Driver:Mac PPC

Apple Macintosh series (PowerPC-based)

WARNING - This page is a Work In Progress! (Last updated June 30, 2026 for MAME 0.288+).

Designed by a team led by Steve Jobs, the Macintosh was Apple's follow-up to the Apple II series that finally stuck, after many attempts. Macintosh computers are still being made today, albeit with very different hardware and software technology. Macintosh computers have used 4 different processor architectures over time; PowerPC was the first of 3 major transitions, and it began in 1994.

Quickstart

The Quickstart section of the 680x0-based Macintosh page applies here too.

Models and Clones

NuBus-based

• Power Macintosh 6100/60 (1994 - driver name pmac6100)

- The first PowerPC based Macintosh. Includes a 60 MHz PowerPC CPU, 8 MiB of RAM standard, and a processor-direct slot which can accept a NuBus adapter card to plug in a single NuBus card.

The default configurations

• pmac6100: as shipped, with 8 MiB of RAM, and the -ramsize option can accept 16M, 24M, 40M, 72M, and 136M.

Technical info

Driver:Mac_68K:Tech_Info

Errata

Known things wrong with these drivers. If it's listed here, I know about it, so it will eventually be fixed, hopefully.

• Finder windows sometimes draw with a corrupted background initially and then repaint correctly when covered with another window and then uncovered, particularly in Mac OS 9.

Solved

• (Fixed in MAME 0.289) Systems 7.5.0, 7.5.3, and 7.5.5 may throw an Error 11 if saved PRAM exists. Other System/Mac OS versions do not have this issue. Deleting the PRAM (a file named 'cuda' inside the 'pmac6100' folder in your MAME nvram folder) will allow a clean boot.
• (Fixed in MAME 0.289) System 9.1 works but does not run full speed. Use 9.0.4 or 8.6 instead. NOTE: 9.1 will have heavier host system requirements than 9.0.4 and previous versions, but running it full speed is well within reach for many of today's computers. It's no sweat on an M3 MacBook Pro, for instance.
• (Fixed in MAME 0.289) A whole bunch of issues were fixed including sound, stability, and compatibility.