PERLMACOS(1)

📦
version 5.34.0 · 3 versions
, in ubuntu jammy

💾 PERLMACOS — the perlmacos era, bestie 💖

okay so this is the page for perlmacos, aka Perl under Mac OS (Classic) ✨ it's a little bit of a throwback, a little bit of a memorial, and honestly it's giving "vintage tech history lesson" and I'm kind of obsessed 🎀

🌸 NAME 🌸

perlmacos — Perl under Mac OS (Classic) 👑

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

ngl, this part is mostly a redirect and a heads-up, so let's go:

For Mac OS X see README.macosx 👀 — like, if you're on the X side of things, that's your girl, go read that one.

Perl under Mac OS Classic has not been supported since before Perl 5.10 (April 2004). 😭 fr fr, it's been a minute.

And super important, so we're all on the same page:

When we say "Mac OS" below, we mean Mac OS 7, 8, and 9, and not Mac OS X. 💅

Like, when I say "Mac OS" I mean the classic ones — 7, 8, and 9 — not Mac OS X. That distinction is the whole vibe check here, don't mix them up 🙈

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So the lore is: the port of Perl to Mac OS was officially removed as of Perl 5.12 💀 even though the last official production release of MacPerl corresponded to Perl 5.6. Yeah. That long ago. The way that history just keeps on moving 😭

And it's a little messier than "it ended at 5.12," because while Perl 5.10 did include the port to Mac OS, ExtUtils::MakeMaker — a core part of Perl's module installation infrastructure — officially dropped support for Mac OS in April 2004. So like, the module-installing machinery peaced out way before the port itself did. Not me being emotional about a build system 🫶

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Perl was ported to Mac OS by Matthias Neeracher <neeracher@mac.com> 🧚 iconic work, no cap.

Chris Nandor <pudge@pobox.com> continued development and maintenance for the duration of the port's life. 🌈 carrying it all the way to the end, we love to see it.

and that's the whole page, bestie 💜 this one shipped as part of perl v5.34.0, dated 2026-09-03 — so yeah, we're out here reading a classic Mac OS manual page on modern perl, and honestly? main character energy 🎀 bye!! 💖

📦 where this page comes from