this is kind of cool. if it runs os x well on a pc, maybe it will dawn on people how well it runs on a mac.
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PearPC - PowerPC/Mac OS X Emulation on a PC
- Thread starter MacBytes
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Finally! The Mac needs some good emulation software in the works. I've always felt that Open Source could do this better, I mean look at Wine. Plus, anything that will get the Mac OS out there more is fine by me.
P-Worm
P-Worm
I can't wait, mabey I'll get my friend to come over this weekend and we'll do an all nighter to install the puppy!
If Apple won't, the open source community will...
If this isn't a hoax, then I guess it puts an end to any technical speculation as to why OS X won't run on x86 hardware...
If this isn't a hoax, then I guess it puts an end to any technical speculation as to why OS X won't run on x86 hardware...
finally! i will soon be able to run OS X on REAL hardware!
Apple will probably shut it down when they start to get it running fast...and it becomes apparent that a 500 dollar PC box can roll with a dual G5...
Apple will probably shut it down when they start to get it running fast...and it becomes apparent that a 500 dollar PC box can roll with a dual G5...
I've currently got the Panther release of Darwin for PPC running on my Athlon XP system, so it does work but it is excruciatingly slow at the moment.
I'm just about to install Panther, I'll let you know how I get on!
Oh, and if a G5 isn't "REAL" hardware I don't know what is.....
I'm just about to install Panther, I'll let you know how I get on!
Not going to happen I'm afraid, at very best this will software will probably emulate a PPC equal to about a 20th of your actual x86 CPU. Bear in mind that it has to emulate absolutely every PPC instruction and function call, there's no way it could be made to be anywhere near as fast as physical PPC hardware.
Oh, and if a G5 isn't "REAL" hardware I don't know what is.....
there is just too many parameters for normal end users to use something like this effectively. While WINE is a a good open source project it is still emulation.
even if you could get mac os x running on a pc box you still have to deal with hardware issues and compatibility issues.. lots of things wouldnt work quite like they do while running on a mac.
emulation is nice, but it is not an answer by any means.
even if you could get mac os x running on a pc box you still have to deal with hardware issues and compatibility issues.. lots of things wouldnt work quite like they do while running on a mac.
emulation is nice, but it is not an answer by any means.
This is very, very bad.
If and when emulation comes at an acceptable speed, Apple will sell virtually no hardware. This will lead to them getting out of the hardware business and becoming an OS/Digital Consumer Products company.
If they can survive like that, then fine. But I am reminded of the failed Mac clones attempt.
If and when emulation comes at an acceptable speed, Apple will sell virtually no hardware. This will lead to them getting out of the hardware business and becoming an OS/Digital Consumer Products company.
If they can survive like that, then fine. But I am reminded of the failed Mac clones attempt.
this is both really cool and really scary if it runs well enough who knows what it could lead to.
The thing is i don't think it'll have the same appeal that windows emulation does...
the mac os experience is very much tied to the hardware and the cool stuff it can do in conjuncture (isync, bluetooth, iphoto) etc and there iws no way that this thing will really be a viable alternative for graphic or video apps.
But i know a ton of people who think the mac is too expensive and might go for this instead. Which could either hurt sales or give people more reason to buy... i'm not quite sure which is more likely.
If anything it'll force jobs to stay more competitive, and with yearly OS updates, unless this things got a big budget team behind it they are going to constantly be playing catch up to keep the most current software running on it.
The thing is i don't think it'll have the same appeal that windows emulation does...
the mac os experience is very much tied to the hardware and the cool stuff it can do in conjuncture (isync, bluetooth, iphoto) etc and there iws no way that this thing will really be a viable alternative for graphic or video apps.
But i know a ton of people who think the mac is too expensive and might go for this instead. Which could either hurt sales or give people more reason to buy... i'm not quite sure which is more likely.
If anything it'll force jobs to stay more competitive, and with yearly OS updates, unless this things got a big budget team behind it they are going to constantly be playing catch up to keep the most current software running on it.
eSnow said:
ha!.. so true. the only people who can engineer this to run as fast as it would on a mac are the engineers at apple. and they ain't gonna do it.
Let's see how far this project makes it. I've tried Basilisk on both a PC and a Mac, and while the PC version is by far the best of the two, it still lacks certain features (like proper sound implementation). However, I haven't lost my hopes yet
Hey, I'd love to be able to run a couple OS X apps on my XP machine at work. I'd like to be able to use Mail at work the way I do at home, I'd like to be able to iSync my Address Book and perhaps a few folders from my PC itself. Even if that's all it did for me, it would be nice to have those couple apps running quietly in a corner of my Wintel world here at work.
Remember folks - this is an emulator, similar to virtual pc. It is built to run powerpc software. It is not the same as building a version of OS X that is native to Intel/AMD chips (as apple is rumored to have done). Because of this, it will never be remotely as fast as the native software.
snahabed said:
What about that little part in the OS X license agreement:
This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time.
This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time.
doubters, you should note that this is extremely raw software...in fact WINE and things like it rarely BOOT when their first public release happens...If this guy actually sticks with the project, we could easily have a pretty usable emulator...
You (and the author) say that it's basically running at 1/40th of the 1:1 speed...from my experience, this is about how fast OS X was when it first was released...close to it, anyway.
no, i think this guy will get an extremely effective emulator going eventually. and i'll be using it!
You (and the author) say that it's basically running at 1/40th of the 1:1 speed...from my experience, this is about how fast OS X was when it first was released...close to it, anyway.
no, i think this guy will get an extremely effective emulator going eventually. and i'll be using it!
My only concern about this is that people will install this on their (acceptably fast) PCs and say "hey, this is excruciatingly slow...maybe that's just the way Macs are."
If it makes people who are curious about OS X try it and say 'wow, what a great OS' then great, but if it is a poor implementation that makes OS X look too slow to use, that won't impress anyone.
Cheers
If it makes people who are curious about OS X try it and say 'wow, what a great OS' then great, but if it is a poor implementation that makes OS X look too slow to use, that won't impress anyone.
Cheers
Hmmmmmmmmmm
Hmmm, something smells fishy here.
All Apple Computers contain a special boot rom - and Mac OS will only install and run on computers containing that boot rom. So, even if you built a clone Mac, it would not run Mac OS because of the lack of a boot rom.
For this reason, i cannot see how it would be possible to install and run Mac OS on this emulator - unless it contains a copy of a Mac boot rom - which would be illegal.
And as other people have said - emulation is very slow, so there is no way that a non-PPC computer would ever be able to run as fast as a native PPC - so no Apple won't lose sales to people building PCs and running Mac OS on this emulator.
Although, saying that, a computer of the kind of spec that will be needed to run Longhorn(6Ghz, 2GB RAM, 1TB Hdd) might be able to emulate Mac OS X.....
...but only at about the same speed as a G3 5Mhz or something.
Marko
Hmmm, something smells fishy here.
All Apple Computers contain a special boot rom - and Mac OS will only install and run on computers containing that boot rom. So, even if you built a clone Mac, it would not run Mac OS because of the lack of a boot rom.
For this reason, i cannot see how it would be possible to install and run Mac OS on this emulator - unless it contains a copy of a Mac boot rom - which would be illegal.
And as other people have said - emulation is very slow, so there is no way that a non-PPC computer would ever be able to run as fast as a native PPC - so no Apple won't lose sales to people building PCs and running Mac OS on this emulator.
Although, saying that, a computer of the kind of spec that will be needed to run Longhorn(6Ghz, 2GB RAM, 1TB Hdd) might be able to emulate Mac OS X.....
...but only at about the same speed as a G3 5Mhz or something.
Marko
insidedanshead said:
Actually they can't. As long as the software and system are compiled for the PPC, everything needs to be emulated and therefore work really really slow.
I think everybody should be happy that apple never switched to x86. This emulator will show exactly what would have happened if they did. We would have ended up with a machine without any apps to run on it with decent speed. All your existing software could be thrown in to the trash, and we would have had to wait for year until software company would have caught-up with the new system.
Apple has no power to force authors to stop distribution of this software because you can run any PowerPC OS on it you like, such as YDL and some others, and they don't have power over such things regarding whole PowerPC platform, but they could maybe make some modifications to OSX to make it stop running on emulators.
But I don't see any reason Apple would do so because this could only bring more switchers.
But I don't see any reason Apple would do so because this could only bring more switchers.