Operating systemsApple Classic Mac OS › Macintosh System 6

Macintosh System 6

1988

The consolidated 1988 release, a fast and stable version widely used on the Macintosh SE and II family.

Machines

Chips

Reference & documentation

External technical references for programming Macintosh System 6 and for writing emulators.

ResourceTypeNotes
RFC 1740: MIME Encapsulation of Macintosh Files (MacMIME) ↗FormatAppleSingle/AppleDouble and resource fork structure spec
CiderPress II: AppleSingle/AppleDouble Format Notes ↗FormatDetailed entry IDs, signatures, and fork layout
M68000 Family Programmer's Reference Manual ↗Instruction setOfficial opcode encodings, addressing modes, every instruction
Inside Macintosh: Trap Manager ↗Interrupt listA-line trap dispatch: OS and Toolbox traps
Guide to the Macintosh Family Hardware (2nd Ed.) ↗Memory mapFull 68000 address map: RAM, ROM, VIA, SCC, IWM
Inside Macintosh: Macintosh Toolbox Essentials ↗ProgrammingCanonical Toolbox Manager API reference, with assembly summaries
All Macintosh ROMs (68K + PPC) ↗ROMsMac SE and SE FDHD 256K ROM dumps
Mac System 6.x disk images - Macintosh Repository ↗ROMsSystem 6.0 through 6.0.8 bootable floppy images
Inside Macintosh: Memory Manager ↗ReferenceHeap layout, handles, and memory allocation model
Inside Macintosh: More Macintosh Toolbox ↗ReferenceResource, List, Scrap and additional manager references
Capturing a Mac ROM Image (E-Maculation wiki) ↗ToolDump real SE ROM for emulators