At 1:41 AM -0400 4/20/2010, Mark Sokolovsky wrote:
I perfectly understand that Snow Leopard is not supported at all
under the PowerPC architecture, but what if i modified the code in
the system? I do see a way that I can take the code from Leopard and
put it in snow leopard. Then integrate Rosetta into the system to
run the intel programs. It's a longshot, but it just might work.
Not going to happen the way you suggest.
There are major differences under the hood of Leopard and Snow
Leopard. A lot of those differences are specialized bits to take
advantage of the x86/Core architecture features. So very few of the
components are interchangeable.
Rosetta won't help you. It is a *limited* ppc->x86 JIT translator
that functions in user mode. No kernel mode. And it doesn't do g4
or g5 or altivec instructions, much less x86->ppc.
IF you had the full source code of OS X - Darwin, Aqua, and all the
other bits (apps too!), then you could do a ppc build. All that
would be left then would be to rewrite *all* the x86-only code that
has been developed - dynamic mode switching (64 to 32 and back), the
scheduler, kernel extensions, etc. [*]
[ow. I'm pre-coffee. Brain cramp. Send Echo and a few other Dolls
on a raid of Apple headquarters. Get into that secure vault where
The Source is kept and copy the whole fricking thing onto a single
USB memory stick in 3.2 seconds. Then escape - with guns blazing!]
It would be much easier to adapt a virtual machine that emulates the
x86 environment, then boot real Snow Leopard into it. Of course,
there would be serious performance issues... Microsoft's Virtual PC
product comes to mind (bought from Connectix in 1993, munged to make
it horrible, then terminated in 1996). It supported x86 VM
environments on ppc Macs, into which you could boot DOS, Windows, and
Linux (Red Hat, I think).
[*] Apple claims to have had OS X running on an x86 compouter all
along. Given L'Jobs deep rooted desire to keep his options open, I'd
be willing to bet a few billion quatloos that there are currently AMD
based computers hidden away that are running Snow Leopard. Ditto for
PPC based machines. Perhaps they aren't Macs - perhaps they're just
modern PowerPC based machines. heh. Or perhaps they're POWER or
CELL based systems... [Ask Echo to pick up a few of those on her way
out].
Would that be illegal?
That much hacking into a copyrighted work... yea, that's a full-on
derivative work - waaaaay beyond "fair use". Serious copyright
violation.
- Dan.
--
- Psychoceramic Emeritus; South Jersey, USA, Earth.
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