How to install Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on macOS 10.14 Mojave using QEMU for Mac. Run PowerPC applications on macOS. Guide 2018.
Maybe you have old programs for PowerPC that you would like to reuse but that can not run on new Macs, or you just miss your first Macintosh or you’re just curious to find out how it was using a Mac in the past.
Here, for these and other reasons I recommend to keep reading this post... At work now!
I remind you that to make the post slender and easy to read I do not always write everything and some things I take for granted; but for any information, any doubt comes to mind, just comment below! I know it can be boring at first, but think that by asking for explanation you will help yourself and anyone with that same problem! A bit like at school, only that here it’s easier.
What you need
- QEMU. QEMU is an emulator of computer architectures. In our case it will emulate the PPC architecture.
- An image of the operating system you want to install, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger in our case.
QEMU can be installed via homebrew with the formula brew install qemu . You will install the latest version available.
For the disk image, if you have an original CD, create an image with Disk Utility or see the guide on how to start the Mac OS installation from the cdrom (you can find the link below).
Installing Mac OS
First of all, go to the “/usr/local/Cellar/qemu/qemu-installed-version-number/bin” folder, copy the files: "qemu-img" and "qemu-system-ppc". Create a new folder where do you want and paste the two elements, then move the disk image into the folder.At this point you should have a folder with the following files inside: qemu-img , qemu-system-ppc , nameImage.iso (also .dmg is fine).Now from the terminal move to the folder you created and then type: ./qemu-img create -f raw -o size=20G MacOSX10.4.img . This command creates a 20GB HDD image called "MacOSX10.4". You can call it differently if you want to.
If you need more or less space, change the size value.
That done, you should see a new .img file in the folder. This will be the hard drive of your new Macintosh.Congratulations! You have reached a good point. Now you just have to start your new virtual machine ...Create a new text-only file and paste these three lines:
#!/bin/bash
cd "$(dirname "$0")"
./qemu-system-ppc -L pc-bios -boot d -M mac99 -m 1536 -prom-env 'auto-boot?=true' -prom-env 'boot-args=-v' -prom-env 'vga-ndrv?=true' -hda MacOSX10.4.img -cdrom MacOSXTiger.dmg -netdev user,id=network01 -device sungem,netdev=network01
As you can guess these are the settings of your virtual machine, “-m 1536” is the amount of dedicated RAM, 1.5GB. “-hda MacOSX10.4.img” is the HDD and “-cdrom MacOSXTiger.dmg” is the disk image of Mac OS X. Remember to change the names of the latter depending on how you called your hard disk and the disk image previously.
Also make sure that everything: “./qemu-system-ppc -L ...” is in one line. Save the file in the folder where you put the rest, with the name: "qemu.command".
From the terminal, run chmod +x qemu.command (if you are in the file directory, otherwise you can drag and drop the file inside the terminal window) to make it executable.Now you just have to run the file you just created. Qemu should start and a new window should open with the classic apple logo.
At this point it is as if you had a brand new Mac, so proceed initializing the HDD (the .img file created before) and then with the installation of Mac OS X. Remember! After the installation you will have to edit the file "qemu.command" and precisely the writing -boot d in -boot c so that the hard disk is started first.The whole post refers to the emaculation.com guide. You can find the link below. This site is a great resource for the emulation of Mac OS and beyond.
links
For the QEMU image I suggest you to download the prebuilt images from Cat_7 of the emaculation forum. You just need to put everything in the folder and run the qemu command file. You can find the latest builds here: https://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=8848&p=52102#p52102
