[Leica] Mac operating system compatibility question

[john at mcmaster.co.nz (John McMaster)]

Sorry that is not strictly true, there has been a dropping of support for 
Classic OS apps over the years. 

What 10.7 does is drop support for PowerPC apps, probably as only x64 OS. In 
10.6 and earlier there was Rosetta which allowed PPC apps to run on Intel. 
You can check which apps are PPC, Intel or Intel 64 - not in front of a Mac 
at the moment so not sure if System Profiler > Software or in Activity 
Monitor. 

I have to say that I have one new machine on 10.7 but am not rushing to 
update the two more powerful ones from 10.6.....

john

________________________________________

Not only do the new Airs come with 10.7, it is a particular build (with 
matching 10.7.1 update). However the new Airs have much better  CPUs  (I 
have a 13" i7) than last years.  It is now over a decade since OSX came into 
production, quite good support I would say?

What do you need for travel that will not run? Mine has minimal installs, 
just Lightroom, Office 2011, Firefox, VLC and a couple of utilities, not 
needing much else.....

john

-----Original Message-----

I regularly use two Mac computers, an older 12" aluminum Powerbook, and a 
reasonably modern Intel 20" iMac. Each has a different operating system 
which has been updated to the latest version. The 12" Powerbook uses OS 
10.4. The iMac, OS 10.6. I have been contemplating getting an 11" Mac Air 
for travel. I understand that the OS loaded on the new Mac Airs is Lion (OS
10.7) which will not run most of the legacy software I have on the older 
Macs. Indeed I have legacy software dating back to the Mac 128 and I have an 
older computer (Powerbook Firewire, OS 9) in the event I need to run one of 
those programs. Indeed some are quite good and I wish that emulators were 
available for the older systems on the new computers.
Here is my specific question: Is there a way of loading OS 10.6 on the newer 
Mac Air to keep it compatible with the software I currently use? Or must I 
buy buy one of last year's Mac Airs with OS 10.6?
Larry Z