Well, I can say it truly is a miracle. I never thought I would be able to install Mac OS X 10.3 on my supposedly "inferior" x86-based AMD machine. Well, for most of you mac-zealots, you were wrong. It actually does. And I've got the proof right here!
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And if you chose to spend 800$, it would actually be useful.
However, at those speeds, why bother?
- Kelson
Interesting. I assume this what Enderle was talking about last week when he was at Intel?
I'm a PC/Linux partisan, but I've got to admit that if PearPC is as slow as the review makes it out, then Mac can emulate x86 better than x86 emulates Mac.
How does it works without Apple ROM ??
>Considering us lower forms of life (Mac users) apparently
>repulse him (as we are all zealots)
No i think he is just pointing at the mac zealots not mac users. Anyway i am very curious about the speed and preformance with f.i. indesign or distiller.
I will try and put Mac OSX on a PIV, thanks for the article Tom.
As some may know, the QEMU software can emulate PowerPC quite happily (and at good speed) and can run some PowerPC versions of Linux. They have people looking at the code so expect to see some Mac OS X support on that soon. A little competition can only be a good thing here ;o)
macs, just as sun's, use OpenFirmware, which - as far as i know - is open and therefore most details are well-known, so it can be emulated.
Ya know, it could be that he doesn't mean "zealot" offensively. Have you ever been called a nerd? Geek? Penguinista? Were you offended? I'm a Slack zealot. So there.
However, at those speeds, why bother?
This is a 0.1 version. Speed improvements will come. This was just a short overview, showing to everyone that it can be done.
I never said it was very useful right now, especially on my machine.
Anyone tried MacOS 9 ? That would run a lot faster, but then again, you lose the stability of OS X.
Ya know, it could be that he doesn't mean "zealot" offensively.
Thank you 
Saves me some explaining.
now most of you windows-zealots can run OS X.
...after more than 5 hours of installation you get crash loops on an emulation that don't support AltiVec ...have a lot of fun ;-) ...till Apple puts a bolt on it.
"till Apple puts a bolt on it."
That's what I was thinking too. Somehow they're going to throw a monkeywrench in the works..
> Anyone tried MacOS 9?
I guess this is just for informational purposes. 9 is deader than disco.
You actually bought Windows Server 2003 Enterprise to run on a home machine? And you bough Mac OS X to run on an emulator?
The Finder bug is fixed in the 0.1.1 release.
What kinda hardware would you need to run this at a usable spped? I'm guessing at least 2x Opteron 248 (the extra registers in x86-64 should help tons)with maybe between 2-4 GB of RAM?
If this is anywhere near true it'd be cheaper just to buy a mac (heh, when did you ever expect to hear that?!).
I guess if you needed to have a top of the line workstation but perfered osx for more casual things then this might useful.
but this is cool none-the-less.
The Finder bug is fixed in the 0.1.1 release.
I know, already installed 0.1.1. It does fix the problem
These are windows folks we're talking about here, they'll just download a pirated version 
There's this interesting concept you might be familiar with: friends.
"I'm a PC/Linux partisan, but I've got to admit that if PearPC is as slow as the review makes it out, then Mac can emulate x86 better than x86 emulates Mac."
While I agree with that, PearPC runs OS X so slow because it doesn't do altivec.
" How does it works without Apple ROM ??"
It's been moved from a piece of hardware to a file recently.
"What kinda hardware would you need to run this at a usable spped? I'm guessing at least 2x Opteron 248 (the extra registers in x86-64 should help tons)with maybe between 2-4 GB of RAM?"
Until they get altivec down (hopefully for their sake they get it before altivec 2 is out) there isn't hardware fast enough to make it run like it does on a PPC box.
>> These are windows folks we're talking about here, they'll just download a
>> pirated version
> There's this interesting concept you might be familiar with: friends.
Yeah, see. That still falls into the "illegal" category.
I saw this a little while ago and was immediately impressed. I don't have a PC to run it on but it looks oustanding. My only question is why the author actually goes out of his way to round of Mac zealots? All it really does is sort of encourage a flame war and makes he himself look like a PC zealot.
Yeah, see. That still falls into the "illegal" category.
Not necessarily...who says his friend is currently utilizing that copy of Mac OS X on another machine? I've received software from friends before that was perfectly legal to use.
How about not jumping to conclusions, mmm-kay?
Did I read this right?
All it really does is sort of encourage a flame war and makes he himself look like a PC zealot.
Uhm, I was joking. I said: "for most of you mac-zealots". Did I say every Mac-user is a zealot? Uhm, I didn't, did I? And, no, I'm no PC-zealot. I perfectly know well the pro's/cons of having an open arch and a "closed" one.
Any processor can emulate another if you are not concerned about speed.
The article lacks meat, and not to mention it has a flame bait written all over it. Other than that good luck to the PearPC guys, though I don't really see the purpose for such software.
I for one would like to be able to run OS X on my AMD machine because Windows XP sucks and Linux is too complicated for me.
I drool over OS X, but I enjoy working on PC hardware (cheap, easily to acquire, etc).
See, that's a good reason. 
Good article! I learned about PearPC through the article, and for that, I am grateful.
Now, for the article-crappers, (imagine hearing yourself hearing some cuss words.. just kidding). 
I enjoy working on PC hardware (cheap, easily to acquire, etc)."
That's why I like my Mac too.
x86 CPU's are never going to be able to perform exceptionally at PowerPC emulation for one VERY SIMPLE reason... registers.
Even with AMD's x86-64 specification the PowerPC specification has double the register allocation, and the standard IA32 x86 specification is an even worse comparison.
Without many many times the advantage in clock speed, x86 architecture CPU's will have trouble emulating an architecture as register rich as the PowerPC.
Now that this works, we need a minimal Linux Distro that is just the minimum running to start this app up in full screen. That way, when you power your pc on, it will boot directly to OSX. Sure the boot process will take like 15 minutes, but this would be the best way to go.
Err... Humor? Familiar with the concept?
I know I'm no moderator but--
Let's keep this on-topic, were discussing PearPC/PPC Emulation here, not my sense of humor.
I think the author is missing the point with his mac zealots comment. I prefer mac's not because they are superior to PC's, linux, or windows. But because of the user experience and the features a Mac has to offer. Not all mac users are zealots. Heck Windows XP is a good solid OS and so is Linux. I have all three running at home but I simply prefer m 17" powerbook. Also why would anyone want to run OS-X on a PC? The point with getting a Mac is that they make the hardware and software. They integrate them well and lack the driver compatibility problems that somewhat is a pain on X86 platforms. Rather than having to support 100 kinds of sound cards they can support a few for their various hardware. It is the close integration of hardware / software that makes a Mac such a good product. However this can be somewhat emulated by certain PC manufacturers by testing testing and testing again their hardware combinations to make sure they all work together well.
My G3 iBook runs MacOS X at reasonable speeds without altivec. Sure, altivec emu would be great but its absence is not the reason for PearPCs current lack of speed.
I read that it currently achieves about 1/40th speed of the x86 system. The main developer hopes in time to get this to 1/10th speed. I am assuming me means in comparison to a stock G4.
Even with 1/10th speed, a 2Ghz machine would only equate to a 200Mhz G4 (and without altivec support at that).
Seems to me like this is never going to be fast enough for serious use (other than using a small application every now and then).
And the heathens shall burn in the cleansing applewood fire!
---
But seriously. Interesting.
(And as soon as it gets half way fast and useful, you know damn good and well what I'm doing to this machine at work.)
Oh, and Thom, keep tinkering with it. And then, when you start imagining what it runs like not emulated ... eBay awaits you.
well, add that to the fact that you have to emulate a entire cpu arcitecture and you will see that stuff slows down fast. hell i cant realy get a good framerate on a GBA emulator on my 466mhz celeron
I agree, G3s run OS X just fine. I've got a 233Mhz G3 / 192MB imac and it runs 10.3 just fine, animation effects can slow it down but it's useful enough for web/email/office work. My iBook is 600Mhz / 640MB and it is way faster but still lacks quartz extreme capabilities, yet OS X doesn't slow down on that machine for anything. Of course I can choke that machine if I tried, but my MDD Dual 1ghz G4 / 1GB can take anything I throw at it. You can definitely tell that OS X really prefers the Altivec engine and lots and lots of RAM, but you don't need it for it to perform at acceptable speeds.
Ha, I loved the article. You should have left out the zealot comment - too close to home for a lot of folks - apparently. The comments had me rolling with laughter, you pointed out that this wasn't a deep article and yet the comments ask where's da boef? Wish I had a OSX CD around to give this a shot. And for those folks complaining that it can't be useful cause it's soooo slow - VMWare was slow to begin with, but it's much faster now - still not going to run at hosted speeds - emulation never does. I for one have yearned to give MAC a shot and the pearpc route is much more likely than me going out and buying an honest to goodness MAC.
Kudos.
"eBay awaits you."
Hmmm, is there actually someone honest on Ebay selling Macs? I've heard way too many horror stories about that site, seen too many people get burned...
i wonder if the problem of registers would be alleviated if u used let's say a dual opteron system? would that effectively give u twice the registers to play with? (i dunno im not an expert on programming, etc)...
congrats to PearPC, this is pure G33kware, and i love it. who cares if it's useful or not, its just plain cool, and thats good enough for me. why do i constantly have to read about mac people justifying their purchases. just buy whatever computer u want.
oh and i dont wanna be a flamer, but its not the x86 thats unstable, its the programs. i don't know about you, but the last thing i view nvidia as (nforce motherboard, video cards) is a company to release unstable hardware. there's a beauty to every platform. and with x86 it's cost, and u konw what? for 99% of the people out there, its all that matters. all they do is surf the web, check their email, and go on MSN, and they honestly dont care about the rest.
personally im more looking forward to outside companies making motherboard for ibm's 970 chip and running OSX on that. im sorry apple charges too much, their profit margins are well known to be in the 20%+ range. they have the ability to lower prices, they just don't want to, dont think otherwise... they are a company, looking for ur money, not to save ur soul.
It could also be useful for software developers to port, test or debug things on OSX. So all those whiny Mac users can use popular OSS in their native gui.
This is awesome news for me. I think Apple makes great hardware but never got into it because of the strangle-hold over the platform and the (past) lack of software. BTW, Emagic's Logic 6 looks great.
Anyway, I need to convert some files to a format readable by Windows software. Until now, the only way I could have done this is by going out an renting a Mac.
Ummm
Great work. But...
In near future we will have a native OSX for x86
Oh my god, I want a mac! give me money!
Hey, I know I'd love to have MacOSX, but PearPC does emulate PPC hardware, thus you should be able to run "other" PPC OSes. I know i know... "we" the PC users love MacOS X and we brought WindowBlind and we use ObjectDock. But no matter what; we still want our mac.
Yes, I'm joking (but i'll have my iBook). Anyway, remember that PearPC is not a MacOSX emulator. In fact linux for ppc seemed to perform better than osx according to the pearpc website. Has anyone tried that?
Cheers.
If you want a mac but can't 'afford it' I am selling my 800mhz g3 iBook with 640mb of ram for $750 on ebay.
I spent a lot of time trying to emulate the mac on my PC and finally I just bought one! If you buy used on ebay like I did it is actually just as cheap as a PC. I have a new g4 ibook now and I love it and wouldn't give it up for the world.. well I'd give it up for a g5 powerbook (one day
or, they could spend 50 more dollars on a G4 eMac that runs 35% faster clock speed and OS X runs 1000% better due to architectural advantages the G4 has over the G3.
It seems interesting that ThreeHits got modded down for being concerned about the use of the term 'mac-zealots' in this article, yet the statement "So all those whiny Mac users can use popular OSS in their native gui." by Bryan is left happily unmodded down.
Seems like the moderator of this article is somewhat biased against their readership.
In near future we will have a native OSX for x86
Heh, keep tellng yourself that...
Have you ever tried to take your G4 eMac to class with you?
lol
"or, they could spend 50 more dollars on a G4 eMac that runs 35% faster clock speed and OS X runs 1000% better due to architectural advantages the G4 has over the G3."
Not to mention G3 iBooks had a faulty logic board.
I'm not excited for G5 laptops. The G4 is a beautiful processor, the G5 is a feature filled toaster oven... IBM needs to cute the wattage down. Unless I'm wrong, I think it was running around 60 watts?
I wonder actually, how well the G5's would do in an iMac casing, it might become a bit noisy. I suppose they could use some really nice fans.
how do you know the dock crash loop is infinite? :-)
Hi, Thom.
As a Mac user since '86 (and a usenet and UNIX user since '82) I find this whole exercise interesting and fascinating.
This is, after all, only v0.1 of Pear, and even being able to get it to reasonably emulate a G3 on another architecture is fantastic.
Yeah, it's not a G4 or G5, yeah, it's a bit slow, uh-huh, there are a few problems, but it is still an amazing accomplishment and to be applauded.
Thanks for letting us know, Thom, and please keep us informed, eh? Good luck!
Thanks,
Tom
Being devoid of MacOS X owning-friends, any ideas were one could pick up a dirt cheap MacOS X cd.
That said, a eMac is < £550...
whether or not you are disparaging Mac users or Mac zealots, whether or not you think every Mac user is a Mac zealot, whether or not you are trying to be humorous or just sound foolish, the point is...
You are associating "Mac zealots" with an incorrect notion, one I have never even heard: that it is, and will always be, impossible to run OS X via emulation.
Making such a narrow and misguided claim is poor on your part for two reasons:
You are applying a stereotype and doing so inappropriately. As I said, I've never heard anyone make such a claim.
Secondly, your suggestion that these people are narrow-minded and misinformed actually suggest that it is you that are narrow-minded and misinformed.
My two cents.
Mac have better hardware by less cost than a PC.
Buying a PC by more cost than a Mac to run Mac OS X slow than a Mac is a thing only for PCdiots! :-)
Sorry, but no, you are not getting the point. Nobody will buy a Dell machine to run OSX using PearPC. Your current cheap PC can be used to run OSX (although very slowly) using PearPC. And I will never buy that Apple hardware is cheaper than Intel/clon hardware.
as for the power required by g5's (much lower now thanks to the 970FX)
Typical power at 2.0Ghz is 24.5W (vs. 51W for 970)
- Typical power at 1.4Ghz is 12.3W
Hi, Thom,
Very nice to read a review on PearPC on this site. I think you'd better add more text on this review.
Thank you a lot.
A fan of Mac Emu
I think miracle is a tad too much praise- but definitely a very cool thing, indeed, as it's been said for a long time that the Mac op. sys. wouldn't run on a PC. I have a friend who's a total Mac-addict who would rub my nose in the fact that the Mac could emulate PC's. I really didn't care because I like my PC fine & can't afford a new Mac (not what I'd want to have, at any rate). Not only that, but there are just so many other operating systems to try that run on the x86 platform. I suppose it's more a matter of why you want to run a computer? I am truly obscessed w/learning & seeing more than just one system.
Anyhow, my two cents on the PearPC project is that they should (if they haven't already) put together a hardware profile (ala Blackviper) & tutorial for people to set up when they plan to run the Mac emulator-
Mom ;^)
But damn did the zeolots come out of the wood work here! I've played with this myself on a similar system except my 1600+ is running at about 1.8Ghz right now with 1Gb of RAM. OSX isn't really useable but then I have an iBook to work with it on.
The reason its significant is that it shows its possible. A proof of concept. Is it really useable right now? Well, no but look at the version number. 0.1. In its first release it actually can install, and run, an operating system that Apple says won't work on anything else (which is BS...OpenDarwin).
Anyways, I figure by the time this software hits 1.0 (if Apple doesnt sue them out of existence) it should be useable in the speed department and by that time Opteron's should be up to 3Ghz and Pent IV should be at about 4Ghz+...so I doubt Altvec extensions (which is BS anyways...you can run OSX 10.3 on a machine without it) make that much of a difference. The EMULATOR is the big slow down. Not the architecture itself.
Hmmm, is there actually someone honest on Ebay selling Macs? I've heard way too many horror stories about that site, seen too many people get burned...
I bought my Mac (an older CRT iMac) on EBay and didn't have any problems at all - but as with any EBay auction, you need to pay attention and keep an eye out for suspicious behavior.
In my situation, the machine showed up with a couple pieces of the "case" broken and the seller went as far as sending me all the spare pieces he had around so I could fix it!
Darwin being the very foundation of OSX, and being open source and compilable for x86, isn't possible to expect a futur project that will use native x86 executable for Darwin, and only emulate the remaining of OSX ? Which would give us a 50% emulated / 50% native MacOSX for PC ?
(sorry to anyone I blinded with this potentially BFOTO)
Can someone try running MorphOS in this emulator?
Has someone done it. Any links to the page?
no. it's not that simple. you're better off pouring your time into gnustep and making a linux port of carbon. then we can get os x software with a simple recompile. thankfully gnustep is already very feature complete. it's carbon that *nix mostly lacks.
In near future we will have a native OSX for x86
Heh, keep tellng yourself that...
Uhm... ever hear of Project Marklar?
Google the term and be prepared to be amazed.
Not necessarily...who says his friend is currently utilizing that copy of Mac OS X on another machine? I've received software from friends before that was perfectly legal to use.
Yeah, except the OSX license agreement explicitly states it can only be run on Apple labeled computers. Bong, try again - this is a violation of the license.
You beat me to it. I was going to say the same thing.
If you want to get flamed, misunderstood or get peoples backs up, then write comments like these.
Why not just say, "It's a miracle, I have seen Mac OS X running on a PC" or something like that. You won't offend anyone, you are stating a fact and so forth. A mate of mine got OS X running on his PC the other day, and I helped him install it. Slow, but useable for a fun test, and yes, I was very amazed it worked as well as it did, but I have never though it couldn't be done.
I'm a Mac Zealot, but as one, that doesn't mean I don't see the good things from other systems.
I really hope PearPC can get this product running at much greater speeds.
BTW, those that say they don't understand why anyone would want to run OS X on a PC might first ponder wonder why anyone would want to buy Virtual PC then, maybe people on their PC's (who don't own a Mac) would love to run some Mac s/w perhaps?
why do AMD owner's have such a Bug up their A** about Apple and OS X?
I'd like to know?
Look, you like cheap hardware, and if you're not careful you will surely get it with Via motherboards and an AMD chip.
We, mac users want to get the Job Done.
We want the least trouble, highest reliability OS/Hardware combo on the market. We want a trouble free life to enjoy our computers without the hassle of undebugged, unmanaged or reviewed software: Microsoft, and exceptional hardware innovations, like the 17inch Powerbook from Apple.
We have different aims. I'm happy for you if you love your AMD machine.
Next article leave the insults in the clipboard.
http://nifty.org/nifty/gay/sf-fantasy/apprentices-better-half.html
(All text link, nothing bad will happen)
Important piece was a little part of a disclaimer that read: "Kiddies, read your Bible like mom and dad say, or you'll burn in Hell like me."
In context, it's speaking to minors saying don't read under 18.
Out of context, it really annoyed someone.
The next chapter heading has an apology on the top.
___
That said, nice geekwork on PearPC. Now, what I want to find out is if it will run 7.5.5 without crashing more than it did on my old 601s in the lab. - Dos applications that used to be crying slow can be run at psychotic speeds on modern hardware, not to mention Windows 3.1.
Imagine in 5-10 years, this kind of emulation might be profitable as someone has a legacy app they want to keep without the old computer lying around.
Perhaps Apple moves to a new core and old compatibility is left out.
Emulation is a worthy goal, even if right now it seems a little amusing to watch an install take 5 hours.
...OS X runs on Wintel. Incredible feat. Absolutely unbelievable. Wonderful. It really is, and there's no sarcasm in that statement.
However...
Why not just buy a Mac? Do all of you honestly not have enough money to spend for the real thing? You'll spend thousands on graphics cards and Ethernet cards, and game controllers and speakers and new cases, but you really don't have enough to get an iMac or iBook? They're really decent, I tell you!
Have you thought that if Apple loses hardware sales you're likely contributing to their death, and you'll be stuck with Windoze forever? And, Microsoft will have no one to copy.
It's like taking the dashboard and seats out of a BMW and putting it in a Camry. Still not a BMW, is it?
>>We, mac users want to get the Job Done.
We want the least trouble, highest reliability OS/Hardware combo on the market. We want a trouble free life to enjoy our computers without the hassle of undebugged, unmanaged or reviewed software: Microsoft, and exceptional hardware innovations, like the 17inch Powerbook from Apple. <<
oh please, u imply pc users don;t want to get the job done? so basically the whole 3d insustry which is slowly migrating to linux aparently dont know a think about getting the job done? the fact that google uses "cheap pc's" to run the biggest search engine on the web, ur right, why would a cheapo pc do that?
listen, blame the OS not the hardware, i'll give apple credit, the quartz layer on osx is nice n all, and i love their design philosophies (of their SOFTWARE). but the fact of the matter is, that the big iron, the machines that do the WORK, are moving towards linux.
the only market apple has is the creative market, film. and they're holding on the the LAST niches they got left. and i say nice, cause its the only thing apple's good at selling anything to.
-peace.
In the last screenshot, clocks in Windows and the Mac window show different times. I thought it would be fair to assume emulator would use the hardware's clock.
Strange, to say the least.
This is a *geek* project.
Noone is going to run this seriously. Not now, not in a year, unless they're doing development against the PPC and don't need the speed.
(PS - as far as being able to afford a Mac, I can put 3000 bucks toward one and still not be able to play FFXI on it. No thanks.
Speedups will come in time! I have a mac and a PC, so I'm not concerned, but I've got to be honest. It's impressive for a initial release.
GJC
Hmm... it's just for the "cool" "geek" factor that I am interested in this. Also, I think OSX Quartz looks damn cool.
But then, I am running an el cheap computer that I salvaged for about $300 (AMD Applebred 1.8Ghz overclocked to 2 Ghz, 512M RAM, 160 Gig WD HD, 52X Benq CDRW, Free after rebate Soyo motherboard, ATI 9100 Video card). Yes, all for $300 or less! Also, I got a 19inch monitor that I got for $40!
How did I do that? I am a proud Fatwalleter (fatwallet.com/forums).
Now only if Linux was easier to use and got something like Quartz!
...because that is incredibly boring.
Maybe he doesn't wanna buy a Mac? Maybe he just doesn't really even care? Maybe he wants to play Solatire in the background while Mac OSX boots up?
Damn, man; you gotta go somewhere to do something in this day and edge. Proof-of-concept projects rock, you and I know it, man, or you wouldn't have the sweet sweet loving that is the OS X!
"Well, for most of you mac-zealots, you were wrong. It actually does. And I've got the proof right here!"
First i don't see the need to say that mac users are mac-zealots, that's stupid and remove credibility to this article.
And second i don't see what is surprising here. It is not the first time that an emulator can run MacOsX on x86 hardware. Mac-On-Linux can do it wih Linux, so why not with Windows? I don't understand why the author is saying that mac users were wrong, wrong about what? Again its not the first time that Osx is emulated on pc......
The author should be more aware about what is going on in the computing market, and not give some wrong statement about mac emulation on pc and about mac users.....
Instead of going for emulating the powerPC in x86 with slower results, it is high time that someone initiate a project like pearPC to create an open source virtual emulator like win4lin (netraverse.com) or VMWare (vmware.com) and better than WINE (for Linux machines). Anyone listerning?! Thanks!
Mac on Linux allows you to run OS X over Linux under a PPC processor. Its not like this, which emulates the instruction set.
Actually, MOL will only run on PowerPC systems -- such as the Macintosh, Pegasos, or Amiga. That is because MOL is not an emulator. It is a virtual machine, so you will get near native speeds rather than the 40x decrease in performance which PearOS people are claiming.
"Until they get altivec down (hopefully for their sake they get it before altivec 2 is out) there isn't hardware fast enough to make it run like it does on a PPC box."
G3's don't have Altivec and they run it just fine.
Instead of going for emulating the powerPC in x86 with slower results, it is high time that someone initiate a project like pearPC to create an open source virtual emulator like win4lin (netraverse.com) or VMWare (vmware.com) and better than WINE (for Linux machines). Anyone listerning?! Thanks!
Go check out Darwine on the OpenDarwin page. They've gotten the WINELIB to compile on PPC so that programs with the Windows source code available can be compiled to run as PPC on Darwin/OSX. The project maintainers are currently working on trying to integrate the x86 emulation from QEMU into it so that closed source programs can be run, albeit slower due to emulation.
I can't imagine a more wasteful effort. Emulating a Mac so you can run MacOS X on a PC at... um... such a slow speed, you could watch grass grow faster? *yawn*
I mean, I paid about $300 for a G3 B&W/350. It ran Jaguar decently and Panther even better. I sold my G3 and upgraded to a 466Mhz G4 DA for about the same price. And with a ATI Radeon Mac Edition, it all totally rocks...
Emulation serves the purpose of saving old arcade games from obscurity (MAME) and running morer popular apps on an OS that is more widely known and accepted (Virtual PC), but it seems totally pointless to emulate hardware that is going to run SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much slower than the actual hardware it's emulating, it's absolutely 110% useless to even run!
Just my $0.02 worth...
Luposian
Now if anyone in here had a real life u might notice that this is something fun to do....i don't suppose that you have the ability to right a huge fricken code that runs a completely oppositley designed hardware OS on a PC, cause if u could please tell me... i'de love to hear how u did it. I find this interesting that someone actaully was talented enough to do this and was cool enough to release it for free. and if you havent noticed, the creator decided to use the decimal system,a nd version .1 is actaully a small number, small number = lot's of bugs. Just look at Microsoft for that example
-peace out
the only market apple has is the creative market, film.
I just bought my first mac, a Powerbook. Am I an artsy type? Nope. I'm a computer scientist. An easy to use well integrated UNIX system is exactly what a lot of people like me would like.
I suspect Apple is making continual gains in my area and especially with laptops. Laptops are expensive in general, and I've never used a laptop as well built as the Powerbook in terms of integration and attention to detail.
As for the machines that crunch, sure that's not Apple's game really. But I think the poster was referring to workstations, as in a computer that people use on their desktop to 'get work done'. He was alluding to the fact that OS X is easier to use for a lot of stuff and hence you can spend less time futzing with your computer and more time using with OS X.
Personally, people could probably 'get work done' with pretty crappy UI's, but using an Apple sure is a lot easier and more enjoyble for me.
my 2 cents
"Why not just buy a Mac? Do all of you honestly not have enough money to spend for the real thing?"
Yeah you sure don't get it :-) I don't care about Apple. I get my work done with my Windows, my MS Office, my Visual Studio. All my favorites games are on Windows.
Yet, if I can play around with OSX, say few minutes à month, just for the kick, without having to pay for a second computer just for those few minutes of exploration, I'd be more than happy.
People try to emulate OSX on x86, not because they want to work with it, just to play, on the side.
"I can't imagine a more wasteful effort. Emulating a Mac so you can run MacOS X on a PC at... um... such a slow speed, you could watch grass grow faster? *yawn*"
Have you paid attention to the version number? Its really just a first draft of an emulator. The fact that it's even working at this stage of development is mind blowing.
Do you expect a baby to play soccer right away? Let him do his first steps. Then with a little work and patience, who knows how good he can be ?
As a Mac user, I have to say that this is fun. But it won't be useful. All of the Mac applications only available on the Mac, need a decent amount of speed to function in a useful way. Imagine using Garageband. Whew.
Even now, Virtual PC is only at a quarter speed! This is after years of development-Ver. 6.1! Microsoft says that it's solved some of the video problems by natively using the video card, and somehow, DirectX. Well, we'll see. They are, as usual, six months behind.
As for emulating Altivec. Think about this very carefully. Emulation is very slow. We also have small endian and big endian to deal with. Altivec is a VERY fast vector processor. 128 bit bandwidth. Emulating this will not serve any purpose. Not only that, but it will slow the whole process down by another order of magnitude (at least). You can't effectively emulate a hardware process designed to speed up operations otherwise done in software, or on a standard floating point unit, with software. That's running in circles.
A G3 is a good choice for emulation, if that's what they are doing. I would like to see this actually work. It seems that at this point that it really doesn't. At the very least, you have to get past the boot, and be able to mouse around, open the app. folder look around, use terminal, etc.
Let's look again in 12 months.
Nice post. I'm in complete agreement.
Currently PearPC looks like fun for hardcore OS enthusiasts only -- all very cool and fine, that's a good part of the audience for this site, and playing with all OSen should be everyone's right. ; )
But that's a far cry from a RW, usable version of the mythical "OS X on x86", so be ready to be excruciatingly patient.... and take it with a big chunk of salt.
I'm trying it out, but all I get is "Panic: We'll hang here" or something like that -- I get this when trying to load up Darwin PPC on it -- If I can't get darwin to go and to partition, there's no point in even thinking about buying OS X.
The emulation of altivec would likely never be as fast as originally made.If the emulator used cached just in time byte code PPC -> x86 conversion like the way .net or java works, then as we can see by benchmarking some java v's c code that the performance hits can be minmised and useable.
If someone wanted to and used , pre caching just in time byte code translation .. osx could run on a pc useuably and perhaps even faster than a powerpc.
40x slower = unusable toy. I'd rather play with MOL on Pegasos. ;-)
you're better off pouring your time into gnustep and making a linux port of carbon. then we can get os x software with a simple recompile. thankfully gnustep is already very feature complete. it's carbon that *nix mostly lacks.
I'm glad to see someone else mention gnustep. with all the interest in OSX on x86 I'm continually surprised more people aren't familiar with gnustep as an option. WindowMaker alone has been my environment of choice on bsd and linux for years. It just feels much more refined than kde or gnome imo and the development environment is outstanding. But then again I'm a NeXT zealot.
Don't get me wrong, as a coder monkey I absolutely love OSX and my macs, but if you want OSX on intel for functional reasons rather than all the "lickable" elements of Aqua, I personally think gnustep is about as close as you're going to get at the moment.
1) PearPC does feature a JIT compiler and the announced performance is 1/40 of native speed, not 1/40 in terms of MHz AFAIK. You need other benchmarks, preferably those you can stopwatch to check reported timings. The major drawback right now is MMU emulation.
2) As for AltiVec emulation, depending on the type of application it can be reasonably fast. e.g. with a simple JIT engine, SheepShaver does perform at around half the speed of a PBG4/400 on an Opteron at 1.8 GHz for the Altivec Fractal Carbon program. Of course, the Altivec ISA is much richer than SSE, so this type of performance indeed can't be matched all the time... And actually, this represents the best case with AFC. ;-)
It is funny, PC users always say that Mac suxe but when MacosX is able to run on PC, they enjoy it...
Think about
It is funny, PC users always say that Mac suxe but when MacosX is able to run on PC, they enjoy it...
Err, I never said Mac "suxe"... Quite the contrary, when I have the spare money (which I haven't, since I'm a student, and that means in the Netherlands that you do not have money to burn) I'll definitely buy one. And hear: I'm not saying a Mac is expensive.
I thought about it, and y'know, your comment still doesn't make any sense.
I don't speak about you, but about the PC community in general
Great pics Thom. This is indeed a fascinating development. I myself have longed to see something like this for a long time. I look forward to the future development of PearPC, may it progress rapidly.
I also hope that some of the folks from Bochs and QEMU can collaboratively work with the folks at PearPC-there is a lot of knowledge between these developers. As someone already suggested it might be possible to use a native x86 Darwin in combination with this-of course I don't know whats involved in something like this, but it should be possible to isolated what system calls OS X makes to the kernel and cross map these to the Linux kernel-ie provide a virtual machine for Darwin and let OS X. It may be that the fact that most OS X are propietary may actuall prevent such from being usefull-don't know, and then of course there is the endianness issue. Perhaps if UserModeLinux could run a ppc kernel under X86 we might see Mac-On-Linux running this way....
It is just a shame that this article had to lure all of the whackos out of the woodwork....
why working so long to emulate macosx instead of buy a mac?
Mac are expensive (less now the laptop have been updated), but working on a emulator have a cost to, and I don't know if working a lot of time is less expensive than buying a mac.
Technically interesting, but having an OS running far slower than native, and having to pay both the Windows and Mac OS X licenses to run it does not sound like any useful nor economically rationale.
If you want Windows, buy a PC, if you want OS X, buy a Mac; emulation is just a technical curiosity with little usefulness in most cases, other than raising your geek factor when showing to your peers (chicks will not be impressed, I'm afraid)
Well, the main reason to emulate anything is to see/prove that it can be done.
Emulating a PPC on x86 hardware is impossible, as everyone knows :-)
Now they prove the world wrong, and what do people say? "It's soooo slow, it's not worth the effort, you're better off buying a cheap G3 mac".
Bleh. These projects are HOBBIES. People have hobbies for FUN.
The fact that they like to share the results of their hobby with the world is only positive, so stop with the negative attidude already.
I've already mentioned some of that stuff when PearPC came up for the first time, but it seems a few people haven't read those.
QEMU
Those hoping that QEMU might improve performance, forget it. If I'm not hugely mistaken then QEMU is designed to be easily retargettable, and part of that design is that covers (ie. the native code that is used to translate instructions) are actually generated by the C compiler, which is a neat idea.
The problem is that such compiler generated code will never be as efficient as hand-coded assembly when it comes to translating from one machine language to another.
JIT, dynarec, binary translator, or whatever you might call it[/i]
The 1/40 speed is with the included JIT enabled! According to the PearPC website the speed with the interpreter will be about 1/500:
http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/about.html
There is still some space for optimization, but even the authors of PearPC said in a German interview that they hope to achive 1/10 of the speed, which sound reasonable, but I doubt that it's going to be faster than that:
http://www.macnews.de/index.php?_mcnpage=52752
AltiVec
Even though OSX runs without AltiVec, emulation of that instructon set might speed up the OS and several applications.
But with AltiVec the difference between PPC and x86 is even more apparent than with SISD. An AltiVec instruction can use 4 of 32 registers, while SSE can only use 2 of 8 registers, or in the case of x86-64 2 of 16 registers. That'll be very tricky to get that running fast...
PearPC running OS9?
" So far no one has succeeded in doing that."
http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/faq.html
I don't see PearPC as a threat to Apple, because it'll actually make Macs look better than worse, since even the fastest available PC will be able to emulate a half-decent Mac at full speed at that time.
it is irellevant that it is slow... the whole deal is that it can emulat POWER PC HARDWARE in a working form.. its RISC based.. a completely diffrent instructionset to slow X86 machines.. and that is a first for anything available to normal people..
Now if only BochsX86 and PearPC people could join forces we could perhaps one day have an actual useable program instead of typical OpenSource abandonware..
This technology could be useful in a WINE type project, but allowing Windows/Linux to run native MacOS X applications.
This technology could be useful in a WINE type project, but allowing Windows/Linux to run native MacOS X applications.
If someone can do this really good, we can say good bye to Apple. (I don't think this's anything good, dude.)
"If someone can do this really good, we can say good bye to Apple. (I don't think this's anything good, dude.)"
well this ain't gonna happen. soone or later apple will comup with something cool that everyone will be playing catchup with. remember all the companies are still trying to make their mp3 player as cool as iPod & same is the case with iTunes
To my understanding PearPC emulates PPC architecture, WINE is an implementation of some of the Windows API on Linux. One is emulating hardware, the other isn't really emulating, but is moreso implementing (and not even hardware, software).
WINE == Wine Is Not an Emulator
and it's not... don't ever forget it!
> x86 CPU's are never going to be able to perform
> exceptionally at PowerPC emulation for one VERY SIMPLE
> reason... registers.
That's simply not true. It's like saying that any program will never be faster on x86 because the ppc has got more registers: clearly something untrue. When you run a JIT compiler, the PPC code becomes just yet another language to compile in the native CPU's language.
Most of the times, PPC code uses only a minimum fraction of the registers the PPC has, most of the other registers are used only as an extension of memory, because the only operations the PPC can do on memory are load and store operations. Obviously, since the x86 doesn't have this restriction, it can avoid having more registers and use the memory instead.
For example, x86 processors are known to be pretty good at emulating 68k processors, yet the 68k ones have double as many registers as the x86 ones.
> Yeah, except the OSX license agreement explicitly states
> it can only be run on Apple labeled computers. Bong, try
> again - this is a violation of the license.
Which, in itself, is not illegal. Also, such clauses are invalid in many countries.
it is irellevant that it is slow... the whole deal is that it can emulat POWER PC HARDWARE in a working form.. its RISC based.. a completely diffrent instructionset to slow X86 machines.. and that is a first for anything available to normal people..
First of all, RISC emulation has been done before: the MIPS R3000A and R4300i CPUs in Playstation an N64 emulators.
Secondly, PPC emulation also has been done before, by a modified SheepShaver.
Thirdly, are you suggesting that Mac users aren't"nomal people"?
Anyway, the only "first" thing of PearPC is that it emulates a PowerMac more or less fully, while SheepShaver is more like a runtime system with a PPC emulator stuck onto it.
This technology could be useful in a WINE type project, but allowing Windows/Linux to run native MacOS X applications.
That's just rubbish. WINE doesn't emulate *anything*! It's a combination of libraries that mimick the Win32 API, and a PE loader to be able to run Windows executables.
No hardware emulation is involved, because the application code runs directly on the CPU (which is why Darwine won't run on MacOS X until they've added a x86 emulator), and Windows applications cannot access hardware directly, so everything has to be done through the API anyway.
Please learn about what these projects actually do before you suggest that they would be great in combination with something else.
On registers being a limiting factor
That's simply not true. It's like saying that any program will never be faster on x86 because the ppc has got more registers: clearly something untrue. When you run a JIT compiler, the PPC code becomes just yet another language to compile in the native CPU's language.
You fail to see the difference that there is a difference between a compiler generating optimized code for a high-level language and directly translating machine code to another machine code.
Sure, you could see the load/store architecture as having a disadvantage, because it only operates on registers and has to use special instructions to access memory. But just like x86 code is optimized to hide its problems, so is PPC code, ie. most of the code will try to work with lots of registers, and each instruction can use 3 registers at a time, while x86 can only use 2 registers or 1 register and 1 memory location per instruction. Since PearPC is not generating code for some high-level algorithm but to reproduce what the PPC instructions do, you'll find the x86 have to perform a lot more memory accesses.
I'm pretty sure that the emulated register file fits into one of the caches, but accessing the cache is still slower than having the value in a register.
Of course emulation of RISC processors with 32 registers has been done on the x86 before, but in that case it was the relatively simply MIPS arcitecture, and the R3000A in the Playstation is only clocked at 33MHz and the R4300i in the N64 is clocked at 96.75MHz (IIRC). Also the R3000 has no FPU, and although the R4300 has one it's still not quite as superscalar as a G3 or is clocked with the speed you'd need to run OSX fluently. Not to mention that PPC is way more complex than MIPS is.
For example, x86 processors are known to be pretty good at emulating 68k processors, yet the 68k ones have double as many registers as the x86 ones.
But like x86 the 68K only has two-address code, and comparing a PowerPC to a 68K is a bit far fetched: the fastest (and most primitive) 68K instruction takes 4 cycles to execute while a PPC issues 3 or 4 instructions of that complexity per cycle and it's also only clocked 20 times faster if it should be anywhere near usability for OSX.
That's just rubbish. WINE doesn't emulate *anything*! It's a combination of libraries that mimick the Win32 API, and a PE loader to be able to run Windows executables.
What do you think an emulator is? Or do you think GNU's Not Unix as well? (well, I guess since there isn't a full GNU kernel yet...). If you emulate (read: mimic) the Win32 API and a PE loader, you're more or less emulating Win32.
No hardware emulation is involved, because the application code runs directly on the CPU (which is why Darwine won't run on MacOS X until they've added a x86 emulator), and Windows applications cannot access hardware directly, so everything has to be done through the API anyway.
Of course, Win32 itself was created to abstract the hardware, so x86 emulation should be completely irrelevant when it comes to making Windows software run on any platform. The only reason Mac users use x86 emulation to run Windows software is because it
a) allows them to run the complete environment with the actual Win32 API, explorer, etc for better compatability; and
b) allows software that does rely on the x86 hardware to run properly
Remember, Windows NT (upon which 2000 and XP are based) was originally built for MIPS with hardware abstraction as a specific objective (which allowed them to run on x86, PowerPC, DEC Alpha, etc). If you emulate the API properly, most applications will run fine. If you emulate the x86 processor well enough, though, you can install Windows without emulating it and not worry about it.
Please learn about what these projects actually do before you suggest that they would be great in combination with something else.
He simply mentioned that it would be great in that type of project, not that they be combined. The only real problem is that they offer different goals. On the other hand, if running OS X applications on Windows/Linux turns out to be problematic because they expect the hardware to be PPC, then hardware emulation could be a very important part of any project that attempts to do the same thing WINE does for Windows applications.
I understand how WINE works. I am not a programmer but rather than just intercepting MacOS API calls from a loaded binary such as WINE does, it would translate the binary into X86 using the code from PearPC, load it, and then intercept the MacOS API calls to bring up the MacOS program on the x86 OS.
Most of you don't get it...at all.
PearPC is not about usability.
PearPC is not about being a cheap alternative to owning a mac.
PearPC is about them getting_to_run MacOS on a damn x86.
PainKilleR:
What do you think an emulator is?
The term emulation was invented in the mid-60s by IBM when they realised a 7090 simulator in S/360 microcode. Since it isn't possible to modify the micocode that easily these days and in terms of the law microcode is the same as software, for me an emulator is a piece of software that simulates another computer system, including the CPU.
That's why WINE and VMware are no emulators. The latter is a virtual machine, and I don't think there is a simple term to describe what WINE actually is.
Or do you think GNU's Not Unix as well?
But GNU isn't Unix. Unix is a trademark for a special operating system that was originally designed at the AT&T Bell Labs, while GNU is a bunch of software of which some might be similar to tools Unix has.
But when even the creators of WINE claim that "WINE Is No Emulator", why do you think that I'm wrong saysing so too?
If you emulate (read: mimic) the Win32 API and a PE loader, you're more or less emulating Win32.
You might it call a Win32 simulator, but not an emulator, because emulation certainly involves CPU simulation.
Of course, Win32 itself was created to abstract the hardware, so x86 emulation should be completely irrelevant when it comes to making Windows software run on any platform.
Erm, you do know that programs contain not only calls to the API, but actually machine code to do calculations or whatever the application is supposed to do?
And BTW, with all that abstraction FX!32 still needed so-called "jackets" to transform x86 API calls to Alpha API calls, because parameter passing can be quite different on various processors as well. And in that case the API didn't even have to be ported, because the Alpha already ran WinNT.
Remember, Windows NT (upon which 2000 and XP are based) was originally built for MIPS with hardware abstraction as a specific objective (which allowed them to run on x86, PowerPC, DEC Alpha, etc).
Yes, but that only meant that WinNT was more easily portable to these platforms, but applications still had to be ported to the platform as well, even if the porting process is just a compilation of the source code. If you don't have the source code you won't be able to run a WinNT/x86 application on WinNT/PPC, same API or not.
That's why there was FX!32 for WinNT/Alpha: To interpret the x86 CPU and then do a partial static translation of the WinNT/x86 binary.
And that's also why FX!32 is an emulator, because it emulates another processor in software, despite the fact that both systems have the same API.
Dave, you wrote:
This technology could be useful in a WINE type project
Since WINE includes no emulation, but running Mac binaries on a PC requires at least CPU emulation, no matter if you have the API ported or not, this simply cannot be a "WINE type project".
Of course it would be possible to combine a CPU emulation with a port of the API, which is quite similar to what Darwine tries to achive in the future the other way round, but that doesn't really have that much to do with a "WINE type" approach anymore.
WINE is a port of the Win32 API to Linux and a PE loader, because Linux can only handle ELF binaries itself.
What you are suggesting is an emulator that is combined with high-level emulation in form of the API.
Since WINE includes no emulation, but running Mac binaries on a PC requires at least CPU emulation, no matter if you have the API ported or not, this simply cannot be a "WINE type project".
All I meant by "WINE type" was that it runs binaries intended for a different platform than the host... as I am sure you are aware.
I am a programmer. I write for windows mostly and for the Mac whenever I can. I prefer the Mac, and would gladly pay the $100-200 premium for a Mac. However I love seeing this, and will install it on my windows machine, just to see it work. But it is a pure "for fun" kind of thing. 40-500 times slower certianly translates to useless, but it is fun.
I suspect that eventually they will achieve something like 10 times slower. As PC's start to approach the 4GHz mark, this will be a emulator that will run like a minimum OS X configuration and perhaps get some windows people intrested enough to make a switch.
However, they may discover as I have that a Mac OS X machine running Virtual PC can do more. My VPC benchmarks as a 500MHz PC, while running on a 1GHz Mac - that is pretty incredible. I can't play games in VPC, but most other programs run slowly but are usable.
If you try this and like OS X - it is just too slow, start saving for an eMac. You will find it to be a wonderful alternative, and you can do your windows work relativly well (So far I have only found one program that did not run on VPC - but i didn ot even bother to try games).
PC's are great game consoles! Better than a PS2 and only slightly more expensive.
Look its simple the idea behind pearpc is to make a PPC cpu emulator, due to its well made code it is fortunate enough that it does emulate a G3 computer and permits you to run macosx at for now ultra low speed (still you have to keep in mind that is in an early stage "v0.1.1 or v0.2pre")but it does also emulate other PPC os, and dont worry about Apple going bankrupt there will always be a huge amount of rich people that will stick to there oh so powerfull G? to be the proud owner of one of those expensive jelly bean machine.
I mean look if i would be able to make you a ford tempo that as the look of an audi and you would want an audi would you buy my look alike or the true stuff.
so i really dont think that its a big problem for mac or it would be the same for windows with all those mac capable of emulating X86.
"Hmmm, is there actually someone honest on Ebay selling Macs? I've heard way too many horror stories about that site, seen too many people get burned..."
My uncle/aunt, cousins and niches (?) buy regulary on eBay. You can find yourself some way cool stuff over there for cheap prices but you also have to be prepared for assholes: people who sell (semi-)broken stuff while not mentioning the actual state; some do state the hardware is partly broken which according to my observations reduces the price. Those who don't have the best change when they state that there's no guarantee and then claim some story the hardware got broken during the sending. It doesn't mean everyone who doesn't give warranty is doing this, but it is a risk.
So how do you circumvent that? First of all, buy from one who gives warranty. That's mostly 8 days (a week). According to EU law one has to give 1 year warranty and if that's not included then one has to state that. So when not stated you are able to fall back on that. Second, another way would be to get the package yourself from the person who's selling. Test it there. Happy? Buy it. Not happy? Don't buy it, and damn the transport costs you've made. Third, a way to find out wether a buyer/seller can be trusted or not is to look at his/her history, see what % of people were happy, and see what the resons of the people who were not happy are.
According to my observations the first option raises the price. People tend to pay more for a product if it includes warranty. I'm currently trying to buy a SUN Ultra 5 and shit happens when people pay as much as 120-200 EUR for it, when it includes a few days warranty.
However it has to be said they buy from eBay.de. They live in Germany (on Dutch border) and eBay.nl is still small. I only have made one deal via eBay (a trade, not a sell) and i'm moderately happy with it since a lil bit of the hardware was broken which wasn't stated. Then again, it also included some hardware which wasn't mentioned.
I'd say: be careful on eBay, but don't dismiss eBay or the concept of eBay right away. Trying to get a relation with the seller also creates trust and might give you a better image of the person. Counts for the seller creating rel. with buyer as well.
Happy hunting =]
As for PearPC. It is merely a working concept. Slow as hell. Whoever buys MacOSX to seriously use it with PearPC is quite nuts, imo. Because i don't want to pirate, i leave this alone. There's a technical reason why emulating PPC is downright _practically_ impossible on x86, but i don't know it.
I don't know if you saw, but PearPC 0.1.1 was released and it fixed the Finder crash-loop
I'm booting OSX fine on my p3 500mhz. It isn't as slow as people claim it is.
if you read the license agreement for OS X you shall see that it is illegal to run OS X on a non Apple-labeled computer. It is also illegal to run it on more than one Apple-labeled computer.
And by "Apple-labeled" I would assume the text that is written on the machines (underside of machine on notebook Apples, not sure on desktop systems)
Anyways, PPC CPU's have on-chip Endianness conversion, whereas intel chips have to do the conversion as code. So until x86 based chips get on-chip conversion to do Little Endian to Big Endian (and vice versa), then PearPC will ALWAYS be slower than VirtualPC on a Mac
Allowing to install that one-mouse-button P-of-S OS on perfectly good x86 hardware is a crime against common sense.
MacOS on x86?! Why spread a sickening, brain-paralyzing affliction on otherwise normal PC users? What a waste of programming skills!
Look what Mac did to Slashdot – it became Macdot of sort. I am not joking. The world is going to end.
I've been using x86 stuff since the 286 and my only experience with macs have been brief moments of using them at school. I've never used Mac OSX, but I've studied all of the videos on apple.com to get an idea.
Everyone is always trying to sell the notion that if you switch from a PC to a Mac with OSX that you suddenly become enlightened to a whole new world that you never knew existed. Well that's a nice idea, but it just so happens to be Apple's marketing message... so my belief is that most people are just too susceptible to marketing tactics.
One day I decided I wanted to try out Mac OSX to see what the fuss was about. I did some research and found out that there were no emulators that could emulate OSX, so I downloaded one for OS9 and tried that. It was obviously old and outdated, so it wasn't going to show me much. The next step was to ask some Mac people if they'd let me VNC into their machine to test it out... well the Mac people made fun of me and even after several attempts, I was unable to find a willing participant.
"Just go to the store and try one out". Ya, but I don't go out... I spend most of my day in front of the PC and I don't like to go out, especially if it'd be only to test a computer that I used to hate using when forced to in school.
I thought that if apple.com could have some servers setup, running OSX on them, and allowing a remote desktop type interface from their website, then this would greatly open up their exposure to people like me who are somewhat interested but not interested enough to go out of our way to experience OSX.
Finally I gave up, and when it came time to buy another PC I briefly looked at the G5s, but since I had no OSX experience I quickly ruled them out. Instead for a little over a grand I built an Athlon 64 3200+ with 2GB of ram using the finest components available.
Now I see this, "Is it a miracle?". Yes, it definitely is! I'm very curious and I can't wait to try Mac OSX. I don't care if it's slow or buggy, the whole point is just to familiarize myself with the platform.
Apple should definitely allow these projects to continue. They are not a threat to Apple, but instead allow more exposure to their flagship OS.
I'm going to go give it a try. My hypothesis is that despite the articles, "I was a lifetime intel user, but then tried OSX and found God", I am not going to be impressed enough to justify puchasing a Mac. I hope that I am though. Most of my software runs on the Mac platform, and I'd love to have a better OS to play with... but I've been using Microsoft products since very early DOS days, and I'm so accustomed to them that I don't even have to think anymore to use/fix their software. Plus, I've put up with so much crap when Microsoft software sucked, and am only recently able to enjoy solid/stable software, that I feel like I need to recuperate my losses.
According to C't ("Nachschlag zum Zuschlag", 19/2003) that disclaimer (when bidding you agree to not have the one-year warranty as prescribed by EU-law) is complete nonsense. There is no such EU law, and therefore the disclaimer is nonsense. May I quote:
"Eine zwangsweise zu leistende zweijährige Funktionsgarantie gibt es nicht, auch nicht nach EU-Recht. Und um die Verantwortung für das, was er liefert, kann sich der Anbieter auch durch Disclaimer nicht herumdrücken. Er bleibt verpflichtet, seine Ware zutreffend und sorgfältig zu beschreiben, und darf auch nicht absichtlich Irrtümer bei Bietern provozieren."
In other words: the seller must describe the "actual state" of the product clearly, completely and carefully. The EU Law disclaimer does not change that.
I also know someone who has bought some things on the German eBay. Most of them were perfectly working and for the only cheap non-working PC he eventually got his money back.
Besides that, I don't know how popular Ebay is in the UK, but in the Netherlands you might also want to take a look at http://www.marktplaats.nl/ or in case you are looking for a Macintosh http://www.tweedehandsmac.nl/
I'm presuming this is possible, but I'll ask anyway ...
We've got some new Linux servers at work, they're quad-processor 2.4 GHz Xeon boxes that run Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS 3.0 Update 2. Seems like a good platform to maximize PearPC 0.1.1 "performance" on, oui? ;-)
But, the catch is, they're headless. Can I just get on them and fire up PearPC in/as a remote X Window and do the install that way, and run it remotely? (Yes, obviously there'll be a hit compared to running it directly on a box with a head on it. But we're using switched 100 Mbit everywhere - in some cases 1 Gbit - so the network overhead isn't too bad.)
Allowing to install that one-mouse-button P-of-S OS
This alone shows that you are just a plain troll who doesn't know jack about MacOS X, because it supports three buttons and the mouse wheel right out of the box with no additional driver installations. And unlike the IBM Thinkpad with WinXP my iBook with OSX doesn't forget that it has a mouse wheel and a third button every time I wake it from sleep.
on perfectly good x86 hardware is a crime against common sense.
One must really have lost all objectivity to call x86 "perfectly good", which not only according to my own impression is one of the worst architectures ever.
Unless PearPC uses several threads you won't see any real speed-up compared to a single-processor machine, apart from the fact that you still have reserves for other applications.
And even if PearPC does use threads, the CPU emulation won't be able to take advantage, because it simply has to run in a single thread. There is no way I can think of the split such a task into several threads.
I know one of he speed up tricks that BasiliskII (a 64k mac emulator) used to improve emulation speed was to intercept some of the more common operating system functions like calls to certain libraries. Instead of executing those functions in emulation it ran x86 native versions and then fed the returned value to the emulator. Of cource this limits BasiliskII to only running MacOS, but I wonder if it would be possible to utilize the work done in GNUStep with PearPC to create a faster Mac specific emulation.
It seems to me that the issue that PearPC helps solve is to give a x86 users a method for trying out OS X for a lengthy period of time, and using the convenience of their own PC.
If you are a Windows user, and want to try a Linux desktop, you can easily download something like Knoppix, burn a CD, reboot, and off you go. Reboot and you are back in Windows.
If Apple would provide something similar for doing this, then it seems like this giant gap in trying to attract new Mac users would be gone.
I know personally, I am seriously considering a switch to a Mac, but I don't feel comfortable plunking down money for a system that I can't demo in a reasonable manner over a reasonable period of time. I've stood countless times in Apple retail stores playing with OS X, but the experience isn't the same as if I were sitting at my desk at home.
The overall cost of a Mac isn't something that keeps me from switching, it's the "unknown" factor. If I had an easy way to demo the Mac OS X experience, I'd feel much more comfortable buying one.
I thought the acticle was about people who are trying out there programming chops by making a PPC emulator capable of running OS X.
I don't think it was intended to say, "Na na na, you Mac Goons have got it coming to you now that we have the Panther too!"
It's just people saying, "Well, check this out. This is what we did the other day..."
Good on them.
ps. I'm not giving up my TiBook.. :-)
"According to C't ("Nachschlag zum Zuschlag", 19/2003) that disclaimer (when bidding you agree to not have the one-year warranty as prescribed by EU-law) is complete nonsense. There is no such EU law, and therefore the disclaimer is nonsense. May I quote: [...]"
Daan, thanks for pointing this out!
"Besides that, I don't know how popular Ebay is in the UK, but in the Netherlands you might also want to take a look at http://www.marktplaats.nl"
I wouldn't advise that site. It ain't an auction site (can be an advantage), it is easy to circumvent the site, and IMO it is rather expensive (regarding old-high-end hardware -- imo). Another popular auction site in the Netherlands in http://www.ricardo.nl (afaik the most popular one). There's a few others like http://www.qoop.nl never used either of these.
The site markplaats.nl was in the TV program Kassa last week or the week before that, where some issues were raised. The spokesperson argumented quite well, but i can't remember the discussion anymore.
This is a good accomplishment worthy of praise. It may not be fast or useful at present, but PearPC is at the minimum an excellent "proof of concept". Thanks for the brief article (I had not heard of this project).
I have heard several people claim we'd never see OS-X on x86 hardware. Emulated or not, the underlying hardware is "x86"
This could lead to an intersting future. I'm sure Apple's legal team is already planning for the day they will step in and attempt to quash this. If the genie gets too far out of the bottle, and one day OS-X can run efficiently on non-Apple hardware (not necessarily x86, but in general), it could create problems for Apple's already tight hardware market.
mac zealots - they know who they are. If you're just a mac user and are offended by the term, grow up. I use x86 hardware, different OSes, and don't feel offended when the term Windows or PC zealot is thrown around (of which I am not, and am quite comfortable with myself).
I think this, and any other such project, is wonderful!
Without trial-and-error, off-the beaten-path, "I wonder if" projects like this by intelligent, curious, open minds we'd still be trying to kill dinner with a rock!
If you don't like it, don't try or use it. If you don't like x or y computer (or anything else for that matter), don't user it. Sure, I may gripe about Microsoft, but it's not the company or it's many employees that I dislike. Many are exceptional people. It's about the overflow of EGO that's been allowed to dominate company policy there for so long. That's an ethics matter that only concerns a few (or less) individuals, not the rest of the people, software, or any machine it runs on. I think it would be a good experience for many of the negative attitudes i've read here to actually USE the machines and software they're bitching about for a while so they can learn that each has it's good and bad points.
"...
And even if PearPC does use threads, the CPU emulation won't be able to take advantage, because it simply has to run in a single thread. There is no way I can think of the split such a task into several threads."
One processor can run the recompiled code while the other can recompile and optimize. There will be some problems with latency when encountering new code paths so the first (stupid) recompilation should probably be implemented on the "runner" cpu and let the other one do more advanced compilation later.
To get good performance out of the emulator on the x86 one would need some pretty advanced optimizations so such a divided approach can make sense. One problem would be how to let the optimizing processor get profiling information from the "runner" processor without delaying too much...
I'm just thinking modularity. Would it not be possible to have multiple instances of virtual processor threads to run on each processor, and then make the guest OS aware of these virtual processors and to do with them what it likes?
(I'm no programmer (well, not really) and certainly don't have any experience in emulation, but I do like to think about such things and speculate.)
"While I agree with that, PearPC runs OS X so slow because it doesn't do altivec."
My G3's don't do altivec either.
I see alot of negativety from people...does anyone actually realize how good this project is...I remember when people used to say this imposible that imposible and i knew that there nothing imposible and so did alot of people...I wish i had the skill these developers have to prove alot of things wrong but programming is not my thing...I mean how impresive is this...so called experts said this is imposible...what bullshit...i installed macosx on my athlon/linux box...slow yes...but surprisingly bareable...when this thing gets optimized it will become soo much better...im looking at the initial release and im like wow...and those who claim its imposible to make it useable are wrong just like the ones who say imposible...I bet this will blow alot of things out of the water and prove all the closed minded narrow thinkers
in it's place...it's very good stuff!
I have a relatively modest, but current PC w/a 2.4 ghz celeron and 512megs of ram. I got Mac Os x 10.3 installed in about 3.5 hours. A friend of mine (who just switched to linux btw) came over with her copy of MacOS and we gave it a shot just for fun. We followed the Darwin-less install procedure from emaculation which worked w/o a problem. Really it was much better then I expected from all the ranting in here about speed. In fact, if you have ever used bochs its quite comparable. PearPC running MacOS was actually a bit better then bochs running knoppix. Color me impressed.
I would love be able to run Mac OS X on my PC. I think that X86 CPU's are much faster than PowerPC G4. If they can get the emulator to translate instructions to SSE2 it would be right up to snuff with G4's maybe better. My G4 500Mhz crawls comapred to my Athlon system.
Forget emulation... Apple should port the beast.
I've seen time and time again, Mac users that tout the stability of OS X because of the software and hardware ties.. You need to stop that stuff yesteryear. First, XP is very stable and so is W2K with lots of hardware. Linux runs on multiple platforms and is very capable of running most hardware without manufactures drivers. Linux is the king of OS stability. So the old argument back in the days of Pre OS X is long gone with the hardware/software marriage.
If RedHat and Susse can make it as sales and service software companies, I don't see why Apple can't.. A corporate buyer will not want to tie themselves into one hardware software vendor across the board. Many individuals want choice too. Enthusiasts want to do upgrades.. Ever try upgrading a Mac? I have.. and it's not cheap and you run the risk of instability... I took my G3 400 to a G3 800.. .it was expensive.
I imagine that a lot of PC users would be happy to give OS X a try for $129 + $49 for iLife as apposed to throwing down a lot more for a new or used machine. Remember Apples market share is shrinking and Linux on the desktop is getting better. It's just a matter of time.. Apple should make its move now.. Especially before LongHornyShit is available.
Oh yes.. and I'm a Mac user.. Just ordered my 15” PowerBook 1.5Ghz and Radeon 9700 128.. But I see through the reality distortion field of Apple headquarters.
Irving, don't count on it. Sure, using some of x86s extra features would speed up the emulation. a bit, but it isn't going to make the emulator an exceptable desktop envirnment. If the guest envirnment is 40 or even 20 times slower then the host. Then it is going to be very slow. It would be like using a 100 Mhz CPU instead of a 2ghz.
Of course thats not to say it isn't a useful tool or fun toy.
"All I meant by "WINE type" was that it runs binaries intended for a different platform than the host... as I am sure you are aware."
But that is exactly what Wine doesn't do. It allows you to run x86 (windows) apps on x86 Linux. No different platform.
Maybe there just trying something. Just like Emulating PSX and Sega and all those. It's a hobby.
This is absolute anarcKy!!! DOGS AND CAT LIVING TOGETHER! PANDEMONIOUS MADNESS!!!
Please for the love of god kill this abomination, and free that poor OSX installation from having to endure another moment on that worthess X86 box. The MACOS running inside windoze is about the most abhorant and abombinably disgusting thing that I have ever seen.
You and pearpc should both be utterly and completely ashamed of yourselves for this travesty!!!
Look with less than 5% of the market and shrinking, Mac users should just face reality - they are sick misguided morons
I mean the consumers have made their choice, bith corporate and home users have clearly selected anything but Mac over years and years.
But the shite that Mac zealots come out with OMG...
I detest spending more than say $800 on a PC, and for that money I wouldn't get anything in the modern Mac range (maybe an iPOD spare battery, and god knows I will need it!) Where as in x86 space, I can by a 64 bit chip, overcklock the crap out of it, and then upgrde the box for years to come decent games are all for the PC (or consoles) but you never see a TV advert saying: "Coming SOON for Mac and PS2" cause nobody (ok 95% of people) gives a flying donkey cock about what happens to Mac.
Therefore - excellemt project, lets devour the last dignity that Mac may have (its camp, but pleasing looks) and use if for our own good...
Now that ought to stir up some more comments
Yet another useless open source software.