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Trace: PearPC

PearPC

(Page Updated October 27, 2018)

Description

PearPC emulates a PPC Macintosh inside of Windows and Linux. It emulates a machine capable of running OS X versions up 10.1 to 10.4 (Tiger). PearPC does not emulate a Machine capable of running OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or greater. The emulated machine can also run Darwin and Linux.

The most current official release of the emulator is version 0.5.0 from July of 2011. The PearPC code is available on GitHub. Note that this emulator may not run very well on modern systems.

Getting Started

The easiest way to get started with PearPC might be to check out our Windows setup guide.

A better way (for somewhat more advanced users) is to consult the official documentation and write their own configuration file.

Visit our PearPC forum for support.

Latest Version

Helpful Downloads

Documentation and Help

Historic Versions

Check the official site.

See also: PearPC .5pre (redscorp). ​ An experimental version from 2008.

History

The first release of PearPC was made in May of 2004. The emulator quickly developed a loyal and enthusiastic user base, much larger than those of earlier Macintosh emulators like Basilisk II or Sheepshaver. The emulator's development, lead by Sebastian Biallas, happened at a rapid pace at that time, but progress has been very slow since December, 2005. One possible reason for this is suggested in PearPC's Wikipedia article:

“On June 6th, 2005, Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs, announced that Apple will begin switching their computers' architectures from IBM's PowerPC to Intel's x86 platform. The transition was completed in August of 2006. The news raised a lot of questions about the future of the PearPC project, because although the project itself is a PowerPC emulator, it is used primarily to run Mac OS X on x86 machines. If Mac OS X will run natively on the x86 platform, PearPC's emulation may possibly be replaced by VMware Fusion or other virtualization products.”

Those interested in the history of PearPC might want to read about the controversy regarding CherryOS, a knock-off of the emulator that was “developed” for several months in 2005.

Screenshots

pear2.jpg rssol0.jpg 2nbslmc.jpg pearpc8.jpg

pearpc.txt · Last modified: 2023/01/06 21:36