Carbon is the name for Apple's "API" which bridges Mac OS 8/9 and Mac OS X so that a class of individual "carbonized" program files can be run from both OS's (8/9+X) that are incredibly different from each other. Quoting Apple: "CarbonLib allows Apple's developers to write an application with one set of sources deployed across Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X systems with minimal effort." In a loose sense Carbon can be thought of as Apple's OS X emulator for on 8/9, opposite of Apple's Classic emulator for on X. Ultimately the familiar more-modern OS-X-only "API" got another name, Cocoa.

CarbonLib is required when running carbonized software in the classic Mac OS versions 8.1 to 9.2.2, not required for Mac OS X because carbonized applications are Mac OS X native. CarbonLib consists of one classic Extensions file, of which a version began being supplied with the OS at about Mac OS 9.0.0 and CarbonLib can be updated or otherwise installed into system versions older than 9.0 down to Mac OS 8.1 - CarbonLib v1.6.1 (year 2003) is its highest version. v1.0.0 is located on the install cd for OS 9.0.0 and, also not on our page, v1.1.1 can be found in the OS 9.1 Update tome.

Most of these downloads are English-only (unless otherwise stated) self mounting images of installers which inject only a single file "CarbonLib" in "System Folder/Extensions/". TomeViewer can be used to Extract and manipulate the file manually, without running installers. v1.0.4 has more than one file, a readme, plus a "Navigation Services" file meant for OS 8.1-only.

First download is version 1.0.4
Second download is version 1.2
Third download is version 1.2.5
Fourth download is version 1.3.1
Fifth download is version 1.4
Sixth download is version 1.5
Seventh download is v1.6 in All 15 languages
Eighth download is version 1.6 in English
Ninth download is the CarbonLib 1.6 SDK (programmers tool)
Tenth download is v1.6.1 in All 15 languages
Eleventh download is version 1.6.1 English