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General discussion

Rosetta and Lion

Jun 11, 2011 10:55PM PDT

I have read that Lion will not support Rosetta and that AppleWorks - that neat clean office suite will no longer be functional. I just bought a new 27" iMac running Snow Leopard. If I continue to use AppleWorks on this and open Rosetta to do so, when I upgrade to Lion, will I be able to
1. remove Rosetta or will it automatically be removed?
2. still be able to open the old AppleWorks documents by File>Open With>Pages or Microsoft Office?

Discussion is locked

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I think it's still a little unclear
Jun 12, 2011 12:46AM PDT

I think it's still a little unclear about Rosetta and also Java for people upgrading, but your best bet would be to find someone running one of the developer preview releases.

There's basically two ways it could go.

1: Both Rosetta and Java are grandfathered in, meaning that the installer doesn't remove them, but they're no longer maintained and could potentially stop working with any subsequent update due to changes made.

2: The installer removes both of them and there's no option to reinstall

As for whether or not Pages or Word or even LibreOffice/OpenOffice Writer will open these old files probably depends on just how old they are. AppleWorks went away a LONG time ago. iWorks came out around 2004-2005 if memory serves, and I believe AppleWorks had been abandoned long before that. If I'm thinking of the right program, it was an old OS Classic program, that Apple did a minimal port of for OS X, and stopped including with new systems about the time they stopped installing OS 9 in a dual boot config. You'll have to check which file types Pages, Word and Writer will open, and probably want to make sure you have all three on your system to figure out which one works best. You may also want to check to see if AppleWorks offers any other format options for saving. If you can get it into a reasonably modern format, such as Office 97-2003, then you shouldn't have much difficulty opening it in any of those three programs.

Just as a general rule though, you need to stop clinging to old software for so long. At some point the pragmatism of ensuring that you can continue to use these files indefinitely needs to outweigh the stubborn and/or cheap part of you that says what you have is working fine. Some degree of that is admirable, but you have to balance it with the fact that the rest of the world is moving on, and your computer won't last forever. Even solid state components eventually fail. Skipping one, maybe two versions isn't a huge deal, but once you go beyond that you're asking for trouble.

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From what I see on the forums
Jun 12, 2011 4:07AM PDT

Lion does not install or recognize Rosetta. Because of this, applications with PPC code cannot be opened and an error message appears at launch. One poster said that he has installed Rosetta from the Snow Leopard install package but opening a PPC application still did not work. The major problem people see in this scenario is related to various upgrades, like Photoshop CS5 from CS2. The upgrade may fail because the original app may be a PPC one. One workaround would be to use another emulator, although nobody's sure which one would work with Lion. The other one would be to upgrade applications on your computer to Universal at least and Intel at best. The good news as I see it is that Snow Leopard is a quite capable OS with no major need to be changed right now, so one can keep it for a while. The Rosetta problem would mainly affect owners of new computers with Lion pre-installed.
A drawback of Lion upgrade (at least a temporary one) could be a necessity to tweak some apps that are Universal or Intel anyway, like it happened with SL. So, probably, until the new system is tested with major apps and green lights switched on, it would be unwise to upgrade.

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Or
Jun 12, 2011 4:54AM PDT

Or, it's a bit on the overkill side, but you could just run a copy of 10.6 in a VM. Hate to even suggest it since it's such complete overkill for only one or two apps, but it is a possibility. Since Apple doesn't have a separate upgrade package, every copy of OS X comes with a license, unlike Windows, so there shouldn't even be any legal issues.

And Rosetta was/is not made by Apple, so it's possible the company that
made it will come out with a Lion version at some point. It would just
be a third party download as opposed to being bundled with the OS.

But it has been what, like 5-6 years since Apple transitioned from PPC? This time people were given a graceful transition period, unlike the m68K to PPC transition where it was just a swift kick to the teeth. It really is time to let go of the PPC apps.

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agree on all points
Jun 12, 2011 12:58PM PDT

I just checked my two computers and found only two apps that were made for PPC; one was easily replaced, the other one (InStat will probably be updated soon). For people on tight budgets could be a problem to upgrade but SL is good enough, IMHO. And let us hope that Rosetta's creator would update it.

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Why cling to AppleWorks
Jun 12, 2011 1:00PM PDT

I have been using Mac since OS 6 when AppleWorks was ClarisWorks. I can open those documents now with Pages, Microsoft Office and save them in either format for the most part (some that combine word processing and drawings or schematics are a minor problem), and I have all the latest iterations of Pages and Office. But what I miss in those programs is the clean, neat interface that AppleWorks has.

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Which is all well and good
Jun 12, 2011 1:40PM PDT

Which is all well and good, but the laws of entropy apply to software same as everything else.

When it comes to software development you have two primary choices on how you want to handle things. The first option is the one Microsoft opts for. They almost never get rid of an API and try to maintain as much backwards compatibility as is humanly possible. The problem with this, is that you have this ever growing pile of old code that becomes an increasing liability. Many of the security problems with Windows stem from the fact that a lot of the underpinnings of the OS are from a time before security was really as important as it was now. You have all this old code written before software security was taken seriously, and you can't really change it too much without breaking a bunch of old programs. Sometimes programs tend to rely on a specific bug being present, and if you fix that bug, the program breaks. Not to mention that people will move on to other jobs, and pretty soon there's no one left who really understands the code, so it becomes this kind of black box.

You could think of it like trying to interface some new circuitry with something designed 10-20 years ago. It can be done, but wouldn't you rather just rip out the old circuitry and replace it with newer, more modern, circuitry? Imagine trying to interface an IC with vacuum tubes.

Then there's the approach Apple has taken, which is fairly regular pruning of the API list, getting rid of those that are infrequently used or have been supplanted by newer versions. The upside of this is that the codebase is kept smaller, more manageable, and better security. The downside is that it means old apps will fall to the wayside.

Grand scheme of things, Apple has chosen the better of the two bad options. You can't have both, and so either things remain static and stagnant, or you pick one of the two options outlined above. Neither is ideal, but then neither is an OS that never changes. Doesn't grow to meet the changing desires of its users. An OS like that quickly falls by the wayside in favor of something that DOES cater to the changing needs and desires of its users.

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New OS less functionality = Good for you
Jul 10, 2011 7:45AM PDT

Nice writing there... What was it again you do with your computer? Use it as a typewriter?

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We can do that. The technology makes it possible!
Jul 10, 2011 7:57AM PDT
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You've had what
Jul 10, 2011 10:22AM PDT

You've had what, 5-6 years to transition away from this software and didn't do so? I do believe Apple has said right from the beginning that Rosetta would be a temporary thing, and even if they didn't, it shouldn't have taken much to see that sooner or later it would make sense to get rid of it.

This is hardly like back in the day Apple switched from m68K to PPC and there was no migration path, it was just a swift kick to the teeth. If you bought a shiny new PPC system all your old m68K apps wouldn't run, and developers would have to, at the very least, recompile their apps for the new PPC architecture. It's even been quite a bit better than the change from OS 9 to OS X, where Apple made a clean break with a completely new OS. No source or binary compatibility of any kind, and the only backwards compatibility offered was to dual boot with OS 9.

Since clearly you're far too busy feeling sorry for yourself to try to understand the reasoning behind such a decision, let's make this very simple and blunt: Times change. You don't have to like the changes, but you do have to accept them. Your opinion is not the only one that matters. So like it, don't like it, none of us really cares. Just suck it up and stop with the whole self-important woe-is-me routine. We should have all outgrown this sort of behavior decades ago.

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To OclairMonanari, post deleted.
Jul 12, 2011 4:55AM PDT
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Upgrading isn't always an option
Jul 22, 2011 12:46AM PDT

One app that requires Rosetta is Quicken 2007. There aren't any real alternatives at present. iBank is OK but lacks some functionality that Quicken has. The new version of Quicken (Essentials) is so stripped down that even Intuit recommends sticking with the 2007 version if you like its features.

Since I'm a Quicken user, I'll be sticking with Snow Leopard until either the Rosetta problem is resolved or a real alternative to Quicken 2007 comes along.

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Agree
Jul 22, 2011 7:08PM PDT

I am in a similar situation. Have been using a simple stat program, InStat ($125). It is a PPC one and the developer states that an update will not come in a foreseeable future. They offer instead a better one, which is a Universal app, but its price is at least $450. Many users would not be able to pay that much. A lot of people hope for a third-party emulator for Lion...

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Transition reality
Jul 29, 2011 12:53AM PDT

Actually, there was an migration path from m68K to PPC for Macs; it was called the Mac 68K emulator and it shipped with all PowerPC versions of the Classed Mac OS and was even part of the Classic Environment for MacOS X. This emulator was so good that it was able to run a 1986 program called World Builder (written by Bill Appleton of SuperCard fame) which had been written in 68K assembly!

Furthermore unlike the PowerPC to Intel migration there was a huge hardware overlap. The first PowerPC Mac came out
March, 1994 but Apple continued to make new 68K macs in the LC, Performa and Quadra lines clear into late 1995 with the LC 580 being the last 68K Mac to be discontinued (April, 1996)

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Appleworks data
Mar 1, 2012 12:07PM PST

Pages opens most of all my old Appleworks applications except DATA, which is the one app I want most because I have used it for many years and have stored information about many thousands of photographic negatives. Recopying all the old records would require days of tedious work. Anybody out there got a solution? The only simple quick solution I could think of is to maintain a laptop with
Snow Leopard.

"AppleData"
Running Lion 10.7.2

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A solution, perhaps.
Mar 1, 2012 8:53PM PST

I faced a similar problem and got around it by exporting my Appleworks data to a file and importing it into numbers.

Not quite the same but unfortunately there is not a decent, easy to use, database for Mac OS X Lion (don't say Bento)


P

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Thanks
Mar 1, 2012 11:30PM PST

Thanks. I'll see if your solution works a little like Appleworks data, which was most wonderfully useful because FIND will instantly locate a record. And it was easy to add, modify and delete records. I haven't tried BENTO. I take it you think BENTO is not a good choice.

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I didn't think so,
Mar 2, 2012 7:53AM PST

but your mileage may vary


P

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Rosetta and Lion
Jul 22, 2011 8:43PM PDT
Lion will not run any PPC software . PERIOD!