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M4 Macs can't virtualise older macOS

(eclecticlight.co)
176 points Brajeshwar | 2 comments | 16 Nov 24 16:12 UTC | HN request time: 0.489s | source
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doomlaser ◴[16 Nov 24 16:38 UTC] No.42157271[source]▶
Come on, Apple. What are you doing? I was thinking just the other day that Apple should virtualize older iPhones within the latest iPhone system software, so you could seamlessly open old apps and games (32-bit, anyone?) in their own containerized environments. I can't think why they haven't added this feature for any reason other than money grubbing.

You could even customize the containers to be completely closed off from the rest of the iPhone—no contacts, no Internet access (or high security Internet access), etc.

Come on, Apple. Do something good for once. Oh and bring back the headphone jack.

-Mark

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InvaderFizz ◴[16 Nov 24 16:51 UTC] No.42157361[source]▶
32bit ARM and aarch64 are wildly different instruction sets. 32bit ARM may as well be x86 or MIPS as far as running it on aarch64 hardware, it is going to require just about the same level of emulation(memory models may be similar which would help, but that's about it).

Unlike x86/64, the 32bit silicon is entirely gone in most aarch64.

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DeathArrow ◴[16 Nov 24 16:55 UTC] No.42157386[source]▶
I wonder why Intel and AMD still keep the 32 bit and even 16 bit parts. Are there people still running many legacy apps?
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jerdfelt ◴[16 Nov 24 17:01 UTC] No.42157423[source]▶
Intel has proposed dropping 32-bit and 16-bit support in the future.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/t...

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1. layer8 ◴[16 Nov 24 17:16 UTC] No.42157515[source]▶
The proposal doesn’t remove 32-bit user land or (I think) virtualization.
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2. wtallis ◴[16 Nov 24 19:22 UTC] No.42158531[source]▶
X86S allows 32-bit ring3 (userland) but even VMs are stuck in long mode and only support 32-bit code for userland. Booting a VM for a 64-bit OS that has a legacy bootloader with 16-bit or 32-bit code would require software emulation of that code.