Over on both MacVoices and MacNotables we get more than a few emails asking if there will ever be an emulator or any kind of support for Mac OS 9 applications in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. The simple answer to that is:

No.

Classic is dead in Leopard and it just doesn’t make economic sense for Apple to continue to support an OS version that is now years out of date. From a user perspective that might annoy you, but from a business perspective it is easily understandable. Continuing to dedicate resources to supporting OS 9 or the Classic environment doesn’t generate any revenue for either Apple or the software developers who haven’t upgraded their software.

Whether you understand or agree, the fact is that you’re not going to see Claris Emailer or any of your Classic apps running on your shiny new (or even not-so-new) Leopard machine.

It is always best if you can migrate your projects from old software to new for a host of reasons, but if you are one of those who have Classic apps that is mission-cricital, or even is one that you just don’t want to live without, here are a couple options to keep you reasonably happy.

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