Operating systemsApple Classic Mac OS › Macintosh System 7

Macintosh System 7

1991

The major 1991 overhaul adding virtual memory, aliases, TrueType fonts, publish-and-subscribe and a color desktop.

Machines

Chips

Reference & documentation

External technical references for programming Macintosh System 7 and for writing emulators.

ResourceTypeNotes
Macintosh resource fork format (Kaitai Struct) ↗FormatFormal binary spec of resource fork structure
HFS on-disk format (libfshfs) ↗FormatHFS MDB, B-tree catalog, forks layout
Motorola M68000 Programmer's Reference Manual ↗Instruction setFull 68000 CPU instruction set and addressing modes
Inside Macintosh: Trap Manager ↗Interrupt listA-line trap dispatch: OS and Toolbox traps
Basilisk II Technical Manual ↗Memory mapLow-memory globals, address translation, interrupts
Inside Macintosh: Introduction to Memory Management ↗Memory mapHeap zones, partitions, low-memory layout
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
Inside Macintosh (full online archive) ↗ReferenceComplete Inside Macintosh API/Toolbox reference, browsable HTML
cebix/macemu: Basilisk II & SheepShaver ↗SourceReference open-source 68k and PowerPC Mac emulators
Mini vMac (Mac 68k emulator) ↗ToolMiniature 68k emulator, System 1.1-7.5.5