One of the remaining great problems in the computing world is software being tied to one or other platform. You write a program for Windows on an i386, and that's all it runs on. You write it for Mac, and that's all it runs on. OK, its possible to do ports or try to use languages like Java that claim platform independence, but more or less once you write for one platform, your app is stuck there.

Transitive Corp. of Los Gatos, California, claims its QuickTransit software offers the solution. This software provides a near-universal emulator (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,64914,00.html) that allows software developed for one platform to run on any other. The company also claims that this emulator creates little or no performance hit.

"QuickTransit will allow the next-generation Xbox (which will have a Mac-like PowerPC chip) to run first-generation Xbox software (which was written for an Intel chip). The company has shown a graphically demanding game -- a Linux version of Quake III -- running on an Apple PowerBook."

Will this work for games too?

I dare say games are one of the biggest uses for that.

This would be huge for the mac platform. I think it's too good to be true though.