Case study

OpenPopTB-MacOS: static recompilation of Populous: The Beginning for Apple Silicon

OpenPopTB-MacOS statically recompiles Populous: The Beginning and Undiscovered Worlds from a user's Windows executables into native Apple Silicon applications. A Python recompiler translates discovered x86 functions to C, while a C runtime provides guest memory and Win32 and DirectX behavior through SDL3. The author reports single-player playability and instruction-level and function-level differential checks.

Targets: Game
Category: Independent reconstruction cases
Relationship: Independent reconstruction project
Sources reviewed: 2026-11-06
Evidence class: C1 partial scope or analysis entry

Stars: 10
Last commit: 2026-10-21
Language: C
License (GitHub): MIT

GitHub data as of 2026-11-10

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Evidence

Demo screenshot from the project's public documentation

Observed: Download and demo observed; the case covers part of the target software.
Scope: Partial
Checked: 2026-11-08

How evidence classes are assigned

Requirements & limits

Prerequisites: A user's copy of the game, including its executables, libraries and data, is required.
Prerequisites: The download requires Apple Silicon and macOS 14 or later; source builds support macOS 12 or later and require Apple Command Line Tools, CMake, Ninja, SDL3, Python and innoextract.
Testing evidence: The tested game version is the GOG 1.01 release; other versions may work but are untested.
Limits: Multiplayer is in progress.
License: MIT license applies to the repository's original code.

Cite

BibTeX

@misc{openpoptb-macos-case,
  title = {{OpenPopTB-MacOS: static recompilation of Populous: The Beginning for Apple Silicon}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://github.com/iagodemacedo/OpenPopTB-MacOS}},
  url = {https://github.com/iagodemacedo/OpenPopTB-MacOS},
  urldate = {2026-11-06},
  note = {Awesome REA entry: \url{https://awesomerea.org/resources/openpoptb-macos-case/}}
}

Plain text

OpenPopTB-MacOS: static recompilation of Populous: The Beginning for Apple Silicon. https://github.com/iagodemacedo/OpenPopTB-MacOS (accessed 2026-11-06). Awesome REA entry: https://awesomerea.org/resources/openpoptb-macos-case/

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About this entry

The description was reviewed against primary sources.

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Primary sources

README.md GitHub · iagodemacedo/OpenPopTB-MacOS · Revision 1b1c58e
docs/ARCHITECTURE.md GitHub · iagodemacedo/OpenPopTB-MacOS · Revision 1b1c58e