Surely its performance will improve even more by release time. Fact is, figuring out how to get OS X to run old software is a pretty amazing piece of engineering. The answer is software within OS X that acts as a separate platform on which old programs can operate. The platform is called Classic, and it mimics the current OS 9 flawlessly. And you can drag, copy, and paste information between them.
Classic does have a major drawback.
It won't let you tap into any of OS X's powerful new features, such as the ability to run more than one program simultaneously. Nor will programs running in Classic take on the gorgeous new look of OS X's Aqua interface, with its throbbing blue buttons and transparent windows. Apple purposely disabled Classic from using these features to force developers to rewrite their applications for the new platform. Without them, OS X will fail, despite its winning looks and powerful new features. Right now, the jury is out on how many developers will write for OS X. Plenty of them are oohing and aahing over the new system, but few are actually writing software for it.