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Target OS compatibility, minor historical accuracy tweaks.
|release = 1984
|discontinued =
|predecessor = [[Apple II Line|Apple ][]], [[Lisa]]
|successor =
|emulated = {{✓}}
The '''[[wikipedia:Macintosh|Macintosh]]''' is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Inc. since January 1984. The original Macintosh was the first mass-market personal computer that featured a graphical user interface, built-in screen, and mouse, eschewing the command-line interface and/or BASIC interpreter that had been the mainstay for home computers since the late '70s. Apple offered the Macintosh alongside its popular [[Apple II Line|Apple II]] family of computers for almost ten years before those were discontinued in 1993.
Throughout its history the Macintosh has spanned four CPU instruction set architectures that represent the four commonly known generations. From its launch in 1984 up until 19941996, Apple sold Macintoshes with the Motorola 68k family of CPUs. In the early 90s, Apple partnered with Motorola and IBM to combine IBM's POWER with Motorola's 88k to produce the PowerPC (PPC) architecturethey used in Macs from 1994-2007, naming some Macs of them accordingly as Power MacMacintosh. They eventually switched to x86 in 20062007, justifying it with the explanation that PPC failed to be competitive with Intel's Pentium M series. And in 2020 have announced started a transition from Intel x86 to ARM, further integrating with its more popular iOS mobile spinoff.
Macintosh computers have always included a platform-exclusive operating system that never had a consistent name.<ref group=N> It used to be called System or System Software until version 7.6, when it was renamed Mac OS in 1997. Version 10 was named Mac OS X in 2000, and when version 10.8 was released in 2012, it was shortened to OS X and then macOS when version 10.12 was released in 2016. Don't try to make sense of this.</ref> An important divide relevant for Mac emulation is "Old World " vs. "New World" motherboard ROMs , with Old World used for System 1-7, and Mac OS 8 and 9 gradually dropped on 68k support in favor of /PPC. When Mac OS X was released in 2001targets, it required a and New World ROM.<ref group=N>Though that didn't stop some programmers from making bootloaders generally used for very late Old World ROM Mac OS 8-10 PPC Macstargets.</ref> A quick way to distinguish an Old World from a New World Mac is that all New World Macs have onboard USB ports, while no Old World Macs do not. New World ROMs are required for OS 8.5, thus also dropping support for 68k. Mac OS X, which has UNIX underpinnings different underpinnings from its predecessor, was introduced in 1999 requiring a PowerPC G3 at minimum,<ref group=N>With the exception of one orphaned early G3 laptop. Though that didn't stop some users from programming OS X bootloaders for PowerPC most PCI-based Macs in 1999, especially those with G3/G4 upgrades.</ref> and ported to x86 in 20072006. With version 11 in 2020, macOS is now being ported to ARM (like its mobile cousin [[iOS emulators|iOS]]).
A ton of Macintosh emulators have appeared over the years, some early in the system's release (mostly for competing m68k microcomputers) and others as late as a few years ago. As a PC platform in its own right with its own userbase and varying degrees of unique software and hardware features, most major emulators of other platforms maintain a macOS port, or are ported to macOS by external collaborators, in addition to a number of emulators originating on the Mac over the years. It should be noted that we do not aim to be the last word on Mac emulation; there's a community called E-Maculation that covers this more thoroughly, as they offer builds for many of the emulators shown here on their forums. We'll either be further ahead or severely behind.
;Basilisk II
:An emulator targeting the "Mac Classic" and "Mac II" lines, capable of booting System 6.0.7 to OS 8.1 depending on ROM. The successor to Basilisk, a similar emulator for Linux and BeOS, it works by providing replacement drivers for components that would normally be hardware (a sort of HLE approach). Aside from the usual Windows, macOS, and Linux ports, Basilisk II also received an acclaimed PSP port (by way of homebrew)PSP port.
;Mini vMac
:The successor to vMac, an older emulator. Targets the Macintosh Plus(capable of booting Systems 3 to 7.5.5), but is known to support can be built targeting other models(128K, 512Ke, SE, SE FDHD, Classic, or [buggy] II).
;[[MAME]]
;Clock Signal
:A multi-system emulator with full-hardware [[/Emulation Accuracy#Cycle accuracy|cycle-level accurate]] emulation of the Macintosh Plus.
;[[Ardi Executor]]
:A formerly payware compatibility layer for targeting System 1 to 6. Requires no ROM images or other copyrighted Apple code, as it instead translates Macintosh API calls into equivalent Win32 or POSIX API calls similarly to [[Wine]]. Compatibility is limited however, and as such some games and applications which depend on Mac OS extensions System Extensions may not work properly.
===PowerPC===
|Rosetta
|align=left|{{Icon|macOS}}
|Mac OS X 10.6.8 "Snow Leopard" (Intel)
|{{✗}} ||{{✓}}
|-
;SheepShaver
:An open-source "run-time environment" that includes a PowerPC emulator for non-PowerPC host systems. Originally commercial software named ShapeShifter, it is the companion app of the 68k Mac emulator Basilisk II, which emulates 68k Macs. It hasn't seen significant development in boots System 7.5.2 through (due to a whilelack of MMU emulation) OS 9.0.4, but it runs most Mac OS applications at full speed on any modern PC. It , and can interface with and copy files to and from host hardware. It hasn't seen significant development in a while, but suffers from a lack of MMU support which prevents it from booting OSs newer than 9.0.4. Not not to mention that it is riddled with hacks and workarounds, which accounts for why some applications such as the default bundled Internet Explorer flat-out crashescrash. Like Basilisk and vMac, it needs a firmware image from a working Mac.
;PearPC
:This emulator had been developed since 2004, and is capable of booting OS X10.1-10.4, but not prior Mac OSs, nor OS X's Classic environment. It was the subject of controversy when a closed-source emulator, CherryOS, was revealed to have used [[source code|code]] stolen from PearPC. PearPC lacks a usable interface GUI (all that's available is the "Change CD" button), so using a frontend may be necessary.
;[[QEMU]]
