Carbon represents the core set of programming interfaces you can use to build Mac OS X applications that can also be deployed on Mac OS 8. Using Carbon you can take advantage of preemptive multitasking, memory protection, and dynamic resource alocation in Mac OS X while maintaining maximum source code compatibility with your current applications. Carbon includes most of the Mac OS functions that developers rely on today, while adding a small number of new functions to support Apple's goal of providing a more robust, responsive and productive computing experience for our customers.