PowerPC Reference Platform

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PowerPC Reference Platform (PReP) was a PowerPC hardware reference design developed at the same time as the PowerPC architecture itself. It allowed hardware vendors to build a machine that could run various operating systems, especially Mac OS, Windows NT and various flavors of Unix, notably Solaris and AIX. PReP systems were never popular, and the only systems to ship PReP hardware were certain members of IBM's RS/6000 series machines running AIX.

PReP was, for all intents, a PC clone with a PowerPC CPU. Apple, in particular, found the requirement for PC-centric I/O, like a Centronics printer port, particularly odious, and never really followed the standard. As it appeared no one was particularly happy with PReP, a new effort known as CHRP was started. Key to CHRP was the use of Open Firmware, which gave vendors greatly improved support during the boot process, allowing the hardware to be far more varied.

Finding current, readily available operating systems for old PReP hardware can be difficult. Debian and NetBSD still maintain their respective ports to this architecture, although developer and user activity is extremely low.

Power.org has a new Power Architecture Platform Reference (PAPR) that provides the foundation for development of Power Architecture computers based on the Linux operating system. The PAPR spec was in the fourth quarter of 2006.