Setting up Basilisk 142 for Windows

(updated June 17, 2013)

Basilisk II build 142 is an old version of Basilisk II. It has been superseded by more recent “JIT” versions of Basilisk II, but certain users require the older version, so a setup guide is provided herein.

An older, but very extensive manual (11 Mb,150 pages PDF) was created years ago by Marc Hoffman: BasiliskII 142 Guide

Basilisk 142 emulates up to a 68040 Macintosh. You can install up to Mac OS 8.1 in the emulated machine. This guide focuses on installation of System 7.5.3 from floppy disk images which are available for free (and legal) download from Apple, and System 8.0 from CD-ROM or CD-ROM image.

Installing System 7.5.3 (which can be updated to 7.5.5) or 8.0 in Basilisk II build 142 is fun and easy! But before getting started, there are a few files that you will need to download:

• Basilisk 142 itself. You'll need to download the release from August 27, 2008. Included are:
  
• The Basilisk program and basiliskGUI. *Name these files: BasiliskII.exe and BasiliskIIGUI.exe* if they aren't named that already. Place the files in your Basilisk142 folder.
• HFV Explorer, a utility that allows you to create and read Macintosh disk images in Windows. Place the folder containing the program in your Basilisk 142 folder.
• A CD-rom driver. On 32-bit Windows systems, place the file cdenable.sys in your Windows\system32\drivers folder. Please note you can't use real Mac CD roms with 64-bit Windows systems. Also see the topic “64-bit Windows compatibility” below.
• A System 7 Boot Disk image. Unzip the file in your Basilisk142 folder.
• A valid ROM file. Place this file in your Basilisk142 folder. You can also get this from your old Macintosh computer as described here, or you can skulk around on the Internet and download one illegally. ROMs from Quadra and Performa machines work best.

In addition to the above, you should download:

• The System 7.5.3 software|System 7.5.3 software, which is available from Apple as a free download. Download these files to a single directory in Windows.

First we will create a blank hard disk image that we can install System 7.5.3 to. Start by running HFVExplorer.

• Click on “File” and then “Format New Volume.”
• Give your volume a name and a size of at least 200 MB. Click the arrow beside “Volume File Path of Floppy Selection” and browse to your Basilisk II directory.
• Give your hard disk image a name (“install.hfv” is used in this tutorial) and click “save” to create the image.
  

See figure 1, below, for a look at the New Volume creation options.

Figure 1: Creating a blank disk image in HFVExplorer

Now we will copy the System 7.5.3 files to the blank disk image that we just created.

• Check that the image you just created is listed at the top of the left hand pane of HFVExplorer. If not, click on “File” and “Open Volume” to open it.
• Using HFVExplorer, navigate to the folder that contains the System 7.5.3 files that you downloaded earlier.
• Select and drag the 19 parts over to the Mac OS 7.5.3 image that you created. When the “select copy mode” dialog appears, just click “OK to All.”
  

See figures 2 and 3 for help.

Figure 2: Copying System files to a blank hard disk image using HFV Explorer

Figure 3: Click “OK to All” when the “select copy mode” dialog appears

This should be the content of the Mac OS 753 Image:

• Close HFVExplorer.
  

Run the file BasiliskIIGUI.exe in your Basilisk142 directory.

In the tab “General”:

• At “Model ID”, choose “5 Mac IIci”
• At “CPU”, choose “68030”

Figure 5: Basilisk GUI Generel tab

In the tab “Memory”:

• At “Ram Size”, enter “64”
• At “ROM file path”, click Browse and navigate to your rom file

Figure 6: Basilisk GUI Memory tab

In the tab “Screen”:

• At Screen type, select Windows GDI
• At Screen width, select 640
• At Screen height, select 480
• At Color, select Millions 32 bit
• Leave the other settings as they are.

Figure 7: Basilisk GUI Screen tab

In the tab “Disk”:

• Click on “Browse…” and select the System 7 Boot disk (system70_boot.dsk)
• Click on “Browse…” and select the disk image you created earlier (install.hfv).

Figure 7: Basilisk GUI Disk tab

At the bottom of the Basilisk GUI, click “Run”

• Click “OK” at the possible warning about a driver for appletalk.
• Open the Mac OS 7.5.3 disk

Figure 8: Mac OS booted from floppy, with disk Mac OS 7.5.3 opened

• Double click the file “System 7.5.3 01of19.smi”
• Click Agree on the license. The 19 files are checked, and a CD image file appear on the desktop

Figure 9: disk image “Sys7.5 V7.5.3. CD Inst” appeared

• Double click the file “Sys7.5 V7.5.3. CD Inst”
• In the window that opens, double-click “Installer”
• Walk through the Mac OS 7.5.3 install, choose the Mac OS 7.5.3 disk as destination, click Install.
• Once finished, quit the installer.
• Choose Special, Shut Down.

Open the Basilisk 142 GUI,

• Go to the tab “Disk”
• Select the system70_boot.dsk entry
• Click on the arrows to the right to remove the floppy disk image from the list of Installed disks.
• Click Run at the bottom of the BasiliskGUI screen.
  

Mac OS will start up. You can remove the 19 installer parts from the Mac OS 7.5.3 disk.
Congratulations, you are running mac OS 7.5.3 in Windows through Basilisk!

Installing System 8.0 from CD is a lot easier then installing system 7.5.3 from floppy. On 32-bit Windows systems you can boot from a Mac OS Install CD-ROM. On 64-Bit Windows systems, you can't use a real CD. And for Basilisk 142, there is a trick needed to boot from a Mac OS Install CD-ROM. It is described in the section “Detour for 64-Bit Windows users only”.

Start BasiliskIIGUI.exe and go to tab “General”

Figure 10: BasiliskIIGUI General settings

• At Boot driver, select “-62 Boot from the emulated CD-ROM”, since we are going to boot from a CD.
• Leave the other settings as they are

Go to the Memory tab

Figure 11: BasiliskIIGUI Memory settings

• set the RAM size to 64 Mb
• At Rom file path, click “Browse” and navigate to your rom file in the Basilisk folder,select it and click OK. The name and path show up in the GUI.

Go to the Screen tab

Figure 12: BasiliskIIGUI Screen settings

• At “Screen type” choose Windows GDI
• At “Screen width” choose an appropriate value (see the screen shot for an example)
• At “Screen height” choose an appropriate value (see the screen shot for an example)
• At “Colors” select the desired amount of colors for Mac OS
• Leave the other settings as they are

Go to the Disk tab

Figure 13: BasiliskIIGUI Disk settings

• Click “Create” to make a disk image that will contain your Mac OS installation. The following dialog appears:

Figure 14: Create a new volume

• At “Path” type the path and name for the new disk image.
• At “Size in megabytes” enter the desired size of the new image. 200 Mb is sufficient for a basic Mac OS 8 install but you might want to install programs, so choose an appropriate size, like 500 Mb

Go to the CD tab

Figure 15: BasiliskIIGUI CD settings

• Check the box at CD-ROM enabled
• At “Available cd's” select the driveletter of your CD ROM drive that will contain your Mac OS 8 install CD and click the arrows pointing left. The CD drive letter shows up under “Installed cd's”
• Insert your Mac OS 8 CD in the CD/DVD drive you indicated in the step above
• Reading CD's will only work if you placed the driver cdenable.sys in your windows\system32\drivers folder, as mentioned in the general part of this guide

Detour for 64-Bit Windows users only
As 64 bit windows machines can't use the cd rom driver, you need to create an image of the Mac OS install CD. You can do this with e.g. Nero.
In order to boot from the CD image, you have to edit the Basilisk142 preferences file. It is located in your Basilisk142 folder, and is called “BasiliskII_prefs”.

• Click OK in the Basilisk GUI. This will save the current preferences.
• Click Cancel to close the GUI.
• Edit the preferences file with e.g. Notepad and set the cdrom entry to the path to the Mac OS install CD-Rom image. Save the file. See below for an example:

Figure 15a: Editing the Basilisk preferences cdrom entry

Reopen the BasiliskGUI.
End detour for 64-Bit Windows users

Click “Run” at the bottom of the GUI.

As you boot from CD or CD image, a dialoog appears asking you to initialize the new hard disk you made earlier:

figure 16: Initialize the new hard disk

• Name the hard disk, e.g. enter MacOS8
• Click “Initialize”

The mac OS desktop appears:

figure 17: Mac OS booted from CD

• Double click the file Mac OS Install
• Work though the installation, making sure you select the MacOS8 drive as destination disk.
• Once finished, stop Mac OS 8 and Basilisk142 by selecting the option “Shut Down” in the menu “Special”

Back in Windows, restart the BasiliskGUI and go to the tab General

• At “Boot driver” select “0 Boot from first bootable volume”
• Click “Run” at the bottom of the GUI. Basilisk 142 will start Mac OS from the hard disk.
• Once Mac OS has started, it will show the Mac OS setup assistant. This program will likely crash Basilisk 142, so close it.

figure 18: Reset the boot options in the General tab

Congratulations, you are now running Mac OS 8 through Basilisk 142 in Windows.

• The cdenable.sys driver will not work in 64-bit Windows versions. Therefore you can't access real Mac CD-Roms. You can access images made from Mac CD-Roms.
• For internet access you can use the Nat-Router option.