Running Mac OS X on x86 PC!

[S.MULLA]

a new emulator called PearPC seems to be able to run OS X on x86 machines:

http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/index.html

Check out the screenshots:

http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html

source:aqua-soft.org [forum]

[Redestium]

you do realize that it's a 0.01 release, right? by the time this hits 1.0 final, it should be running quite a bit faster.

0.1 ;) :p

[cooldude7273]

can anyone translate that documentation into normal english for us non super-nerds?

STOP FIGHTING AND HELP ME PLEASE

[nuka_t]

since this would probably be the main thing that would stop apple from smushing this under it's legal (or technical) thumb, yes.

apple can make a great deal of money if people bought the os. but if you all just use pirated copies, then apple's not gonna give a ****. they can go the legal route or the tech route and then *poof* pearpc no longer works.

ion its current state, nobody is going to be dumb enough to go out and buy a retail 130 dollar license of OSX to test out a program that is at version .1, and apple isnt going to be dumb enough to expect them to. once hte OS becomes usable, then yes, i would expect people ot pay for it. in its current state however, its just stupid.

[oik]

0.1 ;) :p

see trek, we're already 10x closer to release then i thought we were! the apocalypse is coming!

[oik]

in its current state, nobody is going to be dumb enough to go out and buy a retail 130 dollar license of OSX to test out a program that is at version .1, and apple isnt going to be dumb enough to expect them to. once hte OS becomes usable, then yes, i would expect people ot pay for it. in its current state however, its just stupid.

i don't think anything will change. the people who use pearpc today while in beta with a pirated copy of panther will be the same ones who use pearpc tomorrow while in release with a pirated copy of whatever os apple is up to tomorrow.

[Trek234]

i don't think anything will change.  the people who use pearpc today while in beta with a pirated copy of panther will be the same ones who use pearpc tomorrow while in release with a pirated copy of whatever os apple is up to tomorrow.

And considering the fact this won't be able to run OS X any where near as well as a real mac until AT LEAST the year 2009-2015 (assuming it develops in the same time frame as most other emulators) apple will seriously be looking at a problem. Gee, all those $1.00 Mac OS X legacy OSs they won't be selling. It's not like anyone will be using OS XII on far more adanced hardware or anything. Everyone is going to want legacy OS X for PearPC by god. Yea, Apple is really going to be hurting.

(And I mean, it's not like the biggest numbers of piraters of OS X don't already have a mac you know... Yea, all the OS X pirates of today must be using this emulator!) Hate to tell you, but piracy will happen emulator or no emulator.

[the evn show]

I don't think I ever said the emulator is illegal but using it to run Mac OS X is (at least in countries where EULAs have some weight). That was the point I was making.

If you wanted to learn PPC assembly this might be one way to do it, running linux or some PPC only OSs that don't have the draconian restrictions that OS X does is another (though obviously using x86 versions of linux, solaris, etc will make more sense for 99.999% of people out there).

I wouldn't be surprised to see Apple launch some sort of offensive on the people who would use this software to run it's software.

As for the "old" emulators: by the time they were running OS 8, apple had released OS 8.5 and abandoned the M68k processor that those systems were using. OS 8.6 and powerpc emulation was 'mostly' working in any form only a few months ago.

For the most part the x86 world has been years behind when it came to emulating macintosh systems: probalby because the market is somewhat limited (only a small percentage of windows users have any interest in emulating PPC systems to do anything but run OS X - which they cannot do legally, a large number of macintosh owners are interested in running Windows and other x86 operating systems which they CAN do legally).

WRT ROM images: New world machines (the ibook and pretty much everything after) pull most of their rom functions from the install media. That's an over simiplified view - but this isn't really a technical discussion. The old "copy the rom from the board" junk shouldn't be needed. The "BIOS" equivalent on a modern macintosh is openfirmware - as the name would suggest it's not as proprietary as the old mactoolbox/rom mess form 1984.

[Trek234]

I don't think I ever said the emulator is illegal but using it to run Mac OS X is (at least in countries where EULAs have some weight).  That was the point I was making.

I apologize in that case. You are correct on this point.

You also bring up a good point about the time frame of those emulators. By the time they were able to emulate OS 8 pretty well (which was and IS still very buggy, by no means as well as a real mac) OS 8 was already outdated.

By the time this emulator runs OS X as well as a real mac it will be far outdated too.

This may also be a good thing for apple. Apple had thought about emulation before as a means to expand its market share. If PC users use this to run OS X and say "Hey! This really looks nice, but running at 10FPS and crashing every 30 seconds really upsets me. I can't believe what I was missing though, maybe I'll go out and buy a real mac to run at full speed with out the crahses!". Not many people are willing to shell out hundreds of dollars to "try out" OS X. The vast majority of stores don't even sell mac systems. The thing is a lot of people ARE willing to test it out on a buggy emulator. I wouldn't be surprised if some people liked what they saw and swtiched over.

Edited May 12, 2004 by Trek234

[the evn show]

No problem: we both had some good points - and now the thread isn't completely mindless ranting. :)

It will be interesting to see if Microsoft updates VirtualPC to run Longhorn (or whatever they call the next version of Windows) when it finally ships a few years from now. The emulation scense might just 'switch sides' in terms of which platform does it best by the end of the decade.

EDIT:

saw your edit after I posted.

About people switching after trying the emulated version: I would bet that it pretty much cancels out the people who would have bought a mac just to try it out. For people with full time jobs and a love of technology a new emac for $700 isn't a whole lot of money, especially if the machine can still be used as a file server running *NIX if they don't care for OS X. If they could tinker with OS X on an emulator maybe they wouldn't buy a mac at all?

Who knows.

[bluetypewriter]

Just curious...For those of you who have succesfully installed OSX, has anyone tried moving the HDD image file to another WinXP/Linux box with a different hardware configuration to see if it has any influence on your PearPC version of OSX?

In other words, can someone with a successfully installed image run it on a different PC?

[Jackalo]

I don't see why not. Just make sure that the configuration file is the same.

[Atoner]

can anyone translate that documentation into normal english for us non super-nerds?

STOP FIGHTING AND HELP ME PLEASE

I'll help you if you have a specific question. Try going thru as much of the install as you can and if you get hung up on something post it! :)

-A-

[Starman]

Processing Base System Part 2

Writing files: 72%

Remaining time: 5h39m

Mike

[Starman]

No I wasn't... If you already bought the software then why are you complaining that Microsoft doesn't include it free for you?

Where was I actually complaining about it? I was just making a point.

Are you LOOKING to start an argument? Seems like it.

Mike

[cooldude7273]

I'll help you if you have a specific question. Try going thru as much of the install as you can and if you get hung up on something post it! :)

-A-

thanks :D

i'm stuck at the first stop with gcc with or whatever

[nuka_t]

No problem: we both had some good points - and now the thread isn't completely mindless ranting. :)

It will be interesting to see if Microsoft updates VirtualPC to run Longhorn (or whatever they call the next version of Windows) when it finally ships a few years from now. The emulation scense might just 'switch sides' in terms of which platform does it best by the end of the decade.

EDIT:

saw your edit after I posted.

About people switching after trying the emulated version: I would bet that it pretty much cancels out the people who would have bought a mac just to try it out. For people with full time jobs and a love of technology a new emac for $700 isn't a whole lot of money, especially if the machine can still be used as a file server running *NIX if they don't care for OS X. If they could tinker with OS X on an emulator maybe they wouldn't buy a mac at all?

Who knows.

VPC already is caqpable of running LH(windows version anyway) but if it can run xp, it can run lh.

i htink that a big pull factor of the mac is the newness and goodlooks but im sure taht once people get tired of it, they would just go back to a pc. though there will be people that like it and buy a real mac. however, in its current form, it will not change apples marketshare in any way.

[Trek234]

Where was I actually complaining about it? I was just making a point.

Are you LOOKING to start an argument? Seems like it.

Mike

Not trying to cause an argument. I am not the one that started criticizing Windows. (or shall I saying making "points")

Considering the fact you contradicted your self by 1. Making a "point" about windows not having a strong software bundle and then earlier 2. Making a "point" about windows integration = bad. It seems like you had motives your self or faulty logic.

Of course complaints by people regarding point 2 caused point 1 to be true. You can't make both "points" except by relying on faulty logic.

If you didn't want someone to call you on this, why did you make these "points"? Don't try to pin it on me. There is enough anti-mac and anti-windows sentiment on this thread already. It would be like me making a thread titled "AMD OWNZ INTEL" and then accusing others of looking to start an argument.

[Starman]

WHAT are you talking about?????

People have already called you on your attitude.

Mike

[Starman]

thanks :D

i'm stuck at the first stop with gcc with or whatever

From your sig it seems like you run Windows. You don't need to build this with gcc.

All you have to do is download the jitc zip file, download and unzip the 3 GB hard drive image, and you're ready to start.

The only thing you have to do is modify the config file based on your Panther disk images.

Mike

[Trek234]

"WHAT are you talking about?????"

Not even worth it.

"People have already called you on your attitude."

Please provide me an example.

I am the one supportive of this emu, you are the one running around posting all the doom and gloom apple needs to take this emu out posts. But I guess I am the one with the negative attitude on the thread.

[Starman]

All I did was quote the EULA and give people a heads up that Apple has the right to drop-kick this from the internet. Same thing with that tool that rips the DRM from iTunes music. If they find ANY way to do it, they will. I'm just giving everyone a heads up because it WILL happen. Most of Apple's revenue comes from their hardware sales. Anything that damages that WILL be taken away.

And you seem to ignore the fact that I'm running this. It's a cool idea. The problem is that it's a pipe dream.

Oh, and...

apple will go on this one because it runs osx. notice how all the others run everything BUT osx? this is their flagship os. you do not know as much as you would like us to think you do, run along now.

Mike

[Atoner]

thanks :D

i'm stuck at the first stop with gcc with or whatever

Are you running Windows or Linux?

If you're on Windows, it should be easier to just download the JITC (fast) version instead of using gcc and compiling from scratch.

First, follow this link to get the Win32 JITC version

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/pearpc/...-win32-jitc.zip

Then, unzip it to a directory on your local hard disk -- I used "C:\PearPC\".

To configure it, edit the file "ppccfg.example".

To run it, open a command line ( Start->Run->cmd, then hit OK ) and type in "C:\PearPC\ppc ppccfg.example"

-A-

[cooldude7273]

From your sig it seems like you run Windows. You don't need to build this with gcc.

All you have to do is download the jitc zip file, download and unzip the 3 GB hard drive image, and you're ready to start.

The only thing you have to do is modify the config file based on your Panther disk images.

Mike

okay, i have everything downloaded and extracted, and now i'm lost again ;)

[Trek234]

All I did was quote the EULA and give people a heads up that Apple has the right to drop-kick this from the internet. Same thing with that tool that rips the DRM from iTunes music. If they find ANY way to do it, they will. I'm just giving everyone a heads up because it WILL happen. Most of Apple's revenue comes from their hardware sales. Anything that damages that WILL be taken away.

And you seem to ignore the fact that I'm running this. It's a cool idea. The problem is that it's a pipe dream.

Oh, and...

Mike

Oh ok I see. So basically your point was that apple is above the law and they "WILL" accomplish this even though sony and nintendo failed in the courts. okie dokie whatever you say. :wacko:

[SkyyPunk Veteran]

hmmm i have tried installing twice now and it sticks @ 45min left for some odd reason...oddities!