Mac OS emulation on windows

[UltraMagnus]

EULA's dont hold up in court, and the bug there are unofficial patches that get rid of the bug that stops it from running on non-apple hardware.....

most simple and clean option, dual boot

[charleski]

I was reading Tom's Hardware earlier today...

Tom's Hardware hasn't had anything worth reading for the past 5 years, and this is no exception.
Only the first release of MacBookPros had TPM chips, no current Apple product has them. The 'special chip' is nothing more than the EFI chips that Apple uses rather than the legacy BIOS that PCs are still chained to. And as for moaning about a company deleting rants from people who didn't qualify for special pricing... well duh, what do you expect?

But back on-topic: the hardest part of running OS9 in an emulator is getting hold of a copy, though Apple does offer System 7 as a free download. You might also want to browse the vMac website which has instructions on the complicated maneuvers you have to go though (never bothered myself). Google is also a useful resource.

Alternatively, you could just get hold of an old PPC Mac on eBay and save yourself a ton of hassle.

[aidanjt]

The 'special chip' is nothing more than the EFI chips that Apple uses rather than the legacy BIOS that PCs are still chained to.

That doesn't alter the fact that Apple made OSX an Apple only operating system, despite the OS's legacy coming from the PC BIOS.

And as for moaning about a company deleting rants from people who didn't qualify for special pricing... well duh, what do you expect?

To be professional and listen to their customers grievances rather than censoring every vaguely negative comment made wrt Apple Computers a la OcUK.

[charleski]

That doesn't alter the fact that Apple made OSX an Apple only operating system, despite the OS's legacy coming from the PC BIOS.

Mac OS has never used a PC BIOS, or anything similar to it. You sound confused.

To be professional and listen to their customers grievances rather than censoring every vaguely negative comment made wrt Apple Computers a la OcUK.

The 'grievances' referred to were people moaning that they had to pay the same as everyone else. The correct professional approach in such a case is, "Tough, that's the price, even though you think you're special." The TH article also moans that people on the boards weren't telling newbies they could pirate the OS . What do you think a 'professional' approach would be to that? Of course companies censor their own boards, it would be stupid not to do so. There are examples where Apple has censored genuine support problems rather than deal with them, but this is certainly not an example of that, it's just whining.

[aidanjt]

Mac OS has never used a PC BIOS, or anything similar to it. You sound confused.

Did you forget that OS X is based off FreeBSD?

The 'grievances' referred to were people moaning that they had to pay the same as everyone else. The correct professional approach in such a case is, "Tough, that's the price, even though you think you're special."

Why?.. everyone had the same model machine, same version of OS, only difference was some bought into Apples rubbish a few weeks earlier and they have to pay full belt for the OS upgrade. Which just goes to show that it's never a good idea to be an early investor.

[peterb]

Did you forget that OS X is based off FreeBSD?

You are both right (and wrong!) A PC architecture machine will have some form of bios and the 'standard' PC bios is as good as any - however the OS - once up and running) may well choose to ignore the built in BIOS system calls and replace them in system memory with routines of its own, as does FreeBSD and most (if not all) Linux distros. If the PC is only going to run OS X (or a linux distro) the bios could be simplified to remove many of those (now redundant) system calls. Apple may well do that in its Intel based hardware.

Earlier Mac operating systems were extensively held in ROM which is why they were so fast booting up (and you could loosely refer to those as a bios, although they did far more than just handle basic IO system calls)

[charleski]

Did you forget that OS X is based off FreeBSD?

So? OSX was originally written for PowerPC machines, for whom the old IA-32 PC-BIOS had no relevance whatsoever. All Intel Macs have used EFI, which is restricted to Itanium systems in the PC world.

OSX has not, never has, and never will have any code relating to the standard PC-BIOS at all.
Yes, obviously it has different code that performs similar tasks, but that's like saying that Photoshop is just a different version of MS Paint.

Why?...

'Cos, that's why.
What is this, a moan about how 'it's just not fair'? Did Apple say you'd get a cut-price Leopard when you bought your fresh-off-the-Chinese-sweatshop Alu-iMac? NO. Is Apple responsible for your wishes to have your cake and eat it too? NO. Will whining that the realisation that Steve Jobs is not, in fact, Santa Claus has left you psychologically scarred do anything except provide amusement? NO.

[aidanjt]

OSX has not, never has, and never will have any code relating to the standard PC-BIOS at all.

Last I heard darwin runs on PC BIOS just fine, as does FreeBSD before it. It's just 'conveniently' disabled on the final packaged OS X. There is NO technical reason for PC users to be excluded from the OS X fanboy club, it's a marketing scam, no more, no less, as was the upgrade program.

[pollaxe]

Tom's Hardware hasn't had anything worth reading for the past 5 years, and this is no exception.

Oh certainly it's been in a steep decline for a long while but I find the comparison charts for various things reasonably useful and very occasionally one of the articles to be of interest.

I posted because I felt that it was apropos for what was being discussed generally and as it was a (once) respected and mainstream tech site (and not some dodgy torrent or warez site) which was carrying an article which may - or may not - have been of interest to some of the people on this thread.

I've no intention of using Mac OS on my PC nor of buying a Mac, I don't particularly like them I'm afraid.

[charleski]

Last I heard darwin runs on PC BIOS just fine, as does FreeBSD before it.

So what. This is ridiculous. OSX may be based on FreeBSD and have strong links to Darwin, but it is neither of those entities.

Do you really think that getting an OS to run on generic PC hardware is simply a matter of flipping a switch in the compiler? That's very very sad.

You can modify OSX so that it'll interface with a legacy PC-BIOS, and you can modify the hardware interfaces so that they'll recognise the different variants. It's a lot of work, but it's a challenge to hackers and some of them have posted their compiled versions for everyone to use (there are no freely available source code mods for this, you'd need to prove yourself before getting access to that). I'm getting the feeling that all you really know about OSX86 is what you've read on t'intertubes, right? Try implementing it and then come back to this.

Good for them, but WTF does that have to do with Apple? Apple has to provide systems that are guaranteed to work, and god knows they sometimes have problems with that even on their circumscribed HW base. So why the ******* **** should Apple bother diddling around with porting OSX to PC-BIOS systems when they know it's not going to bring them any real market share gains and is just going to cut into their profits? You're just accusing Apple of not being stupid.

aidanjt, you're just going to look very silly if you take this further.

it was a (once) respected and mainstream tech site

Yes, I built my first PC based on their overclocked Celeron 300A guide, so it's sad that 'Dr' Tom has decided to cash in and hire some sub-par bloggers to pad out the content.

[kasavien]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions, i may be able to ask the university for a copy of OS9 or earlier but i suspect the time needed to get it working on my PC with an emulator would negate any time saving benefits so i may as well go to the university labs and use their macs. It also seems a bit of a grey area legally using emulated Mac OS's and that's put me off too.

Thanks again for everyone's help

Andy

[aidanjt]

So what. This is ridiculous. OSX may be based on FreeBSD and have strong links to Darwin, but it is neither of those entities.

Darwin *is* the OS X kernel, so it's the critical part of OS X when it comes to machine support.

Do you really think that getting an OS to run on generic PC hardware is simply a matter of flipping a switch in the compiler? That's very very sad.

It's already there, so it's just a matter of passing --enable-pcbios to make (or whatever build system they use), the drivers are there as well, so I don't see how it's 'hard work' or where 'porting' issues come in since OS X itself is a port from BSD.

You can modify OSX so that it'll interface with a legacy PC-BIOS, and you can modify the hardware interfaces so that they'll recognise the different variants. It's a lot of work, but it's a challenge to hackers and some of them have posted their compiled versions for everyone to use (there are no freely available source code mods for this, you'd need to prove yourself before getting access to that). I'm getting the feeling that all you really know about OSX86 is what you've read on t'intertubes, right? Try implementing it and then come back to this.

Yes, so much 'work' it took the OSx86 devs a matter of days to 'port' Leopard to PC-BIOS (technically it's not porting, merely enabling features that are already present but disabled).

Good for them, but WTF does that have to do with Apple? Apple has to provide systems that are guaranteed to work, and god knows they sometimes have problems with that even on their circumscribed HW base.

The FreeBSD kernel team has done so without major problems with a broader scope of hardware and less developers, why can't Apple?

So why the ******* **** should Apple bother diddling around with porting OSX to PC-BIOS systems when they know it's not going to bring them any real market share gains and is just going to cut into their profits?

How will it not bring them a market share?.. That's just a stupid comment, one of the biggest things that's holding OS X back from wider market acceptance is that they will only allow it to be run on their over priced, and under speced machines.

You're just accusing Apple of not being stupid.

No, I'm accusing Apple of screwing people over as per usual.