Macintosh Application Environment

The Macintosh Application Environment (MAE) was a program package that was released by Apple Computer, Inc. in 1994 to run Macintosh programs on selected Unix computers .

MAE used the X Window System in version X11 R5 to provide a fully simulated Macintosh computer with a 68k processor (to be precise: Motorola 68040LC ) for running Mac OS programs. Version 2.0 was based on System 7.1 , the last version, MAE 3.0, was compatible with System 7.5.3 . The emulator ran in a single X11 window; In other words , there was no way to display individual Mac OS windows in individual X11 windows (" seamless ").

For data exchange between the emulator (MAE) and the host system (X11), a (virtual) network, shared file systems and the clipboard were available. Printer output (on Postscript printer), sound output and graphics output via Quicktime were supported. Access to floppy disks and CD-ROMs was possible from the emulated Mac OS.

According to the "MAE 3.0 White Paper ", the underlying 68k emulator uses dynamic compilation.

The program was discontinued on May 14, 1998.

System requirements

MAE 3.0 required either:

• Sun SPARCstation with Solaris 2.4 or newer or
• HP 9000 Series 700 workstation with HP-UX 9.0.x or 10.x or later

See also

• Classic environment for Mac OS in Mac OS X

Web links

• Apple's MAE page ( June 13, 1998 memento on the Internet Archive )
• Article in SunWorld