If you’re a Mac user, you may know virtualization from apps like VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop, both of which let you run Windows apps while you’re also running macOS. It’s virtual reality for computers: There’s an entire pretend computer that’s actually a program on a different computer.

The Linux server I run my entire business on is, in fact, one of many virtualized servers running on a much larger piece of hardware. When you think about emulation (if you think about it at all), it’s probably in the context of downloading software that lets you play old games or even revisit ancient computing platforms, all thanks to software that’s probably still under copyright but has often been utterly abandoned.īut emulation (and its cousin, virtualization) can also be used legally to do all sorts of useful things. Your current long-in-the-tooth favorites, and old friends you said goodbye to years ago, can live on and still be useful, thanks to the miraculous digital afterlife known as virtualization. It’s been a long time coming, but having your Mac tell you that some of your apps will stop working brings some immediacy to the issue: If there’s a 32-bit Mac app you rely on to get work done, and it’s no longer being updated, on forthcoming versions of macOS it will only work with compromises, and ultimately it won’t work at all.ĭon’t fear the death of your old software, my friends.

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