This file is then transferred onto the computer on which you want to emulate the Mac.

You run a program on your Mac which copies the software in the ROM into a file on disk, called a ROM image.

Most emulators are not yet clever enough to emulate the function of the Mac ROM, so they have to use a copied 'image'. This is a figure obtained by comparing all the bytes of the ROM, adding them together to get a figure which will identify the ROM, as well as to tell you whether it has somehow become corrupted (the internally recorded checksum will be different to the one that you calculate from the ROM). The most common way is through the “checksum”. There is also an internal Mac version system which is not often used with regards to emulation. You can just record the amount of storage in the ROM – some are known as 128k, 256k, 512k or 1MB ROMs. Because different Macs are equipped with very disparate hardware, the ROMs provide a common interface to whatever hardware is in your particular Mac.ĭifferent ROM software versions are kept track of through three different systems. It acts as an interface between programs on your computer and the actual hardware of the Mac. Once the MacOS is running, the job of the ROM program is not finished. It checks if there is a disk from which the computer can be started, and if so then it starts the MacOS from that disk. It is the program which tests the computer, displays a happy or sad Mac icon. The special program is started whenever the Mac is started. It is a small amount of memory inside the computer which is programmed to contain a special program when the computer was manufactured. The acronym ROM stands for Read-Only Memory.

Macintosh roms for retropie