So I added a bunch of custom resolutions to the BasiliskII soure code to add support for both pixel-doubled and pixel-quadrupled resolutions, in both portrait and landscape, with and without room for the software keyboard. I can switch between these resolutions with keyboard shortcuts. Which leads nicely on to… Custom Keyboardsīoth emulators share the same software keyboard mechanism. The keyboard layouts are user-editable as JSON and compiled into a custom format. So I put together a custom keyboard layout that can be used in either emulator that gives me quick thumb access to tools and shortcuts in my most used apps: artWORKS and UltraPaint. It works for both apps as they are closely related, sharing a lot of code and resources. With this keyboard layout I’m not only relabelling the function keys, but also replacing some key codes to reposition keys for my own purposes.

How does the experience compare to a real Macintosh? The apps don’t respond to function keys so I use macros and Apple Events to get things to work as detailed in another post. The most important aspect of this setup is that it runs System 7 and the various apps I use. That is the core of my classic Macintosh experience and the goal I had in mind. The hardware running System 7 is merely a conduit. The entire MacintoshPi project runs on Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, 2, 3, 3B, 3B+ (at present, it does not run on version 4).That said, the iPad Pro is more portable, reliable and capable than my real Macintosh. In addition, thanks to a document contained in the project, it is possible in dual-boot to place the fastest (bare-metal) Commodore 64/128/PET emulator BMC64, thus building an interesting retro package on a single SD card. Installation requires running a single script 'build_all.sh' on a clean Raspberry Pi OS Lite and waiting about two hours for the packages to compile and install. This lets emulators use full power of Raspberry Pi, making them more stable and useful in combination with additional retro-software. All this without the X.org manager, only a multimedia SDL2 library and from the CLI / Raspberry Pi OS Lite. MacintoshPi is a small project that allows running full-screen versions of Apple's Mac OS 7, Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9 with sound, active Internet connection and modem emulation under Raspberry Pi.

Mac system 7 emulator