OS X Tiger Support for PowerPC (Power PC, PPC)

L

LilBambi

Junior Member
Hi,

I want to formally request that Parallels reconsider support for the PowerPC (Power PC, PPC) version of Apple's line of computers running OS X Tiger.

There are many of us still out there and many of us are not going to be going right out to buy an Intel Mac. Many of us really like the PPC.

Thanks for your consideration.
 
LilBambi,

I guess we didn't make it clear in the other thread. Parallels would have to build a whole NEW program. There is nothing similar between doing things for those two computer systems. It is like asking for your diesel truck to be made for sharp turns like the lamborghini you see on the street. Two entirely different things.
 
I do understand what I am asking for ... a Universal Binary for Parallels and/or VMWare Fusion. ;) Barring that, (due to the differences between the platforms as it were, which other Universal Binaries have somehow managed to work around) ... a separate PPC version.

There are universal binaries and/or PPC versions for many programs.

This is the first time I have EVER heard of a new separation between virtualizing and emulation.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define+virtualize+emulate&btnG=Google+Search
 
Parallels Desktop for Mac does NOT emulate the Intel processor required to run Windows and some other OSes. In an overly simplified way of saying, Parallels Desktop for Mac organizes things so Windows (or Linux) and Mac OS X, at the same time, share the same processor which is an Intel one, and virtualizes the remaining components of a common PC.

Building a software like Parallels Desktop for Mac so it would run on a PPC Mac is absolutely not a matter of building a Universal Binary version or not. It would require to emulate the Intel processor using the PPC processor, in addition to virtualize the architecture of a common PC.

Microsoft Virtual PC 7 is such a tool to emulate a PC on your PPC Mac. You don't need Parallels to redo the same again. I used Virtual PC 7 successfully before replacing my PPC Mac with an Intel Mac. It was of course much slower (processor emulation is a heavy task).
 
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LilBambi said:
I do understand what I am asking for ... a Universal Binary for Parallels and/or VMWare Fusion. ;) Barring that, (due to the differences between the platforms as it were, which other Universal Binaries have somehow managed to work around) ... a separate PPC version.

There are universal binaries and/or PPC versions for many programs.

This is the first time I have EVER heard of a new separation between virtualizing and emulation.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define+virtualize+emulate&btnG=Google+Search
Click to expand...

What Oliver said is correct. The architecture of the processors is different. Intel and PPC are not the same.

Take a read through this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization
 
Olivier said:
Microsoft Virtual PC 7 is such a tool to emulate a PC on your PPC Mac. You don't need Parallels to redo the same again. I used Virtual PC 7 successfully before replacing my PPC Mac with an Intel Mac. It was of course much slower (processor emulation is a heavy task).
Click to expand...

Indeed.

I am always wondering about those requests for a Parallels version for PowerPC. Virtual PC has been around for many years.
 
To chime in with yet another voice...

You want Microsoft Virtual PC.

While some programs can be just "recompiled" to run on both PPC and Intel, "virtualization" apps are not so simple. Parallels does *NO* processor-level translation. While a Universal Binary version of the main Parallels app would be possible, the virtual machine it creates would *NOT* run. (Well, if you had an old copy of Windows NT 4.0 for PowerPC, yeah, I suppose it would run.) Likewise, Virtual PC is too 'deep' a program to just recompile as a Universal Binary. It completely emulates ALL PC hardware, including the processor. It does it in such a way, that even the G5 broke compatibility. (Microsoft took over 6 months to fix Virtual PC for just a new version of a PowerPC processor.)

In short, virtualization software like Virtual PC and Parallels deal too deeply with the processor for easy cross-architecture compatibility. If Parallels were to come across an easy x86-to-PowerPC translator that was a seamless plug-in, it might be possible. But architecture translators usually aren't such simple affairs. (Not to mention the dwindling market for them.)
 
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