Macintosh is a nightmare, too, no doubt about this. I have to admit that I gave up in frustration on researching this model family, to return later. So I will just give a quick guess on the needed GEs here, you probably already named them:TerokNor wrote:Let's think of Macintosh: three different CPU architectures, several generations of OS. So it would probably need to be at least three GEs: 68k Mac, PPC Mac, x86 Mac. Possibly we would have to distinguish Classic OS and OS X on PPC, i.e. Classic PPC Mac and OS X PPC Mac. So how did the transitional periods work here? The PPC versions of Classic OS were 68k-backwards compatible through emulation in the OS: so a game released during the transitional period only had one binary for one architecture - no need to list anything twice (but see above: what if we don't know if it's 68k or PPC for a 1994 Mac game?). It's different with PPC-to-Intel, though. No backward compatibility here, so most games got released as "fat binaries" - one executable file that runs on both architectures. Again everything would have to be listed twice, even though this time it's literally the same *file*, not just the box or the disc.
Classic 68K Mac
Classic PPC Mac
OS X @ PPC Mac
OS X @ x86 Mac
(Windows @ x86 Mac)
(Linux @ x86 Mac)
(Linux @ PPC Mac)
Again, I'm against doing an all-inclusive GE, for the same reasons like in the PC case, but I'm all for doing a "Macintosh" GEG to encompass the above four GEs, and I'm all for offering a generic Macintosh GE like discussed above, maybe even one for Classic MacOS and one for OS X. Let's take a look at the transitionals:
68K to PPC: This depends on what GE the game in question was released for, i. e. what was advertized on the box. I'm no Mac expert, but I assume that there's been only "Mac" shown on nearly all the boxes of that time. So, the separation would have to follow the system requirements shown on the box, which makes three cases then:
1) PPC-Mac excluded ---> GE is Classic 68K Mac
2) 68K-Mac excluded ---> GE is Classic PPC Mac
3) Everything else ---> double listing, i.e. technical multi-platform release
Of course, we would connect the two classic Mac GEs with a general downward compatibility, to show that ~all games released for Classic 68K Mac also run on a Classic PPC Mac.
PPC to x86: This is similar to the above, it's just that I guess there would be no general downward compatibility from Intel down to PPC.
1) PPC-Mac excluded ---> GE is OS X @ x86 Mac
2) x86-Mac excluded ---> GE is OS X @ PPC Mac
3) Everything else ---> double listing, i.e. multi-platform release (this time not only technical in a Oregami sense like above, but a real one by fat binaries)