Retro68 – a GCC-based cross-compiler for classic 68K and PPC Macintoshes | Hacker News Reader

Retro68 – a GCC-based cross-compiler for classic 68K and PPC Macintoshes

github.com

85 pointsarm10 comments

I still can’t believe the amount of work Wolfgang Thaller puts into this project. I subscribed to the Github issues tracker and he constantly helping others with bugs, quirks and features.

I just wish I could put time and effort into learning to use the Macintosh Toolbox libraries and actually build something.

Writing System 6 software with C++17? Now that's an interesting version of retrocomputing. Are we getting more Slack clients for old systems/operating systems?

This is one reason I am glad gcc is retaining at least nominal support for old architectures. Clang is great for example, but c++ has changed a lot in the current decade, and clang will not target m68k. GCC allows for interesting retrocomputing experiences.

I keep saying I will power up my old Sun or my 68k Mac running a/ux and try to write something for them. Though having free time is the limiting factor for me.

This is why I created the Bountysource campaign to fund the MODE_CC conversion of the m68k backend which luckily succeeded:

> https://www.bountysource.com/issues/80706251-m68k-convert-th...

If you want to write an application for System 6, you might need this: http://www.weihenstephan.org/~michaste/pagetable/mac/Inside_...

the 1995 docs are probably more useful for most people, especially since the original Inside Macintosh code examples and references are all in Pascal rather than C

(also I'm more of a System 7 person)

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/inside-macintosh-cd-rom

There's something wonderfully refreshing to me about the use of Pascal. For most modern platforms, C has always enjoyed the benefit of a sort of "platform nepotism" in which all APIs/ABIs cater to the particulars of its type system. You can certainly use C or C++ to target classic MacOS, but it's always a bit of a second-class citizen. It's fun to imagine how things might have turned out if a different language became the lingua franca of systems programming.

Pascal is just such a nice language to read, too.

The original numbered Inside Mac volumes are frequently more accurate than the later 90's revision. They also contain some useful implementation detail (along with, granted, a good deal of extremely obsolete information if you're targeting later system releases).

Edited to add: Pascal interfaces and examples should be easy to follow if you're reasonably proficient in C. The type system is not dissimilar and there's very little difference in control flow.

This is great. I am sure this will help the Amiga Community which is still going strong.

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