I TRIED TO COPY AN APPLICATION FROM A MAC TO A USB. THEN I TRIED TO OPEN IT IN MY NEW MAC BUT IT SAID THAT I NEED TEH POWER PC STUFF. WHAT SHALL I DO??

First, an online etiquette point ... typing in all capital letters is shouting and some consider rude.

Starting with OS X 10.7 Lion, Apple dropped support to run PowerPC applications. There is no work around on OS X 10.7 or 10.8 systems.

PowerPC application's, however, can run under OS X 10.6 or earlier systems. On my system, I have a dual boot system set up, where one partition is OS X 10.6.8 and the other is OS X 10.7. If I need to run a PowerPC application, I boot from the OS X 10.6 partition, otherwise I use the OS X 10.7 for daily usage.

So, in order to run the PowerPC application you have, you'll need to find a system with OS X 10.6 or earlier operating system.

Before Mac switched to Intel processors in 2006 they used Power PC processors from 1994 to 2005. Power PC 601 through 604, G3, G4 and G5. Applications written for the Power PC processors need the application called Rosetta to run on Intel processors. This was part of the Operating System in 10.4 and 10.5 but was an optional install in 10.6. With 10.7 Lion Apple dropped all support for Power PC applications.

To see if you have any Power PC programs go to the Apple in the upper left corner and select About This Mac, then click on More Info. When System Profiler comes up select Applications under Software. Then look under Kind to see if any of your applications are listed as Power PC. Universal and Intel will run under Lion.

BGreg wrote:

Starting with OS X 10.7 Lion, Apple dropped support to run PowerPC applications. There is no work around on OS X 10.7 or 10.8 systems.

There are at least four "workarounds" to running PowerPC applications in Lion and Mt. Lion; some of which work better than others.

If you do not like the workarounds for your own use, at least, please do not convince the OP, and others similarly situated that they do not exist...

OP: Download version 1.5 of Voice Candy, which is working on my Mac Mini with OS X 10.7.5 Lion installed:

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There are at least four "workarounds" to running PowerPC applications in Lion and Mt. Lion; some of which work better than others.

And they are?

I must have posted it over one hundred times on this forum, but I am happy to copy over one of my typical responses to those who have the "PowerPC app not working in Lion or Mt. Lion" problem for your consideration:

Unfortunately you got caught up in the minor miracle of Rosetta. Originally licensed by Apple when it migrated from the PowerPC CPU platform that it had used from the mid-1990's until the Intel CPU platform in 2006, Rosetta allowed Mac users to continue to use their library of PPC software transparently in emulation.

However, Apple's license to continue to use this technology expired with new releases of OS X commencing with Lion (and now Mountain Lion). While educational efforts have been made over the last 6 years, the fact is that Rosetta was SO successful that many users were caught unaware UNTIL they upgraded to Lion or Mountain Lion.

Workarounds:

1. If your Mac will support it, restore OS X Snow Leopard;

2. If your Mac will support it, partition your hard drive or add an external hard drive and install Snow Leopard into it and use the "dual-boot" method to choose between your PowerPC software or Lion/Mt. Lion;

3. Upgrade your software to Intel compatible versions if they are available, or find alternative software that will open your data files, modify them and save them;

4. Install Snow Leopard Server (with Rosetta) into Parallels or VMWare Fusion for concurrent use of your PowerPC applications with Lion or Mt. Lion:

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Apple has now restarted to sell Snow Leopard Server at a 95% discount over its original price: only $19.99 + sales tax & shipping; telephone orders only, call 800-MYAPPLE (800-692-7753) - Apple Part Number: MC588Z/A

NOTE: Computer games with complex, 3D or fast motion graphics may not work well or at all in virtualization.

Workaround #3 appears to be the OP's best solution in this case.

My poor choice of words (obviously needed another cup of morning coffee). There are of course work arounds with OS X 10.6, as you posted. I should have been more specific to state that there are no options to run PowerPC code under the OS X 10.7 and 10.8 operating systems.

BGreg wrote:

I should have been more specific to state that there are no options to run PowerPC code under the OS X 10.7 and 10.8 operating systems.

If you think about it, most of the people looking to this forum for help have no idea of the literal distinction between getting their PowerPC applications to run native in Lion or Mt. Lion, or through one of the workarounds I suggest.

They just want to get access to files that they are suddenly locked out from and as quickly as possible!

So be careful not to be so negative as to have them leave our forum with the impression that they have no hope at all...

Think how frightening it is for someone who suddenly upgrades to Mountain Lion from Snow Leopard, or whose Leopard PowerMac dies and they purchase a new shinny iMac and get locked out of almost EVERYTHING!