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Issue 13.6 ('Stay Out of Jail')
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64-Bit Conversion

Dealing with Converting Your App to 64-Bit

Issue: 13.6 (November/December 2015)
Author: Sam Rowlands
Author Bio: Sam is the code monkey behind Ohanaware Software.
Article Description: No description available.
Article Length (in bytes): 15,048
Starting Page Number: 21
Article Number: 13603
Related Link(s): None

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## History and why 64-bit conversion is needed

Older Mac users may recall that this is the fourth time that Apple has changed processor architecture. Back in the mid-nineties, Apple changed from the Motorola 68K architecture to the PowerPC architecture. In the early naughties (the 2000s), PowerPC went 64-bit (although I don't recall if Xojo adopted it). In the mid-naughties, Apple adopted 32-bit intel, and I know that Xojo adopted that, as it's what we're using today. Finally, in the late naughties, Apple adopted 64-bit Intel chips. Mac OS X 10.7 was the first 64-bit-only release of OS X.

For those of us who experienced the PowerPC to Intel transition, you'll recall that while PowerPC apps ran on Intel machines, they were not as fast as native apps.

So a 64-bit Xojo is the only way forward, especially now that Apple has started to make certain new functionality 64-bit-only and in some cases has removed 32-bit functionality.

Going 64-bit has several advantages. The most significant is that apps are no longer limited to 4GB of memory, and while 4GB is still quite a lot, with modern day image processing it's easily breached. Staying up-to-date with Apple is the second key advantage as their latest technology is all aimed at 64-bit. The last reason is that one day Apple will switch off 32-bit support and if the application isn't 64-bit-ready, it's finished (although we're still able to partially use old Carbon-based apps from the early naughties).

If you're using pure Xojo code, everything should be fine. Most of the plugin vendors are working hard to ensure that their plugins will be 64-bit ready upon 64-bit Xojo's release.
