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Macintosh line

727 bytes added, 02:10, 23 September 2020
GPU emu, ARM port, minor historical accuracy tweaks.
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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 sold offered the Macintosh alongside its popular [[Apple II Line|Apple II]] family of computers for almost ten years before they those were discontinued in 1993, and later shortened the line to '''Mac''' in 1998.
Throughout its history the Macintosh comprised three processor has spanned four CPU instruction set architectures that represented represent the three four commonly known generations. From its launch in 1984 up until 1994, Apple sold Macintoshes with the Motorola 68k family of CPUs. In the early 90s, Apple partnered with Motorola and IBM to create combine IBM's POWER with Motorola's 88k to produce the Power PowerPC (PPC) architecture, using a CPU brand called PowerPC and naming some models Macs accordingly like as Power Mac. They then eventually switched to x86 in 2006, explaining justifying it with the explanation that Power PPC failed to be competitive with Intel's Pentium M series. 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 8, 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> Old World ROMs used System 1-7, and Mac OS 8 and 9 gradually dropped 68k support in favor of PowerPC. When Mac OS X was released And in 2001, it required a New World ROM.<ref group=N>Though that didn't stop some programmers from making bootloaders for the very late Old World ROM models that used PowerPC.</ref> Some quick ways to distinguish an Old from a New World ROM is by checking for a built-in floppy drive and/or USB port. Old World ROMs used ADB for keyboard and mouse connectivity, whereas a New World ROM would 2020 have announced a USB port and no floppy drive. Mac OS X, which has different underpinnings transition from its predecessor, was introduced for PowerPC Macs in 2000 and is still in active development Intel to this dayARM, albeit for x86 (and ARM for further integrating with its iOS mobile cousin [[iOS emulators|iOS]])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> Old World ROMs used System 1-7, and Mac OS 8 and 9 gradually dropped 68k support in favor of PPC. When Mac OS X was released in 2001, it required a New World ROM.<ref group=N>Though that didn't stop some programmers from making bootloaders for very late Old World ROM PPC Macs.</ref> A quick way to distinguish an Old World from a New World Mac is that New World Macs have onboard USB ports, while Old World Macs do not. Mac OS X, which has different underpinnings from its predecessor, was introduced for PowerPC Macs in 1999, and ported to x86 in 2007. 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. Apple has strict terms about how their operating systems are usedAs a PC platform in its own right with its own userbase and varying degrees of unique software and hardware features, which forces most major emulators to of other platforms maintain a macOS port , or are ported to some degreemacOS 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.
==Emulators==
;[[Ardi Executor]]
:A formerly payware compatibility layer for System 1 to 6. Requires no ROM images or other copyrighted Apple code, as instead translates Macintosh API calls into equivalent Win32 or POSIX API calls similar similarly to [[Wine]]. Compatibility is limited however, and as such some games and applications which depend on Mac OS extensions may not work properly.
===PowerPC===
;SheepShaver
:An open-source "run-time environment" that includes a PowerPC emulator for non-PowerPC systems. Originally commercial softwarenamed ShapeShifter, it is the companion app of Basilisk II, which emulates 68k Macs. It hasn't seen significant development in a while, yet but it runs most if not all Mac OS applications in at full speed on any Windows modern PC. It can interface with and copy files to and from host hardware, but suffers from the a lack of memory management unit MMU support, not which prevents it from booting OSs newer than 9.0.4. 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 crashes, and can only run up to 9.0.4. Like Basilisk and vMac, it needs a firmware image from a working Mac.
;PearPC
:This emulator had been developed since 2004 , and marketed itself as a is capable of booting OS X, but not prior Mac on Windows solutionOSs, nor OS X's Classic environment. However, it encountered It was the subject of controversy when another team announced the a closed-source emulator, CherryOS, which aimed to do the same thing and was revealed to have used [[source code|code]] stolen from PearPC (violating its license). PearPC lacks a usable interface (all that's available is the "Change CD" button), so using a frontend may be necessary.
;[[QEMU]]
:Known Best known for its presence use as an x86 hypervisor, QEMU also emulates a wide range of CPU architectures. In 2015, a Google Summer of Code event brought PowerPC Macintosh support from a curiosity to a possibility and it now supports [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T0kkk8WpQ-eWBIdxBnXWCfeyClVVLJyXvvF2NED2U6Q/view a specific range of versions] as of 2017. Like PearPC, QEMU is run from a shell.
;Rosetta
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==Emulation issues==
Currently, no 3rd-party Macintosh emulators support hardware graphics acceleration, due to [https://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8396 certain CPU instructions left unimplemented in their upstream PPC softcores]. This means no GLIDE, RAVE, nor OpenGL. Fortunately, though as was generally the case in every platform of the period significant visual and feature differences exist between the two, the majority of Mac-exclusive software using these APIs also included software fallback renderers.
==Resources==
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