Old FMP versions on Intel iMac (Rosetta)

[iMarcW]

Anyone tried running FileMaker 6 client on one of the Intel iMacs yet? It makes me nervous that FMI won't even guarantee version 8 will work with Rosetta emulation until it is "certified and tested," although there have been some reports of v.8 working.

[iMarcW]

So far, only one report from a Steve Boone on Macintouch, reporting that it works, no other details. I'm not liking what I'm hearing about Rosetta emulation, however. I don't think it's as fast as promised, especially when opening/closing and switching to/from PowerPC apps. I'm going to put off my Intel Mac purchases for now and get a G5 iMac at $200 off.

[Fenton]

I'm using an iMac Intel with Filemaker 8. I just loaded Filemaker 6, and it appears to work fine. Not a very scientific test, not for production anyway. It's true that for now FileMaker will not be as fast as on a non-Intel machine of the same GHz. But I went from a slower machine (1.25 GHz), and the new one is much faster. Another plus to the new machine is the faster video card, 128 MB. I don't know that FileMaker uses much of that however.

Overall, it's a mixed bag. But the Apple apps which are Universal Binaries are very fast. So when Filemaker comes out with a UB version it's going to be very much worth it. I don't know when that'll be however. And then there will be the problem that all your plug-ins will need to be UB also at that time. Right now though it all runs fine in Rosetta.

My biggest problem software-wise right now is waiting for UB versions of utilities I commonly used, such as Default Folder, Fruit Menu, and MaxMenus. Most of this type of software, Preference Panes, etc., won't run in Rosetta. I've found Butler, which replaces MaxMenus very well. And for mouse software, I'm using USB Overdrive, giving up on Logitech (Apple's mouse is OK, but I like my buttons -).

Most other apps, such as Skype, GoToMyPC (web access), etc., work fine. It may be the bleeding edge, but it's fairly painless.

(P.S. I have to keep my old machine handy however, because Cisco's VPNClient doesn't run on Rosetta.)

Edited February 7, 2006 by Guest