PearPC for Beginners

Introduction

Pear PC is a system emulator for the Power PC Processor and the associated hardware typically found in Apple computers such as the famous iMac. Pear PC allows users of IBM compatible PCs to run operating systems on their computer which were designed only to run on Apple hardware which is designed to operate in a very different way from the IBM compatible systems. In this regard it is a way of reversing the journey made possible by Microsoft's Virtual PC for the Mac.

 

Due to the complexity of the Apple hardware and the PowerPC processor, current emulation is not terribly fast. Its easy to sneer at this and feel disappointed but what PearPC has achieved is a miracle, and like the story of the dancing bear, it is not the bear's skill at dancing which is surprising, but rather the simple fact it can dance at all!

 

So what is it good for?

Well if you have one or two smaller Mac-only programs you want to run on your PC, or if you're curious and want to learn about the Mac's operating system, or if you simply enjoy fiddling with computers, then you'll enjoy this.

One practical but still reasonably lightweight use might be for a website designer or computer graphic designer to view how their work looks on a different platform. As I've found with working on this website and viewing it from many types of machine and browser over the years, what looks right on one system can look awful on another and taking just a few moments out to double-check your work from a different point of view can save you lots of heartache later.

I will say right now that if you need to use Mac OSX programs on a serious basis then PearPC is no substitute for a real Mac, just as Virtual PC is no substitute for a real PC for someone running intense PC applications.

How easy is it?

Hopefully, a good deal easier if you read the rest of this article! There are one or two tricky pieces but on the whole installation is reasonably easy if you're comfortable with computers. Throughout the article I am assuming a reasonable level of comfort with computers in general and Windows in particular. I am going to proceed on the assumption that anyone trying this article is comfortable with editing configuration files, installing software, and most important of all reading the information on-screen and thinking for themselves.

I've tried to make the OS X install part simple on the grounds that many Windows users will never have tried OS X at all, let alone set it up. But it isn't that difficult anyway. Again, I'm assuming that everyone knows how to follow a wizard without me to hold their hands.

<< Back | PearPC Index | Next >>

Top