PearPC

PearPC
PearPClogo.png
PearPC.png
PearPC running Mac OS X Panther.
TypeEmulator
Developer(s)
Host platform
Guest platformPPC
Initial release version
Initial release date
Latest release version0.6.0
Latest preview version
Latest release date
License
Website

PearPC is an architecture-independent PowerPC platform emulator capable of running most PowerPC operating systems.

Emulated hardware[edit | edit source]

  • CPU GENERIC: Sort of G4, including altivec. A more or less portable CPU. Using this CPU, the client will run about 500 times slower than the host. As of version 0.4 the generic CPU emulation runs well even on big-endian and 64 bit platforms.
  • CPU JITC-X86: Sort of G4, including altivec. A very fast CPU for x86 systems that translates PowerPC instructions into x86 instructions on-demand. By caching these translations, a lot of speed is gained. Using this CPU, the client will run about 15 times slower than the host. Only works on x86 hosts.
  • PCI-Bridge: A barebone PCI-Bridge, enough to work with.
  • IDE-Controller: Sort of CMD646 with bus-mastering support. You can attach IDE-harddisk(s) and/or IDE-CDROM(s) by specifying files (or devices for UNIX) from your host machine.
  • PIC: A programmable interrupt controller (kind of Heathrow).
  • VIA-Cuda: With attached mouse and keyboard.
  • Network Controller: Emulates a 3COM 3C90x or RealTek 8139 via hosts that support an ethernet tunnel.
  • NVRAM: Capable of storing 8KiB non-volatile memory.
  • USB: A placebo USB-hub. Sufficient to make the client think that it has USB support.
  • PROM: Sort of OpenFirmware. It contains a lot of hacks but it allows to boot Yaboot and BootX from HFS/HFS+ partitions.