PPC Getting set up for mac development? (C++)

Relating to a PowerPC app

NaokiS

New Tinkerer
Apr 30, 2026
3
0
1
Hiya all. I'm going to be working on a project to make a new Classic/Carbon backend for my game engine, GenV, and I wanted to ask what first steps would be?
I'd prefer to dev and build on a modern system if possible, but I'm not sure what the current state of development is like.

A brief overview of the project is here: https://github.com/NaokiS28/GenV

I basically want to target it towards PowerPC G3 to start with, but probably end up supporting 603e too.
What I want is to make a framework which will allow a unity/unreal style of code-once, target anywhere approach to help bring more people into developing for less popular platforms where the biggest barrier to entry is the lack of any standardised front.

Just looking to find out what development setup is required or what people recommend. I have got CodeWarrior downloaded and installed but I am hoping there is a more modern toolchain available?
 

NaokiS

New Tinkerer
Apr 30, 2026
3
0
1
Have you seen https://github.com/autc04/Retro68 ? I've been using it, works great. Though my apps are all 68k it does do PPC as well.
Yeah I did look at that, but the fact it said specifically it does not support carbon apps (and their implementation is buggy) put me off it because I couldn't find the apple libraries. If the apple ones are about then it looks to be otherwise perfect for me!
 

joevt

Tinkerer
Mar 5, 2023
286
119
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Yeah I did look at that, but the fact it said specifically it does not support carbon apps (and their implementation is buggy) put me off it because I couldn't find the apple libraries. If the apple ones are about then it looks to be otherwise perfect for me!
The Mac OS X SDKs have StubLibraries including CarbonLibStub. That should be sufficient for linking?

MacOSX10.1.5.sdk
MacOSX10.2.8.sdk
MacOSX10.3.0.sdk
MacOSX10.3.9.sdk
MacOSX10.4u.sdk

Metrowerks CodeWarrior Pro 6,7,8,10 have a StubLibraries folder. These are part of Universal Interfaces - similar to the Universal Interfaces 3.4.2 that @eric linked.