[NTLK] Einstein and BasiliskII

[Matthias Melcher]

BasiliskII is a desktop application that emulates classic MacOS. It's a great base to run the Newton Connect Tools and the Newton Toolkit (NCT, NTK) in their original environment. You can even run Hammer and debug an actual MP2x00 at machine code level.

For the longest time, I had a patched version of Basilisk on my web page that added Einstein support. This is no longer needed. 

Basilisk is still maintained, and the current release fixes many issues, including the serial port emulation on moderm macOS and under Linux (Sorry, Windows users). You can download the official release here:

https://www.emaculation.com/basilisk/BasiliskII_universal_20260717.zip

It also fixes the "Unix" driver issue where Resource Forks were lost. With the current version, you can use NTK to write Newton apps and debug them on Einstein like it's 1996 again.


When setting up Basilisk, add or replace the "serial*" entry to:

seriala /dev/cu.usbmodem101
serialb /tmp/pty.BasiliskII

The top line allows Basilisk to connect to a physical device wia the USB dongle. The bottom line connects Basilisk to Einstein. On the Einstein side, use "Einstein Prefs" inside the emulation and set the Serial Port to "BasiliskII".


 - Matthias