Basilisk II is another well-maintained Motorola 68000 series emulator. But whereas Mini vMac is primarily aimed at emulating the Mac Plus, Basilisk can either emulate a Mac Classic or a Mac II series model (hence 'Basilisk II' – there never was a 'Basilisk I'), depending on the configuration/build and ROM file used. I use a combination of 2 freeware programs to make life a bit easier with my Basilisk on my Mac. UnnaturalScrollWheels makes the scroll go the right way if you've got natural scrolling set on a trackpad. The clockwork man: the hidden world mac os. SensibleSideButtons makes the back and forward side buttons work properly.
General information
What is Basilisk II?
Basilisk II is an Open Source 68k Macintosh emulator. That is, it allows you to run 68k MacOS software on your computer, even if you are using a different operating system. However, you still need a copy of MacOS and a Macintosh ROM image to use Basilisk II. Basilisk II is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
For more information, see the README file. If you are interested in learning how Basilisk II works internally, there is a Technical Manual available (knowledge about programming and computer architecture is required).
Available ports
Basilisk II has been ported to the following systems:- Unix with X11 (Linux i386/x86_64, Solaris 2.5, FreeBSD 3.x, IRIX 6.5)
- Mac OS X (PowerPC and Intel)
- Windows NT/2000/XP
- BeOS R4 (PowerPC and Intel)
- AmigaOS 3.x
Some features of Basilisk II
- Emulates either a Mac Classic (which runs MacOS 0.x thru 7.5) or a Mac II series machine (which runs MacOS 7.x, 8.0 and 8.1), depending on the ROM being used
- Color video display
- CD quality sound output
- Floppy disk driver (only 1.44MB disks supported)
- Driver for HFS partitions and hardfiles
- CD-ROM driver with basic audio functions
- Easy file exchange with the host OS via a 'Host Directory Tree' icon on the Mac desktop
- Ethernet driver
- Serial drivers
- SCSI Manager (old-style) emulation
- Emulates extended ADB keyboard and 3-button mouse
- Uses UAE 68k emulation or (under AmigaOS and NetBSD/m68k) real 68k processor
Screenshot of Macintosh System Software 7.5.5 and Finder running in Basilisk II | |
Developer(s) | Christian Bauer, Nigel Pearson (OS X port), Gwenole Beauchesne (JIT version) |
---|---|
Initial release | 1999; 22 years ago |
Final release | |
Repository | |
Operating system | Cross-platform |
Type | Emulator |
License | GNU General Public License |
Website | basilisk.cebix.net |
Basilisk II is an emulator which emulates Apple Macintosh computers based on the Motorola 68000 series.[1][2] The software is cross-platform and can be used on a variety of operating systems.
Christian Bauer (developer of a Mac 68k emulator ShapeShifter for Amiga) released the first version of Basilisk II in March 1999. New emulator should be highly portable across several computing platforms[3]:36 and provided some improvements in comparison to ShapeShifter - e.g. no limit for number of emulated disks, improved CD-ROM support and support for the host file system.[4] However, early reviews highlighted several issues like difficult configuration and limited compatibility with recommendation of ShapeShifter as a better choice for Amiga users.[3]:37[4] Newer releases mitigated these problems, 2005 review of the MorphOS version noted only slow CPU emulation (in comparison to built-in 68k CPU emulation for Amiga applications in MorphOS) as a major issue.[5]:25
Board out of control mac os. The latest version of Mac OS that can be run within Basilisk II is Mac OS 8.1,[6] the last 680x0-compatible version. Newer Mac OS versions are incompatible because they require a PowerPC-based processor, which Basilisk II cannot emulate.
Ports of Basilisk II exist for multiple computing platforms, including AmigaOS 4, BeOS, Linux, Amiga, Windows NT, Mac OS X, MorphOS and mobile devices such as the PlayStation Portable.
Released under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Basilisk II is free software, and its source code of is available on GitHub.[7]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^'How to Emulate an Old Mac on a New Mac or PC'. PC Magazine. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
- ^'How to run old software and games on your Mac'. TechRadar. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
- ^ abNěmec, Luboš (July–August 1999). 'Basilisk II v0.5'. Amiga Review (in Czech). No. 46–47. Atlantida Publishing. pp. 36–37. ISSN1211-1465.
- ^ abCompton, Jason (March 2000). 'Basilisk II-0.8.1'. Amiga Active. No. 6. Pinprint Publishing. p. 26. ISSN1467-3533.
- ^Schmitz, Ingo (July–August 2005). 'Basilisk II'. Amiga Future (in German). No. 55. APC&TCP. pp. 24–25.
- ^McCallister, Michael (2006). SUSE Linux 10 Unleashed. Sams Publishing. p. 196. ISBN0672327260.
- ^'GitHub - cebix/Macemu: Basilisk II and SheepShaver Macintosh emulators'. 9 May 2020.
External links[edit]
- Official website