of smart guys at apple (though if they could use an extra one, I am available for hire :-) I am pretty sure they have thought about all these things.
No one really knows the what the deal is with Intel. It is going to take 2 years to make the transistion, so I am sure there is going to be some "updates" to the mother boards. Apple is only going to be using the Intel CPU, they still design all there other chipsets. Not that much different then their relationship with IBM. IBM made the CPU, apple design the mother board, etc.
My two cents
Philip Grossman
Senior Information Architect
Inthe video world, software decompressors are much better that
hardware versions. They are comparable in speed, and can be
changed instantly. Rosetta is in the same boat. Once installed, it's a
sure bet that newer versions will occur. A chip solution leaves you
stuck. A software solution leaves you running up to date.
I assume Steve Jobs is a pretty smart guy and that there are a lot of smart guys at apple (though if they could use an extra one, I am available for hire :-) I am pretty sure they have thought about all these things.
No one really knows the what the deal is with Intel. It is going to take 2 years to make the transistion, so I am sure there is going to be some "updates" to the mother boards. Apple is only going to be using the Intel CPU, they still design all there other chipsets. Not that much different then their relationship with IBM. IBM made the CPU, apple design the mother board, etc.
My two cents
Philip Grossman
Senior Information Architect
Inthe video world, software decompressors are much better that
hardware versions. They are comparable in speed, and can be
changed instantly. Rosetta is in the same boat. Once installed, it's a
sure bet that newer versions will occur. A chip solution leaves you
stuck. A software solution leaves you running up to date.
This guy is either ignorant or a moron. Not only has binary translation been done before successfully, but it was Apple that did it!
Now on to the reason to hire new journalists. Shortly there after in the same article you fine and I quote, "Apple, though not known for bending over backward to support users of older Macs, has some experience helping users with processor transitions. When it changed from Motorola 680x0 processors to PowerPC in 1994, it included emulation software that would let users run the older software on the newer machines."
This emulation software the author refers to is none other than binary translation software. Here the author of the article contradicts his own analyst but never bothers to point it out. One could wonder if the author of the article even bothered to read what the analyst wrote! Talk about shoddy journalism, you guys need a new journalist, a new editor, or both!
transition. It was REMARKABLY successful. By the second
round of PPC machines (mine was a lowly 8100) all the 68k stuff
was running faster than it ever did natively.
Also, all the stories about how Apple looses customers with
every transition are totally inacurrate. The losses are much
more closely correlated with M$ and Intel successes. Intel have
made a great deal more out of the old x86 than we ever thought
possible (and did a lot better than it looked like they ever did in
the mid nineties when PPC was completely eclipsing Pentiums.
Of late, PPC has been doing well to keep up, and our hardware
advantages (chip advantages at least) have dwindled.
But the 68k emulation??? It all STILL RUNS TODAY!!! EVEN IN
CLASSIC!!! Bzzzzzt! Buy a clue.
I bet there are some emergency meetings at M$, and I bet the
Mac BU are not the ONLY people there that are going to be
looking at their new $999 development units. I hope Apple
sends that to them welded shut with a BOMB inside set to go off
if they pry it open. And, to be fair, a warning label. Intel
inside... :-)
writers who truly understand what they write about.
All of the others are simply hacks trying to make a buck.
This guy is either ignorant or a moron. Not only has binary translation been done before successfully, but it was Apple that did it!
Now on to the reason to hire new journalists. Shortly there after in the same article you fine and I quote, "Apple, though not known for bending over backward to support users of older Macs, has some experience helping users with processor transitions. When it changed from Motorola 680x0 processors to PowerPC in 1994, it included emulation software that would let users run the older software on the newer machines."
This emulation software the author refers to is none other than binary translation software. Here the author of the article contradicts his own analyst but never bothers to point it out. One could wonder if the author of the article even bothered to read what the analyst wrote! Talk about shoddy journalism, you guys need a new journalist, a new editor, or both!
transition. It was REMARKABLY successful. By the second
round of PPC machines (mine was a lowly 8100) all the 68k stuff
was running faster than it ever did natively.
Also, all the stories about how Apple looses customers with
every transition are totally inacurrate. The losses are much
more closely correlated with M$ and Intel successes. Intel have
made a great deal more out of the old x86 than we ever thought
possible (and did a lot better than it looked like they ever did in
the mid nineties when PPC was completely eclipsing Pentiums.
Of late, PPC has been doing well to keep up, and our hardware
advantages (chip advantages at least) have dwindled.
But the 68k emulation??? It all STILL RUNS TODAY!!! EVEN IN
CLASSIC!!! Bzzzzzt! Buy a clue.
I bet there are some emergency meetings at M$, and I bet the
Mac BU are not the ONLY people there that are going to be
looking at their new $999 development units. I hope Apple
sends that to them welded shut with a BOMB inside set to go off
if they pry it open. And, to be fair, a warning label. Intel
inside... :-)
writers who truly understand what they write about.
All of the others are simply hacks trying to make a buck.
user, people think the chip set is related to todays security issues.
It isn't Who knows why, maybe some sort of techno-urban rumor.
Intel has had its missteps that they have learned from. Remember
the divide by zero error that gave you an answer of 256?!
Oh I wish I had a crystal ball.
user, people think the chip set is related to todays security issues.
It isn't Who knows why, maybe some sort of techno-urban rumor.
Intel has had its missteps that they have learned from. Remember
the divide by zero error that gave you an answer of 256?!
Oh I wish I had a crystal ball.
However, a lot of software spends it's time running inside system libraries or the kernel software itself. That software will be compiled native to the intel chip. So, there won't be quite as big a performance hit as what's feared.
Another thing: the major 3rd-party software vendors for apple (most notably Adobe) have already voiced their support to port and recompile their software for native intel chips. And apple will certainly port it's own applications to navtive intel. So most users will be running native software anyways, as long as they pay for the Adobe upgrades.
However, a lot of software spends it's time running inside system libraries or the kernel software itself. That software will be compiled native to the intel chip. So, there won't be quite as big a performance hit as what's feared.
Another thing: the major 3rd-party software vendors for apple (most notably Adobe) have already voiced their support to port and recompile their software for native intel chips. And apple will certainly port it's own applications to navtive intel. So most users will be running native software anyways, as long as they pay for the Adobe upgrades.
http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/06/08/saying/index.php
http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/06/08/saying/index.php
grammar school) English class !!
- "Smart Move" - "Smart Writer???"
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by Al Feldzamen
June 10, 2005 5:12 AM PDT
- "I think their wrong." ??? Send this guy back to high school (or
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- Give it a rest
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by Andrew J Glina
June 10, 2005 6:53 AM PDT
- This is not grammer school. Try to listen to peoples opinions instead of picking on their English skills.
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(64 Comments)grammar school) English class !!