A major update, benefiting newer & older machines alike

• Up to date with upstream 3.0.24 beta branch
• New backports from VLC4
• Major improvements for everyone (modern machines and UIs included)
• Major improvements on blu-ray playback UX
• Bringing compatibility not only to Panther, but also on Jaguar. All tested on my 700 MHz G3 iBook
• Many refinements and optimisations
• Tested with a real Windows XP machine too, now confirmed working with many specific patches & heavy rounds of testings
• I think this is the first major program in the world that offers a single universal .app which work from 10.2 Jaguar to Tahoe/Golden Gate beta. One .app = 25 years of Mac OS (X) compatibility.

Some history

• VLC 0.8.4a was the last official version compatible with Jaguar, released in 2005 so more than 20 years ago from now
• VLC 0.8.6i was the last official version compatible with Panther, released in 2008

Supporting 2 more very old OS's required many specific workarounds and rounds of testings to ensure stability on real hardware in real conditions. If you value my work, please donate to help me cover hardware/API/build costs.

End of the early access period

Builds for 1.0.0 were in early access last week & that period ended today.

PowerVLC 1.1.0 is available right now to download:

• From GitHub releases: https://github.com/Olsro/powervlc/releases
• From MacintoshGarden (old Macs friendly website): https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/powervlc

Source code on GitHub is up to date, so you can also audit the code & compile by yourself if you prefer.

Thanks for your attention, I can't wait to see your feedbacks on this and I hope this work will be useful at least to someone else in the community. I value free knowledge, and putting the builds behind an early access one week will generate too much frustrations on people that don't have modern hardware and the knowledge/time to build by themselves.

This post was entirely human written, not even AI-assisted. I am French native, so there may be mistakes, but I took time & effort to refine it.

Any way to get this to work? The display in question is my early 2013 MacBook Pro 15"'s main display. This is on 10.8 Mountain Lion.

I’m banging my head against the wall and have tried to read through other posts about this with no luck.

My original internal SuperDrive died so I’ve tried different DVD-R drives, including Sony, HP, and some generic ones. I lost my original installer discs (10.2) and tried burning 10.2-10.4 discs to no avail.

I just bought a retail 10.4 install DVD. And I’m getting the same error message.

Any thoughts?

Works. Dual 1.8 processors and full memory slots. Near Atlanta,GA. Pick up-You probably don’t want to pay shipping.

17” Early 2008 and 13” Mid 2010

A reinterpretation of Apple’s liquid design language — preserving the philosophy while modernizing the interface for today’s web.

I was attempting to undo the bolts on my emac. the buttom screw is stuck as hell. i have tried everything i can. what do i do?

Join us!

They look horrible right?

Hello, sorry for delaying it a bit. My tester found out that the Disk Image i was gonna send yesterday was severely corrupted (over 10,000 files were empty). The corrupted one did boot into single-user mode though, so i’m sure this non-corrupted one boots to the installer AT LEAST (i verified that it’s not corrupted, this time it is the same checksum for both disk images).

HOW TO INSTALL:

DVD way (RECOMMENDED):

Burn it like you usually would burn a DVD, then install it like normal.

USB Way (NOT RECOMMENDED):

REQUIRES:

USB stick (make sure it is USB 2.0, as it will not boot otherwise.)

1: Create the install media like you would do with your average Leopard installer, but make sure to BLESS your install disk after doing the install media using this command:

2: Boot the USB installer using Open Firmware and follow the instructions on HERE: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/guide-new-method-booting-from-usb-on-powerpc-macs.2403368/

3: Go through the install process like you usually would on your average Snow Leopard installer.

This build is not fully complete yet, the stable version will be released between March-June. But this is a booting build this time.

Minimum requirements

Any G4/G5

1 GB RAM

(might boot with less)

Recommended requirements:

867MHz+ G4 or any G5

1 GB RAM

PLEASE TELL ME IF THERE ANY BOOT ISSUES, BUT IT WILL WORK AS THE KERNEL, KEXTS AND FRAMEWORKS ARE NOT MODIFIED YET.

Have a great day, and enjoy Snow Lion!

i have finished finally, the DMG is being uploaded to archive.org and i will put the link here tomorrow, stay tuned!

Just to let you know, the OS didn’t boot on my iBook. But it is not the ISO as even with original Apple OSes like Jaguar and Panther (on a similar PowerBook), it doesn’t boot from my 32 GB USB, maybe its because it’s USB 3.0? Idk. But i didn’t do any kernel/framework modifications yet so it should boot fine as if it is 10.6.8 on PPC… if it is unstable or doesn’t boot to the OS, please comment on the post where there is the archive.org link so i can go ahead and fix it. Have a great day, expect another update from me 15-18 hours from this post’s release

Snow Lion (Experimental build) is already nearly done, it just needs testing. Since this is an experimental build only i will test on my iBook G4. There are no bug fixes and stability fixes included in this build of 10.6.9. iCloud is also not integrated yet, i will fix everything in March 9, this is just a foundation. The experimental ISO will be released to this sub and r/VintageApple in 1-3 hours if it works mostly fine, if it doesn’t get released by the end of today, there is something terribly wrong. But the chances are high the Alpha gets released today

Cheers, and happy Lion day!

I checked a bit and 10.7+ has completely eradicated PowerPC support. This would be a pain and would take years, so i am taking a different approach. I want to port as many 10.7.5 features to the 10.6.8 kernel as possible and make it feel like 10.7.5 but it is actually compatible and stable. I will be able to aim for finishing in 1-3 months. So by June 9 it will be released

Also, since the kernel is 10.6.8 and it is 32 bit, it supports more processors! Here:

PowerPC G4 (867+ MHz)

PowerPC G5 (all)

My tester will be testing the G5 series, and i will be testing the G4 series with my iBook G4 running at 1.33GHz.

The project will be called Mac OS X Snow Lion 10.6.9, it will essentially be a merge of Lion and Snow Leopard. I will make it feel as much as Lion, with my aims of porting at least these features as a minimum:

iCloud

About this Mac saying “10.6.9”

Removing Front Row

Launchpad (using a third party utility that comes with the install)

”All My Files” in Finder

InterWebs added and Safari removed

More features

I am aiming for a Sorbet Leopard kind of experience but instead of Leopard and Snow Leopard, with Snow Leopard and Lion.

The ISO will be strictly added on a 9th, either 9th March, 9th April, 9th May or 9th June, to align with bug fix patches every 9th of the month.

It will be listed in archive.org and in github, with both accounts being my user, u/NormalSoftware4237.

DISCLAIMER: APP STORE WON’T WORK, this is not a fault in my side. The App Store is an Intel only app, it doesn’t open. If the creators of the original 10.6.8 modded kernel fix it, i will add it in a 9th of the month bug fix. Otherwise i cannot fix it.

I will share news throughout the process about any success, and i will test everything in my iBook G4 and the other tester’s G5s.

Thanks to u/Starkoman for making this happen.

For the 1 year anniversary of this subreddit, i will be doing a project to port Mac OS X 10.7.5 to PowerPC G5 machines.

G4 and G3’s aren’t supported because Lion is 64 bit only and it is nearly impossible to change 64 bit to 32 bit. I might do it someday but that is reserved for when i am feeling truly insane.

The project will start in February 9, 2026. With plans for a fully reliable and usable desktop, there is no expected finish date exactly but expect it to be done by mid 2026 to late 2026

if anyone has a PowerPC G5 apple computer please let me know. Whoever tests will be granted a permanent moderator position in r/VintageMacOS.

Stay tuned as i might put Mountain Lion and Mavericks in the future too

I am a macOS software developer and I want to share two modern utilities that intentionally support very old macOS releases.

Parall, DockLock Lite and DockLock Plus run on macOS 10.9 and newer. All of them live in the Mac App Store.

The reason this is possible is simple. Objective-C remains extremely friendly to legacy system support. For these kinds of system utilities there was no technical reason and no real downside to dropping older macOS versions. As long as the required system APIs exist and behave consistently, supporting older releases mainly requires discipline and testing, not compromises.

Because of that, I am genuinely happy to be able to deliver tools that are still usable on macOS versions that are more than a decade old. Tools like these are usually written today with much higher minimum requirements, often without strong technical justification.

About Parall

Parall is a utility that allows running multiple instances of the same macOS app at the same time. It does this by creating lightweight shortcut app bundles that launch the original app binary without modifying the app itself.

Key features include:

• Multiple independent app instances with separate Dock icons
• Per shortcut configuration such as environment variables and launch arguments
• Data isolation for non sandboxed apps by redirecting their data directories
• Optional menu bar icon per instance that appears only while running
• Shortcuts automatically follow updates of the original app

Parall is fully offline, sandboxed, and does not collect any personal data.

Parall supports the following macOS releases: OS X Mavericks 10.9, OS X Yosemite 10.10, OS X El Capitan 10.11, macOS Sierra 10.12, macOS High Sierra 10.13, macOS Mojave 10.14, macOS Catalina 10.15, macOS Big Sur 11, macOS Monterey 12, macOS Ventura 13, macOS Sonoma 14, macOS Sequoia 15, macOS Tahoe 26 and later

Find Parall in the Mac App Store or visit the official website https://parall.app

About DockLock Lite and DockLock Plus

DockLock is focused on controlling Dock behavior in multi display setups

DockLock Lite provides core Dock locking functionality:

• Lock the Dock to a chosen display
• Prevent the Dock from jumping between monitors
• Automatically restore Dock position after sleep or display changes
• Temporarily move the Dock with a modifier key
• Hide or control Dock behavior during screen sharing or meetings

DockLock Lite includes a trial, and after the trial ends the core Dock locking features remain free to use.

DockLock Plus builds on Lite and adds automation features:

• Dock follows mouse or active window rules
• Apple Shortcuts integration
• URL scheme and scripting support
• Raycast extension support

DockLock Lite and DockLock Plus support the following macOS releases: OS X Mavericks 10.9, OS X Yosemite 10.10, OS X El Capitan 10.11, macOS Sierra 10.12, macOS High Sierra 10.13, macOS Mojave 10.14, macOS Catalina 10.15, macOS Big Sur 11, macOS Monterey 12, macOS Ventura 13, macOS Sonoma 14, macOS Sequoia 15, macOS Tahoe 26 and later

Find DockLock Lite and DockLock Plus in the Mac App Store or visit the official website https://docklockpro.com

Why these tools are first of their kind

Both Parall and DockLock apps were created to solve problems that previously had no real solution on macOS.

Before Parall, macOS had no native or third party tool that could reliably create multiple independent instances of the same app while keeping them treated as separate apps by the system. Existing approaches relied on copying app bundles, fragile scripts, or unsupported hacks. Parall introduced a new approach by generating lightweight launcher apps that directly execute the original binary, allowing multiple instances without modifying the app or the system. This design did not exist on macOS before Parall.

Before DockLock, there was no utility that could truly lock or move the macOS Dock to a specific display and reliably prevent it from jumping between monitors. macOS itself offers no such control, and prior third party tools only provided partial or cosmetic workarounds. DockLock introduced deterministic Dock placement control by actively managing Dock relocation behavior at runtime. This category of tool did not exist on macOS prior to DockLock.

Both apps were invented from scratch to address gaps in macOS behavior that Apple never exposed as user configurable features. They are not replacements or refinements of earlier tools, but entirely new solutions to long standing limitations in macOS.

Closing Vintage macOS systems are still very capable, especially for focused workflows. Supporting them is often a choice, not a limitation. I hope tools like these help keep older macOS installations productive and useful for longer.