[squeak-dev] Apple starting to alert users that it will end 32-bit app support on the Mac

Eliot Miranda eliot.miranda at gmail.com
Thu Apr 12 14:05:05 UTC 2018


Hi Bert,


> On Apr 12, 2018, at 6:03 AM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
> 
> If that's indeed the case we need to make a 64 bit VM for 32 bit images. I think this should be just a matter of picking the right compiler options.

How so?  AFAIA it is not.  It means, for example, changing every memory access for an instance variable from 64 to 32 bits.  It is non-trivial.

What /is/ trivial is detecting that an image's word size is unsupported on a platform and offering to convert it, a process that takes less than a minute for typical images.

If we go this route we would include a headless 64-bit image that converts 32-bit images to 64-bits on 64-bit only systems, and a headless 32-bit image that converts 64-bit images to 32-bits on 32-bit only systems.

IIRC 64 to 32 bit conversion needs to be written, but I think it is trivial compared to building a 64-bit vm for 32-bit images.

Of course this applies only to Spur images.  We don't have a way of automatically converting V3 images to Spur.  Yo do that going forward we may have to depend on OS virtual machines, but somehow I can't see an ARMv8 Mac supporting x86 VMs like Parallels.  This could be the end of an interoperability era.

> 
> Otherwise we won't have any way of opening regular 32 bit images on Macs.
> 
> - Bert -
> 
>> On 12 April 2018 at 14:47, Fabio Niephaus <lists at fniephaus.com> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> According to [1], Apple has started to alert users when they open a 32-bit app on the Mac and I've seen such a dialog today myself when opening a 32-bit Squeak image.
>> 
>> It looks like it is time to make 64-bit the default, maybe with the next release? The Pharo community is already doing that for quite some time, so I'm wondering if there is any reason not to do the same?
>> 
>> Best,
>> Fabio
>> 
>> [1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/11/apple-starting-to-alert-users-that-it-will-end-32-bit-app-support/
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
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