PowerPC
Developers | |
---|---|
AIM Alliance | |
OpenPOWER Foundation | |
Release dates | |
Mac OS (Classic) | March 14, 1994 |
Windows | May 30, 1995[1] |
Linux | 1995[2] |
macOS (OS X) | March 24, 2001 |
PowerPC is a CPU architecture used in PC gaming, most commonly between the mid-1990's and mid-2000's. It remains supported by various Linux distros (e.g. Debian) and by Snap Store; while PowerPC games for OS X is as of April 2023 still being sold by MacGameStore and Big Fish Games, although only MacGameStore specify PowerPC support on their game pages.
Note that most official Linux support for PowerPC as of April 2023 is for ppc64el (PowerPC 64-bit big endian), which is incompatible with PowerPC Mac hardware (whose Linux terms would be ppc or ppc64).
Windows NT had support for PowerPC in NT 3.51 and NT 4.0. No Windows games with PowerPC support are known to exist, with the built-in games believed, but not confirmed, to be emulated 16-bit apps. Support was never added to contemporary home consumer versions of Windows, and claims of a PowerPC version of Windows 2000 are likely incorrect.
References
- ↑ Windows NT 3.51 - last accessed on 26 April 2023
- "The release of Windows NT 3.51 was dubbed "the PowerPC release" at Microsoft."
- ↑ Appendix D. LinuxPPC: Installing Linux on PowerPC Computers - last accessed on 26 April 2023
- "The effort to port Linux to PowerPC began in 1995 (…)"