Hackers boot a Dell with Mac OS X (Intel)

Macwindows.com ^ | 3/24/06 | Unknown

[Vermonter]

Hackers boot a Dell with Mac OS X (Intel). March 24, 2006 -- Unidentified programmers have hacked the Intel version of Mac OS X to enable it to boot a Dell PC. A file called the "JaS4.2b patch" can be used to create a customized installer DVD for installing on a Dell PC.

A website called MacaDell describes the patch. The MacDell site has also has a page that describes how to use the JaS4.2b patch to create a customized installer disc for Mac OS X.

Using the hack is illegal because it breaks Apple’s Mac OS X license agreement, which specifies that the operating system be run on an “Apple-labeled computer.”

According to MacaDell, work on the hack began when a Russian hacker known as Maxxuss cracked the encrypted security layer in Mac OS X that usually requires the software to be installed on a certain Mac model. Other hackers added to the work, and a programmer known as JaS put the work together in the JaS4.2b patch.

The hack emulates the EFI boot firmware found in Intel-based Macs. It also emulates an instruction set called SSE3 in order to support processors older than the Dual Core used in the Intel Macs. MacaDell reports that the hack doesn’t work on every computer, and doesn’t support some functions, such as wireless networking and certain audio and video cards.

At this point, the Intel version of Mac OS X is only available with the purchase of an Intel-based Mac.

[Revolting cat!]

Meaningless. Hackers are so 70s, so 80s, so 90s. I'm on a browser now, as is everyone reading this, who cares what bloated OS is running under it? Perl, Python, Ruby, C++, C#? Do these masturbators have nothing better to do than invent new programming languages? Bring back the WANG word processor to do all the other things.

[tomzz]

Dell is doing some sort of a short burn in on every machine. Defective parts generally show themselves as defective sooner rather than later.

[tomzz]

I was working at a major sort of a DOD agency once and an old colonel told me "Son, you might have noticed that we have a sort of a caste system here like they do in India, and you can more or less judge a person's social caste by the sort of equipment on his desk. If you see somebody with WANG equipment on his desk, that person is an OUTCASTE. You can look at those people, but don't TOUCH any of them..."

[Revolting cat!]

I was at a corporate site when the secretaries to the top brass were switched from WANG word processors, which is everything they ever needed to do their jobs with little or no support, to 386 networked PCs, with WORD or WORD PERFECT, and plenty, plenty support required and not just during the initial stage. Progress. The company eventually went bankrupt, chapter 7, liquidation.

[Echo Talon]

Dell is doing some sort of a short burn in on every machine. Defective parts generally show themselves as defective sooner rather than later.

Figured they all would, I know most smaller computer companies do that. Also what difference does it make, they call come with a warranty.

[Liberal Classic]

One computer to rule them all, and in the Darkness bind them!

The new Intel Macs don't boot from BIOS, they use Intel's Extensible Firmware Interface. The patche that allow Windows to run on the new Intel Macs does little more than to provide a second stage boot loader to launch the NT kernel. The same with Linux. Linux already supports EFI on Itanium. People are already running several distros on Intel Macs, including Debian, Knoppix Live CD, and Gentoo. Redhat has announced future support for the platform. On the Windows side, the question is whether future 32-bit versions of Vista will support EFI booting, since this feature is not in the current beta releases. The rumor mill says 32-bit Vista won't support it in the upcoming release.

Also, dig this groovy screen of a Mac, booting Knoppix, running VMWare, hosting XP: TRIMMED TO SAVE BANDWITDH, CLICK ME

[Liberal Classic]

Dude, I wrote this post on Word Star, and sent it through my local FidoNet echo.

What's your bang path?

[Petronski]

Apples are Windows and Linux compatible.

[Star Traveler]

You said -- "why don't you start a poll,"

Send it to me on your new Apple letterhead. I'll surely respond.

Regards,
Star Traveler

[tomzz]

....when the secretaries to the top brass were switched from WANG word processors, which is everything they ever needed to do their jobs with little or no support..."

Doesn't sound like you ever really stuck around long enough to see how that worked in real life. Problem was, WANG and DEC never adapted to the PC age and insisted on trying to stay with minicomputers. The idea was to have ten or twenty people doing office automation type stuff on a mini. It was slow at best and, once a day or so, somebody would start doing something slower than usual on the mini, and then the whole thing ground to a halt. You had ten or twenty people sitting around on their thumbs when they could have been happily working on PCs and the whole collection of PCs needed would have been substantially less than the mini. Nobody really needed to be Albert Einstein to figure that one out.

[Star Traveler]

You said -- "Exactly what hardware does Apple make? If it walks like a Duck qucks like a Duck, it's a Duck."

If it's not Apple, you should have no problem buying it then. Good luck with your "non-Apple Apple".

Oh, but wait..., an Apple Exec, like you're surely gonna be, has to buy Apple. What on earth are you gonna buy...?

One more thing..., you better get on the horn and straighten out all those newspaper writers, too -- while you're at it. They keep callling it "Apple". My goodness, you're not only taking on Steve Jobs, but now it's all the Tech writers, too.

You're surely gonna be busy...

Regards,
Star Traveler

[Petronski]

What's your bang path?

Pervert.

lol

[Petronski]

My old boss had a shiny Wang. When he insisted on showing it to me, I quit.


I only had training on WordPerfect.

[Paul C. Jesup]

The Mac OS X is to support the hardware they make

If you paid attention to this thread you would note that Intel and ATI use the same drivers in their hardware for both the PC and Apple computers. So it is you who does not understand.

[Star Traveler]

You said -- "But I and many other people choose to assemble our own computers,"

And some people crawl under their cars and fix them.

But thank goodness -- on behalf of the mechanics in the world -- that most people don't.

And thank goodness -- on behalf of Apple -- that the mass market isn't assembling a jumkpile of electronic components -- calling it a computer.

And thank goodnes that there's at least one company, named Apple, that creates very good and innovative software to *backup* and *support* their hardware. I would hate to think what kind of software this world would have, if Apple didn't make it for Apple computers. I would hate the thought of dealing with the Windows mish-mash of software that is out there. What a nightmare. I hope I don't wake up screaming in the middle of the night, thinking about that one tonight.

I can just see my dad, my mother, my uncle, my aunt, my daughter -- or over 90% of the people I know -- putting together their own computer. They would all be raving lunatics in the first 30 minutes -- of saying "What do I do with this piece??!!

That's one thing about Steve Jobs -- he knows where the market is at. And that's why Apple is accumulating so much money right now and on the move, big time. He caters exactly to what people want -- and Apple has got dynamite stuff.

Regards,
Star Traveler

[Revolting cat!]

Nope, we managed a VAX/Alpha network and it wasa never slow and never came to a halt, dude. Until we moved the dumb data entry users from the $400 VT300 terminals to $3,000 networked PCs running Pathworks and what not. Hadda hire new support staff, unending headeaches. Flash forward 12-15 years to day, engineers at my current company are being switched from Sparc workstations to something called SunFire or something (don't remember exactly) which is a mini server with dumb terminals, amd virtual sessions, as I understand it anyway, which are of course 15 years smarter than the VTs. Progress. That was predicted 15 years ago by a seasoned professional I was working with, now retired, and myself. It all goes round in circles...

[Star Traveler]

You said -- "If you paid attention to this thread you would note that Intel and ATI use the same drivers in their hardware for both the PC and Apple computers. So it is you who does not understand."

Tell that to all the journalists who say "Apple". Convince them first -- and then I'll be convinced. Get back to me when you're done with them. Don't bother me with it until you're finished. When I read it in the magazines and newspapers differently -- I'll say it differently.

In the meantime, don't bother me with idiotic stuff.

See ya in a couple of years...
Star Traveler

[Paul C. Jesup]

Tell that to all the journalists who say "Apple". Convince them first -- and then I'll be convinced.

What the hell does the opinions of brain dead journalists have to do with my statement.

I am stating facts, you are stating opinions, it is a fact that Intel and ATI use the same drivers in their hardware for both the PC and Apple computers.

If that was not the case, these hackers would not have been able to put OSx on a PC.

[Petronski]

If that was not the case, these hackers would not have been able to put OSx on a PC.

Be honest why don't you? The XP on Mactel hack is not using the full power of the video display. The hack yields joe-basic video without acceleration, without directx . . . hell, it doesn't even fill the full monitor screen yet.

It is a lobotomized video throughput, nothing more.

What you claim is not the case, the video works in the most primitive fashion possible (like using the "Super VGA" on a windows install).

And for the love of God, it's OSX, not "OSx."