Apple's Intel Move... Early Details and Notes

As readers digest yesterday's announcement about Apple's move to Intel. Here are some notes gathered about the upcoming transition.

- It appears Rosetta, Apple's Intel-Mac PowerPC emulator which was demonstrated at WWDC does not support AltiVec (Velocity Engine) according to Game developers.

- The new Intel-Macs may likely support Windows in a dual-boot capacity, assuming Microsoft provides software support:

Apple also confirmed that they would not stop customers from running Windows on the Intel-based Mac, although the Mac OS will not run on another PC.

Alternatively, Windows could potentially be run in a window under Mac OS X in a Virtual PC-type environment (not emulated, at full speed). Older users may realize this may cause some problems with potential software development. It has been said that one large reason for the demise of IBM's OS/2 was due to its support of Windows applications and the ability to dual boot into Windows. Developers were said to be reluctant to spend time on OS/2 specific applications when OS/2 users could typically also run Windows.

- Rosetta will not support programs written for Mac OS 8 or OS 9. Schiller is quoted as saying that no definitive plans to address Classic mode support have been made but "it's certainly not very high on the priority list."

- Trivia: Apple has recycled the name "Rosetta". It was previously used as their in-house handwriting recognizer for the Newton.

- Don't expect benchmarks soon. The developer's transition kit agreement which provides a PowerMac with an Intel processor for $999 has many conditions. One including:

You also agree not to make any changes or alterations to the Developer Transition System, not to publish or release the results of any benchmark tests run on the Developer Transition System...