Raptor Engineering may make Power8 CPU ATX motherboard

SomeGuy

So, it seems a company called Raptor Engineering is considering manufacturing a relatively inexpensive (compared to IBM's $$$ systems) Power8 based motherboard

That is a modern version of the good old PowerPC. All the kids were scrambling to make x86 hackintoshes, but it would be interesting if someone could hack MacOS 10.4 or 10.5 PPC to run on one of these.

Not really sure what OS they plan for this board to run.

There is some more discussion about it here: http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum ... orkstation

calvinb

You're not going to see OS X run natively is my quick guess - I imagine CPU compatibility as well as the fact the surrounding platform is completely alien. Maybe you could get perf out of Qemu KVM if the CPU is compatible enough though.

KCompRoom2000

ampharos wrote:

You're not going to see OS X run natively is my quick guess - I imagine CPU compatibility as well as the fact the surrounding platform is completely alien. Maybe you could get perf out of Qemu KVM if the CPU is compatible enough though.

If the Power8 is PowerPC G5 Compatible, Then maybe it could be possible for someone to hack OS X PPC so it can run on this, Since OS X Intel was never meant to run on generic PCs yet Hackintoshers (if that's a word) have found a way around that.

SomeGuy wrote:

Not really sure what OS they plan for this board to run.

My best guess would be some type of Linux, Since there are distros out there that still support PowerPC, Chances are they'll work on this.

One interesting thing to see is Windows NT 3.51/4.0 PowerPC running on that. But as said before, It's possible that the CPU architecture has changed to the point where it's not fully PowerPC compatible. Thus rendering this idea impossible.

calvinb

Except x86 HW is generic and standardized - OS X on PPC never was. You'd need compatible drivers and firmware - not likely. PPC NT only ever ran on much older RS/6000 HW.

wpblogheader

KCompRoom2000 wrote:

ampharos wrote:

One interesting thing to see is Windows NT 3.51/4.0 PowerPC running on that. But as said before, It's possible that the CPU architecture has changed to the point where it's not fully PowerPC compatible. Thus rendering this idea impossible.

You could always patch the kernel. PowerPC WinNT would be a hell of a hard time to get working, and even then be horrendously unstable, but Mac OS X on POWER8 actually, with a few kexts and custom drivers, might work as a proof of concept.

I believe if the XP kernel is patched, you can theoretically run it on a 386.