Kernel panic

A kernel panic is like a Black or Blue Screen of Death for macOS and Mac OS X, which uses a UNIX-based kernel. The screen, translated in many different languages, simply tells the user that the computer has restarted and is recovering from an error.

History
In early versions of Mac OS X, the details of the kernel panic were simply dumped to the screen.

Starting in Mac OS X 10.2 "Jaguar", a white message appears to inform the user that the computer needs to be restarted. In OS X versions from 10.3 to 10.7, the message shown is not full-screen and is on a black background.

Starting in Mac OS X 10.8 "Mountain Lion", a kernel panic will cause the system to automatically restart and will notify the user afterwards.