In order to make this move while still supporting all of the Mac’s existing software, including its operating system, Apple needed to create an emulator for 68K instructors that would run on the PowerPC. Motorola’s 68K chips were losing steam, and in order to keep up with IBM PC compatibles running Intel processors, Apple got together with Motorola and IBM to define a new processor architecture, the PowerPC. A timely little story by Hansen Hsu from the Computer History Museum about a previous Apple chip transition:Īpple did this the very first time in the early 1990s, with the move from Motorola 68000 (a.k.a.
