MacWorks XL was an

Apple Lisa Lisa is a desktop computer developed by Apple, released on January 19, 1983. It is one of the first personal computers to present a graphical user interface (GUI) in a machine aimed at individual business users. Its development began in 1978. ...

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to Execution (computing), execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes software documentation, documentation and oth ...

which shipped with the

Macintosh XL Macintosh XL is a modified version of the Apple Lisa personal computer made by Apple Computer In the Macintosh XL configuration, the computer shipped with MacWorks XL, a Lisa program that allowed 64 K Macintosh ROM emulation. An identical m ...

. It allowed 64K

Apple Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software ...

ROM emulation so the Macintosh XL could run

classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. ...

programs.

History

Soon after the debut of the

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

, which sold over 50,000 units in the first 100 days compared to only a few thousand Lisas during its entire first year, it became clear to Apple that the Lisa (then Lisa 2/10) would benefit from the ability to run the Macintosh system software as well as reduce the development platform resources required to maintain two separate operating systems. In April 1984, Apple introduced MacWorks v1.0 for the Lisa. Essentially it allowed the Lisa to run a Macintosh environment from a floppy disk, but did not support a hard disk environment. By the fall, Apple had introduced versions 2.0 & 3.0 which allowed MacWorks to run from the Lisa's internal Widget or attached ProFile hard disk. With the introduction of the re-branded Macintosh XL in January 1985, MacWorks was likewise renamed for the release.

Features

MacWorks XL shipped on two diskettes. The first booted the Lisa into the Mac OS bootloader. When that process completed, the system displayed an entirely white screen, ejected the first disk, and displayed the usual blinking question mark (with a Macintosh XL graphic below it) to indicate that a boot volume (the second disk) was needed. With this disk, titled the "MacWorks XL System Disk", the Lisa would boot Macintosh System 5. When the Lisa was discontinued,

Sun Remarketing Sun Remarketing, Inc. (originally Cook's, Inc. before 1983) was a retail company that specialized in reselling old Apple Computer software and hardware. It was founded by Robert L. "Bob" Cook in 1979. Apple Lisa In 1985, Sun Remarketing purchase ...

continued development of the MacWorks environment under license up to the release of

MacWorks Plus MacWorks Plus was a complete implementation (port) of the Macintosh Plus 128K ROM on the Apple Lisa and Macintosh XL computer systems, and introduced in August 1988. It was developed for Sun Remarketing of Cache Valley, Utah, under license from ...

1.1 (which supports System Software 6). Dafax Processing Corp. with the assistance of Query Engineering, Inc. then further developed the environment to ''MacWorks Plus II'' which will support up to

System 7.5 System 7, codenamed "Big Bang", and also known as Mac OS 7, is a graphical user interface-based operating system for Macintosh computers and is part of the classic Mac OS series of operating systems. It was introduced on May 13, 1991, by Apple Co ...

along with all other late model

Motorola 68000 The Motorola 68000 (sometimes shortened to Motorola 68k or m68k and usually pronounced "sixty-eight-thousand") is a 16/32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessor, introduced in 1979 by Motorola Semiconductor Products Secto ...

History

Features

Timeline of Macintosh operating systems

References

External links