Using an iPad Pro to Create 1-Bit Pixel Art in a Macintosh Emulator

An ex-Apple employee put together a rather incredible way to create 1-bit pixel art on a modern iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil by using a Macintosh emulator, and the results are very impressive!

This super creative approach is the work of Matt Sephton (the same guy who re-made the nifty Stapler app!), who used the Basilisk emulator for iPad to run Macintosh System 7 with classic MacOS apps on an iPad Pro, so that the Apple Pencil could be used for the artwork.

If you’re intrigued by this project and want to try it out yourself, it’s not as simple as just installing an app from the App Store and getting to work. You’ll have to install Basilisk II via sideloading with Xcode, and modify some Basilisk files, making this a bit of an advanced procedure. But if you’re dedicated, curious, and looking for a cool project to fiddle with this weekend, why not give it a try?

Here’s where you’d want to look to get started:

• Gingerbeardman: Turning an iPad Pro into the Ultimate Classic Macintosh
• Gingerbeardman: Guide for building Basilisk II for iOS/iPadOS here
• Basilisk II for iOS on Github

Look how impressive this is art is!

You might be thinking, well why not simply run System 7 in a browser on the iPad Pro, but that’s not the same, nor does it have file sharing capabilities or saving, so if you’re serious about retro style 1-bit artwork, you’ll want to follow the guide from Gingerbeardman.

I stumbled into this cool project while browsing around blog.gingerbeardman.com after discovering the Stapler project, and while it’s a few years old, there’s no reason to discount it, and the tools and functionality will still work today of course too.

Images via @gingerbeardman on X/Twitter, and of course we are on there too @osxdaily if you want to give us a follow.