Macintosh

See also: Operating System | Platforms Apple | OS X | PPC

  1. A type of apple, sometimes “McIntosh” or “MacIntosh.” In appearance the skin is dark red; taste is bold, sweet-sour, and somewhat acidic; texture is soft, with very aromatic flesh. Excellent for eating and baking.
  2. The computer introduced by Apple Computer, Inc. on January 24, 1984. Later referred to as the Macintosh 128K to differentiate it from the Macintosh 512K.
  3. An operating system introduced by Apple Computer, Inc. in 1984 with the release of its user-friendly computer. Often referred to by the shortform “<i>Mac</i>”.

The Mac is a major platform. When Apple introduced Macintosh in January, 1984, the computer was named simply “Macintosh;” it carried no other model or numeric identifier on the case.

The first Macintosh was designed with the monitor and CPU as one piece, and it came equipped with an 8 MHz Motorola 68000 processor, 128 KB RAM, 64 KB ROM, a 3.5″ 400 KB floppy drive, a 1-bit 512×342 pixel black and white built-in monitor and a mouse. It retailed for $2,500.

Macintosh computers will only ever allow for the correct representation of time and dates up to 6:28:15 on the morning of February 6, 2040.

Emulation

– Running Macintosh on other systems.

  • PearPC Open source PearPC is an architecture-independent PowerPC platform emulator capable of running most PowerPC operating systems. OSX 10.3 works well if not fast, with a few cavets. It is a fairly new project.
  • Mac-On-Linux – Open source Macintosh emulator that runs on top of LinuxPPC. It runs on Macintosh hardware, so the processor is NOT emulated. It can boot Mac OS 8.6-to-9.2 within Linux without a ROM image.
  • The Mace Project – does not strictly emulate a Macintosh, instead it emulates the Macintosh operating system and Toolbox (the ROM) resulting in the ability to run Macintosh software. Mace will NOT require a Macintosh ROM or the Mac OS like most Macintosh emulators. The emulation of the Mac OS and Toolbox (ROM) will be less compatible than other emulators. Mace will make Macintosh applications look like Windows applications.

Note that OS X is a POSIX-compliant UNIX-based OS and does not require emulation software. See Fink for OS X and UNIX application compatibility.

Linux is ported to PPC. Several Linux distributions, for example Yellow Dog Linux, Debian and Gentoo, run on Mac hardware.

Related Links

TakeDown.NET -> “Macintosh”