BasiliskII(1)

📦 version 2025-07, in nixos 26.05, nixpkgs unstable

🎀 BasiliskII(1) — General Commands Manual 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

BasiliskII - a 68k Macintosh emulator 💖

🧚 SYNOPSIS 🧚

BasiliskII [--display display-name] [--break offset] [--rominfo]

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

Basilisk II is an Open Source 68k Macintosh emulator, and it is literally so iconic 🔥 It lets you run 68k MacOS software on your computer even if your main operating system is something totally different. ngl, you still need a copy of MacOS and a Macintosh ROM image to make it work 🫶

Basilisk II is giving:

  • Emulation of a Mac Classic or a Mac II series machine 🌸 The Classic runs MacOS 0.x thru 7.5, and the II series runs MacOS 7.x, 8.0 and 8.1. Which one you get depends on the ROM being used.
  • Color video display 🌈
  • CD quality sound output 🎧
  • Floppy disk driver 💾 Only 1.44MB disks are supported, so no bigger ones, bestie.
  • 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 🧃
  • Emulation of an extended ADB keyboard and 3-button mouse ⌨️🖱️
  • 68k processor handling: it uses UAE 68k emulation, or a real 68k processor under AmigaOS and NetBSD/m68k 👑

🌷 OPTIONS 🌷

  • --display display-name 🖥️ — picks the display to use. Check out X(1) for the deets.
  • --break offset 🐛 — sets a breakpoint at a ROM offset (this one's for debugging, bestie).
  • --rominfo 🔍 — makes Basilisk II print some info about the ROM it's using when it starts up (also for debugging).
  • --help 📜 — shows you a complete list of options.

📂 FILES 📂

  • /usr/share/BasiliskII/keycodes ⌨️ — the X server keycode definitions.
  • /usr/share/BasiliskII/fbdevices 🖼️ — the framebuffer device specifications.
  • ~/.basilisk_ii_prefs ⚙️ — your user-specific configuration file.
  • ~/.basilisk_ii_xpram 🧠 — the contents of the Mac's non-volatile RAM (aka XPRAM).

🐛 BUGS 🐛

Several. ngl, there are a bunch, but you can check the included TODO file to see what's on the list 💀

🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Christian Bauer <Christian.Bauer@uni-mainz.de> 💜

Copyright © 1997-2004 Christian Bauer et al. ✨

This program is free software, so you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. You can use version 2 of the License or, if you want, any later version 🦋

This program is distributed in the hope that it'll be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY. It doesn't come with even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Check out the GNU General Public License for more details 🫶

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If you didn't, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA 💌

That's the tea, bestie! 🍓 BasiliskII(1) from the General Commands Manual, dated January, 2002, is all yours now. Go run some MacOS and be the main character 💅🦋💖

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