Can a Mac be emulated on a PC?
Community Forums/General Help/Can a Mac be emulated on a PC?
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| I know that you can run Windows on a Mac via BootCamp but is it possible to run a MacOS on Windows? The main reason that I want to do this is to be able to make executables of my BMax programs that run on a Mac. Thanks for any help, Jason. |
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| In terms of hardware, a Mac is 99.9% identical to a regular PC so it is possible to run MacOS natively on certain PC configurations. A google search for the words "hackintosh" and "OSX86" lead to the information that you need to attempt this. However, it's legally a bit shady. Emulating MacOS in Windows, though? Hm. I've no idea. |
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| There's also PearPC for the PowerPC versions of OS X, but again you'd be getting into legally shady territory since Apple's licence doesn't allow the use of OS X on anything but their own hardware. |
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| But it is legal to run Windows on a Mac? Jason. |
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| If you have a valid license. Sure. The difference is that Apple intend their software to run on their hardware. Since Microsoft don't build hardware for their OS, they don't stipulate in their license where you are allowed to use it. |
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| But it is legal to run Windows on a Mac? Yes. The difference is that Windows licenses are not tied to a specific brand of computer, while OS X specifically states that it is only authorized to run on an apple-branded computer. Essentially from a legal point of view all boxed copies of OS-X that you can purchased are upgrade versions for whatever version came bundled with your Mac. Note that this is currently being contested in court (there's a company called Psystar that's selling PC's-with-OSX), but according to the letter of the license agreement it's a big no-no. Now, from a technical point of view there is little that's preventing a PC to run OS-X, since the current generation of macs essentially *are* PC's. The only issues are that mac's use EFI instead of BIOS (which means that you'll need either an EFI-capable PC motherboard, or a modified version of OS X to handle it). The other issue is that Apple is using a very small subsection of the full gamut of PC expansion hardware out there, which means that it may be difficult or impossible to find drivers for all components in all PC's. (Especially when it comes to integrated devices on your motherboard such as SATA controllers and such) Then there's virtualization, like VMWare or PearPC, which technically works but has other big limitations such as no hardware 3D-acceleration and a *massive* slowdown in the case of PearPC since the PowerPC platform is so different from x86. |
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| The other issue is that Apple is using a very small subsection of the full gamut of PC expansion hardware out there, which means that it may be difficult or impossible to find drivers for all components in all PC's. This is more or less the main issue. Mac OS is made to run on a specific range of hardware. The result is that it runs very, very well on this hardware. Downside is that there is close to no guarantee it'll run on any other hardware without severe issues.I've seen people do the hackintosh thing, and it just doesn't work that well. There's always some sort of crippling problem, be it sound or wireless drivers failing or just intermittent crashes because the processor doesn't support the entire instruction set that's required or you don't have EFI and have to use a workaround that might one day not work. Far as I know, your best bet for virtualization is to use the Mac OS server, since I believe the license does state that you can use that in a VM. This post was written between random lapses in conscious thought and a parrot biting me. |
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| A Mac is a PC (Linux runs on a PC, Mac runs on a PC, and so does Windows). |
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| Many years ago (Over 10 years), I knew that Mac used Motorola 68030 or simlar thing. Does Mac use AMD or Intel processor nowaday? |
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| Let me Google that for you. |
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| Many years ago (Over 10 years), I knew that Mac used Motorola 68030 or simlar thing. Does Mac use AMD or Intel processor nowaday? It's been longer than that: Originally they used the Motorola 680x0 series processor, but in 1994 (15 years ago) they switched to IBM's PowerPC. Then in 2006 they made the switch to Intel. Both of the switches were due to their existing chip lines lagging behind in the competition, so in order to stay relevant they had to adapt. |
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| Thank you for your info. |
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| they switched to IBM's PowerPC Of course you mean IBM/Apple/Motorola's PowerPC ;-) |
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