Transitive's QuickTransit

Apple Computer implemented a dynamic translating emulator for M68K code in their PowerPC line of Macintoshes, which achieved a very high level of reliability, performance and compatibility (see Mac 68K emulator). This allowed Apple to bring the machines to market with only a partially native operating system, and end users could adopt the new, faster architecture without risking their investment in software. Partly because the emulator was so successful, many parts of the operating system remained emulated. A full transition to a PowerPC native operating system (OS) was not made until the release of Mac OS X (10.0) in 2001, and within this new OS the "Classic" runtime environment still offers the emulation capability on PowerPC Macs. Also, the Rosetta translation layer included in releases of Mac OS 10.4 for Intel-based Macs, which is used to ease the transition from the PPC to x86, is an example of dynamic translation. Developed for Apple by Transitive, the Rosetta software is an implementation of Transitive's QuickTransit solution, which can be used to dynamically translate between platforms that include SPARC, PowerPC, MIPS, Itanium and x86.