PearPC - PowerPC Architecture Emulator for PC = Mac OS X on a PC

aren't there powerpc emulators for macos <9 out yet? I don't think a 740/750 emulated cpu with 10mhz will handle macosx.
However, a very interesting project.
 
Yes, there were 68k emulators available, which only worked with < 8.5

This looks like it honest to goodness emulates a G3 or even G4 though.
 
According the the docs it emulates something like a G3, although he's working on Altivec. Obviously it's at a fairly early stage with a few bugs etc. but it's quite exciting stuff. And while this isn't maybe quite as useful, remember that it's an architecture emulator so you can run various BSDs and Linuxes too.
 
There's also the question where this will lead. I don't see it leading to something similarly attractive like VirtualPC on the Mac (which - albeit slower than a real PC - enables you to run the occasional Windows application), but rather a proof of concept as well as a tool for playing around, effectively advertising the Mac to the Windows and Linux people.
 
Do you really think that's a true picture of an X86 machine running OS X under emulation? It looks like it, but PS is pretty good nowdays. :D

Also, wouldn't Quartz be a problem?
 
dlloyd said:
Yes, there were 68k emulators available, which only worked with < 8.5

This looks like it honest to goodness emulates a G3 or even G4 though.
Click to expand...
The newest version MacOS of the 68k emulators is MacOS 8.1. MacOS 8.5 is PPC-only. As for the PearPC, if it "works," it is only an idle curiosity. That it is currently claimed to run at 1/500 the speed of the host seems reasonable and will not improve substantially with optimization. This means that a 3 GHz Intel-compatible processor will yield the performance of a 6 MHz PowerMac G3, which is about 1/10 of the performance of the original PowerMac 6100/60. Quite frankly, it is so slow that I have substantial doubts about any claims made about PearPC. I mean, how do you test them?
 
Hey ppl... i REALLY wanna try this out, but im really lame on the compiling and stuff. Can somebody compile it for me? Or give me step by step instructions?
Thanks in advance!
 
Also, none of those screenshots show OS X running under emulation on a Windows machine -- all those screenshots show is OS X running under emulation in Linux distros, and most of them look like PPC Linux distros (I can pick out one YellowDog for sure).
 
Well, there are solutions for running Mac OS X on PPC Linux, but that's not what it's about...

I've seen one screenshot so far that shows Mac OS X actually running (well, the Finder just after installation...).

What I'm interested in, however, is how the development will go in the next few months. A first step is done. With more people interested in its development, this project could go some steps... However, there remains the fact that it's basically more difficult to emulate a PPC on a X86 machine than the other way 'round (for several reasons - where's Racer X when you need him?). So even if there's ever going to be a finished product, it'd be worse to use than VPC running WinXP on a Mac.

But we'll see... I'm sure the following weeks will show one or the other user review of the project.
 
dlloyd said:
Ok, that would be stupid. Running a PPC emulator on a PPC machine... :confused:
Click to expand...
Not stupid at all. I run VMWare, an x86 emulator on *gasp* an x86 computer! Why? Testing different OSes without cluttering my room with more computers. If it crashes, I switch to Freecell or Solitaire will it reboots :p Mostly it's good for developers to test on different platforms.


I also want to mention another PPC OS: MorphOS. If it weren't for the expensive (and limited avail.) Pegasos boards I would have given it a try. Heck they might even get Amiga to run on PearPC!
 
fryke said:
However, there remains the fact that it's basically more difficult to emulate a PPC on a X86 machine than the other way 'round (for several reasons - ).
Click to expand...

The biggest obstacle: PPC has 32 General Purpose Registers. x86 has only 8.

PPC is Big Endian (most significant bit first), x86 is Little Endian (least significant bit first). This is just bit ordering, has no performance implications but does matter in the way data is read. I have read an article about programming styles for endian-independence.

If possible, I'd say do this on AMD64 platform. They've added plenty more regsiters than typical x86 arch.
 
This will never go anywhere.

The main reason being that the hardware peripheral support wil be totally out of whack (video cards, media drives, etc.). Apple has complete control over such things, so it's fairly easy for them to virtually guarantee compliance and operability. PC users are still plagued with major headaches for such things. To add an emulator on top of that can only mean trouble.

For example, I want to see someone use Toast via the emulator on an uber-cheap CD burner. Or watch their video card give the emulator's OpenGL fits. Or try burning DVDs with iDVD or DVDSP. Or print to a parallel printer.

The other reason this will never go anywhere is that there simply is no demand for this product. Yes, there are really compelling products/software these days for the Mac exclusively (Final Cut, iLife series, Motion, Shake, etc.). But you're not going to want to emulate those things. Additionally, those apps tend to be for users that actually make money with them, therefore they can easily justify the expense of buying a real Mac. Kepp in mind, we Mac users typically run VPC because we HAVE to, not because we want to. Admittedly, multi-platform testing is a very legitimate use of an emulator. But I just can't believe there is enough interest in, say, making sure the web page looks right on the Mac, to suport such a product.

Another reason is licensing. I don't know how all that works, but I've got to believe Apple would crush this product like a grape if push comes to shove.

Having said all that, if by some miracle they can actually get this emulator to run just as well as running it on a native box, and Apple lets them do it…well then, that's whole different ball game. Too bad it will never happen. Ever.
 
More interesting would be, whether parts of the project's work could be used to enable _direct_ installation of Mac OS X on IBM's PPC boards. This would eventually lead to a) Mac clones and b) Apple reacting. Right now, those 'other' PPC based computers can only run Mac OS X via MOL (Mac on Linux) or similar, software based solutions, where Mac OS X can't directly access the hardware.
 
Now THAT would be interesting. I don't see any major obstacles in doing that -- of course, it would require reverse-engineering the ROM on the Macintosh motherboards to see what instructions needed to be present in the clone's ROM to trick it into thinking it was a Macintosh.

Perhaps clones do exist! Reverse-engineering a ROM isn't rocket science -- it's not for the novice, but for an expert (which there are plenty of) it would only take time. Of course, this is very illegal, so the opportunity to purchase an unauthorized clone is nil... but perhaps people have already done this? It seems like a logical step to take since the Apple platform is so closed -- people naturally and typically want to put great effort into obtaining knowledge that they aren't supposed to have. I would bet that there are quite a few programmers and hackers out there that have looked into this and are even working towards this.
 
That ROM part is not an issue - or PearPC would have it solved already! NewWorld Macs don't have those big ROMs any more that old-day Macs had. It's basically only the Open Firmware that's needed.
 
Did they copy the Apple firmware ROMs ?

Microsoft does not include proprietary software in each PC, anybody has the right to build a PC that can be accepted by a Windows Installer.

Apple includes proprietary information in each Mac it sells. Without this information, the installer will refuse to load. Therefore it is LEGALLY forbidden to make such a clone, even just in software.
 
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