# CherryOS: Yet another Mac OS on PC emulator



## ElDiabloConCaca (Oct 12, 2004)

There's a new player in the "I wanna run Mac OS on my PC!" arena.  They claim an 80% performance level.  I'll believe it when I see it.

http://www.cherryos.com/frontpage.aspx


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## DJ Rep (Oct 12, 2004)

Interesting!


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## kanecorp (Oct 12, 2004)

yea there site has tanked for now.


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## fryke (Oct 12, 2004)

I read their site. Was full of typoes. _If_ they can achieve this and it _does_ run at 80% of the host's speed, I'll buy a 3 GHz machine soon to act as my Mac OS X Panther Server... 50 USD certainly isn't too much for such a software. However: Until any positive reviews are in, I think this is just a hoax. 80%? Too good to be true.


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## Viro (Oct 12, 2004)

If the apps rely on Altivec, technically it's impossible for it to run at 80% performance compared to the Mac.


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## soulseek (Oct 12, 2004)

why would any1 wanna run OS X on a PC ??? u gotta be sick.
if u want the job done right get a mac !!!


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## kanecorp (Oct 12, 2004)

soulseek said:
			
		

> why would any1 wanna run OS X on a PC ??? u gotta be sick.
> if u want the job done right get a mac !!!




well i have a mac desktop, but a pc notebook...i'd love to has osx on the notebook...

getting a mac notebook isn't an option for me.


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## ScottW (Oct 12, 2004)

FYI - I contacted these folks to request a copy to do a story on it. They said that a DEMO version would be available, along with the shopping cart in the next few days. Apparently, they underestimated Slashdot.org and are moving to new server space.

I am with many of you, questionable at best that this really works. But, willing to give it a try and review it as soon as possible.


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## Veljo (Oct 12, 2004)

I've never been happy with emulators. I mean, go for something that needs low requirements like a Super Nintendo game SNES9X is fine, but something like an OS never runs like it's supposed to. Hell, Virtual PC still runs like absolute crap.

I don't believe for a second that it could run at 80% speed...


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## HateEternal (Oct 12, 2004)

Did anyone watch the video?

Its pretty lame and slow, but in the end as soon as OS X starts loading, it ends.


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## symphonix (Oct 12, 2004)

Yes, there are typos all through their site, and very big problems with the server.

Even more interesting is that they have "Customer Feedback" statements on their homepage telling us how much they benefit from using the product ... interesting since the product was only released today!

And anyone who claims that you can benefit from the "superior speed of PCs" clearly has no concept of what it is they are marketing. There's also no real info in the form of whitepapers or FAQs, and I have yet to see a screenshot. And I have to wonder about a company that posts the message "... also someone is trying to hack us! Please try again later." on their site.

The company behind it has only one prior product, and that is a little-used video codec that I hadn't even heard of before.

I expect this will be a shoddy repackaging of Pear and/or VMware that simply doesn't work. I also wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be a hoax.


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## symphonix (Oct 13, 2004)

I've been researching this on SlashDot and a few other forums and can now say with *reasonable* confidence that this is a HOAX.

The software *is* PearPC, repackaged, and the proprietor behind this software is apparently posting supportive comments on a number of forums under various aliases.

I think these clowns should be sued by the Open-Source advocacy groups for such a gross abuse of the open-source license.


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## ScottW (Oct 13, 2004)

I have been doing my research as well. In fact, I found a download link for the demo client, and all it was, was a Windows command line ZIP file. Granted, it may be a place holder file, but still.

What is really interesting on the whole thing... is that it never really "shows" it in action. If it is "so fast" as they say, why not show it in action. Even if it is SLOW, show it in action. Having it BOOT doesn't really prove anything.

I was quite surprised to get a response from them so quickly, but I was equally surprised they didn't seem interested in the publicity that, if indeed this was REAL, they would want in a serious way. 

They are also the makers of some PDF2HTML software, I think it's on mbloom.com (using memory only).  

How this all unfolds should be interesting non-the-less.


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## soulseek (Oct 13, 2004)

ScottW said:
			
		

> FYI - I contacted these folks to request a copy to do a story on it. They said that a DEMO version would be available, along with the shopping cart in the next few days. Apparently, they underestimated Slashdot.org and are moving to new server space.
> 
> I am with many of you, questionable at best that this really works. But, willing to give it a try and review it as soon as possible.



http://apple-x.net/modules.php?op=m...=article&sid=1143&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

im sure ure dissapointed that the guys at applexnet even got an interview while u got nothing. it seems that they are important...
but then again they dont make any false predictions on iBox, iPods etc...


ANyways back on topic. in the interview they mention that a 3.2Ghz pentium is equivalent to a 900mghz G4....now even if that was true... it seems rather pathetic


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## ScottW (Oct 13, 2004)

Looks like they are not even ready... this link shows a "Trial" version of CherryOS, however... it is the description of their other PDF2HTML product.

http://www.cherryos.com/downloads.aspx

Documentation:

http://www.cherryos.com/default.aspx?id=3


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## ScottW (Oct 13, 2004)

Good thing I downloaded it...

http://demo.macosx.com/CherryOS.pdf


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## HateEternal (Oct 13, 2004)

http://www.cherryos.com/#

I cant wait to get home where I have speakers and listen to what this dude is saying.


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## fryke (Oct 13, 2004)

Ah, we should just stop even looking at the project until some user reviews are in (which I expect will happen when hell freezes over...).


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## bobw (Oct 13, 2004)

> im sure ure dissapointed that the guys at applexnet even got an interview while u got nothing. it seems that they are important...
> but then again they dont make any false predictions on iBox, iPods etc...



*soulseek*

Read the article. They thought they were giving an interview to someone at Apple.



> UPDATE: So I decided to call these guys and ask them what was really going on. I talked to an unidentified woman first; she handed it off promptly to their press contact, Jim Kartes, who seemed to get the idea that I was from Apple Computer, not Apple-X.net. Oh well.


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## bobw (Oct 13, 2004)

Apple Computer, Inc. 
Software License Agreement for Mac OS X 
Single Use License 

2. Permitted Use and Restrictions 
A. This license allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time.


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## fryke (Oct 13, 2004)

But I'm sure _if_ people could run OS X at decent speeds on their cheapo PCs, they wouldn't care about these license issues. They also wouldn't bother to buy a box. They'd download an ISO from the same source they take their MP3z from. And that'd hurt Apple, of course. But first, again: Where there's just hot air, there's no software. Right now.


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## Ripcord (Oct 13, 2004)

From the research performed by several people so far, it's very likely that the "demo" versions of CherryOS have actually been modified versions of PearPC.  There's fairly compelling evidence of this (so essentially he'd be charging $50 for the nice installer, wizard, and UI improvements).

If true, this probably means it's a hoax to the extent that:  Claimed "80%" speeds are **extremely** unlikely, as even with major architectural improvements the PearPC team believes it will only improve to 10% efficiency, the "not using any PearPC code" claim by the author is false, that they'll be violating copyrights if they don't return source code to the community, etc.

I personally hope that the claims are true.  I've seen too many of these kind of out-of-the-blue, too-good-to-be-true softwares to believe it (anyone remember the fractal compression stuff back in 1990 that was supposed to allow you to back up your 100MB hard disk to a 720KB floppy?  And even seemed to work?  Yeah, hoax =), though it's probably not an outright scam.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Oct 13, 2004)

Heh... Ripcord, that brings back memories of the days of DOS 3.3 and a "fad" that actually worked -- it allowed the new generation of PCs with 3.5" floppy drives to format a standard 1.44MB floppy disk to 2.88MB -- and it worked.  You could even read the disks on other computers, as I did many times.

CherryOS, unfortunately, is guilty until proven innocent in this case.  You can't make bold claims and fail to back them up.  Give us the demo software if it's really that good and we'll see for ourselves how well it performs.


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## Ripcord (Oct 14, 2004)

I wonder how many remember buying single-hole punches just so we could add an extra "notch" to turn those "single-sided" 5 1/4" floppies into "double-sided".  Hey, from 180K to 360K, for half the price!


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## blue&whiteman (Oct 14, 2004)

80% speed is a joke.  emulation of any kind couldn't reach that mark.  

if it really uses 80% cpu power I will eat my dirty right sock!  

even if all this is true it would never go far as apple legal would have it snuffed.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Oct 14, 2004)

From what I've read around the web, it seems that this may turn out to be a hoax -- a repackaged PearPC that doesn't live up to expectations.  It seems that it may be a ploy to get people to visit their website to "beta test" their streaming video application.  If you notice, their video for CherryPC is some sort of Java application -- apparently, written by the same guy that packaged CherryPC.

What a scam!  False advertising in order to test their media server's load capacity and whatnot.  I doubt we'll be seeing any more of CherryPC, and, if we do, I think it will never live up to its claims.

...and yeah, I remember those punch devices for 5 1/4" floppies... hehe... pay $10 for a pack of 5 180k floppies, or pay $15 for a pack of 5 180k floppies and a double-sided punch... if only something like that existed today to turn 4.7GB DVD-Rs into double-sided DVD-Rs!


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## blue&whiteman (Oct 14, 2004)

http://www.kevinrose.com/index.php/weblog/comments/106/

i'm "zen.state"

I started a mac vs. pc thing for fun.  I love to raz pc users just to get some back for us.


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## ScottW (Oct 17, 2004)

http://wiredblogs.tripod.com/cultofmac/index.blog?entry_id=482060

This site is now offline.


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## Ripcord (Oct 17, 2004)

Who would've thought?


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## texanpenguin (Oct 18, 2004)

From http://starbulletin.com/2004/10/15/news/index2.html



> Kryeziu says he is not worried.
> 
> "Our lawyers have looked at this and say we're in the clear. We wrote this from scratch and we're clean as a whistle," he said.



I can't see that this could POSSIBLY be true, considering the fact that had they EVER made it work, which their manual (which is shoddy at best) implies, they've breached their Mac OS X End-User Licensing Agreement?


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