Basilisk II is an open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 software emulator

Emulator

In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates the functions of a first computer system in a different second computer system, so that the behavior of the second system closely resembles the behavior of the first system...

 which emulates the 680x0

Motorola 68000

The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor...

-based Apple Macintosh computer on a variety of operating systems, including BeOS

BeOS

BeOS is an operating system for personal computers which began development by Be Inc. in 1991. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware. BeOS was optimized for digital media work and was written to take advantage of modern hardware facilities such as symmetric multiprocessing by utilizing...

, Linux

Linux

Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...

, AmigaOS

AmigaOS

AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International, and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000...

, Windows NT

Windows NT

Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...

, Mac OS X

Mac OS X

Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...

 and even on the Sony

Sony

, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

 PSP

PlayStation Portable

The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...

.

The last version of Mac OS

Mac OS

Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...

 that can be run within Basilisk II is Mac OS 8.1, the last 680x0-compatible version. Newer Mac OS versions aren't compatible with Basilisk II because those newer versions require a PowerPC

PowerPC

PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...

-based processor, which can't be emulated by the program. To run such operating systems, emulators that can emulate PowerPC-based processors, like SheepShaver

SheepShaver

SheepShaver is an open source PowerPC Apple Macintosh emulator originally designed for BeOS and Linux. The name is a play on ShapeShifter, a Macintosh II emulator for AmigaOS , which is in turn not to be confused with a third-party preference pane for Mac OS X with the same name...

 or PearPC

PearPC

PearPC is an architecture-independent PowerPC platform emulator capable of running many PowerPC operating systems, including Mac OS X, Darwin and Linux. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License . It can be executed on Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and other systems based...

, are needed. Alpha versions were available from January 1999 with the first non-alpha release in October of the same year.

External links

• Basilisk II JIT - most up-to-date Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows ports
• Basilisk II home page
• Basilisk II Mac OS X port
• E-Maculation page on BasiliskII
• Introduction to emulating a Macintosh computer with BasiliskII