MoofTCP – A modern replacement for MacTCP on 68k Macs
github.com
github.com
with a few simple modifications to minivmac, i have access to my host machine through toolbox calls.
Some people (usually the ones who tend to like AI) see coding simply as getting a problem solved, and aren't as interested in how it happens.
Others see code as an artform, and a journey to appreciate in itself. For them, knowing that they are using their knowledge and experience to solve problems that not just anyone can, is part of the fun. It gives us a sense of worth and accomplishment, and that's why we like doing it.
To me it's similar to actual art/painting. Of course artists get upset at AI because they don't want their industry to leave them behind and make them feel unnecessary or less special.
But I don't fault the ones who don't think the way I do... it's just a different way of looking at it.
Some people see coding as simply getting a problem solved, and aren't interested in how the CPU actually does it. Others appreciate the craft of painstakingly arranging machine instructions, understanding every register and every clock cycle, and knowing they're solving problems that not just anyone can.
For us, that's where the sense of worth and accomplishment comes from. Using a high-level language to have a compiler do all the interesting work rather misses the point.
But I don't fault people who use Python, C++, or even assembly. It's just a different way of looking at it.
Best description I heard is that LLMs are like “eyeglasses for the mind.” It levels the playing field for people like me who maybe don’t have time to learn classic Mac C, the retro68k dev environment, how the hell TCP/IP works at a low level, and all that. Maybe in the same way that professionally it’s allowing me to contribute to areas of the codebase that i couldn’t before and vice versa with my colleagues who used to rely on my area of expertise.
While I was certainly proud that I had some slightly unique or scarcer talent before, I don’t feel a need to be a gatekeeper about it in the new world (and I’m not suggesting you are), since I’m able to deliver a ton more value at a higher velocity now. That follows thru to personal projects like this, where I can finally do this kind of project and see results without losing too much of my precious free/family time.
What was that, if I may ask?
Coincidentally a couple of weeks ago I got annoyed my 512Ke couldn't go online and had Claude build talkip[1] which was fun and works surprisingly well.
Given how hard it is to get the Classic online with 4MB, i can't imagine how big a PITA it is on the 512ke.
On newer Power Macs it was replaced with a new architecture called Open Transport. That was a huge relief: it worked much better.
Would you consider adding in the WiFi network selector that JCS made as a desk accessory for the BlueSCSI, considering the BlueSCSI is going to be a very popular way that these old Macs are going to get networked up? It then becomes clean and simple one stop shop for getting online for a lot of old Macs?
See https://jcs.org/bluescsi for more info.
I wonder how "correct" this stack is. Interesting it also implemented arp as well. I can never tell if arp still is supported or not IRL!
I'd love to see claude build a bluetooth stack from scratch, given how bad I've heard the broadcom/qualcomm stacks are.
https://tidbits.com/resources/iskm3html/pt4/ch17/ch17.html#a...
(the separate net, subnet, and node entries not so much)
It's pretty tedious to compare - Have to run diags, take screenshots, set up watchers on a modern machine, run comparisons on the classic mac hardware, and then transfer those back from the mac to the modern machine (I haven't set up a network share solution for the mac yet, so each transfer is power down and transfer via SD card), run thru agent for validation and feedback, and repeat for each iteration.
I went thru a few rounds of this (about 4 release candidates) before i decided that what I had was Good Enough and published it. I have noticed that Claude tends towards this "circumcizing the moquito" sometimes in the qa/validation phase.
Here's what I was able to measure from the test log data that I did transfer across:
| Measure | MoofTCP | MacTCP 2.1 |
|---|---|---|
| ACK of an echoed keystroke (median) | 2.8 ms | 4.5 ms |
| ACK of an echoed keystroke (worst case) | 16.8 ms | 17.6 ms |
| Delayed-ACK stall on interactive data | none | none |
| Wikipedia Reader, follow a link | 51.7 s | 53.2 s |
| Fetch 10 MiB over TAP | about 47–49 KB/s | about 49 KB/s |
| Advertised TCP window | 8,192 | 4,220 |
| Transmit stalls and retransmissions on the real Mac | 0 | not measured |
> MacTCP is wonderful, but it is old, and on a 4 MB Mac Classic with a SCSI Wi-Fi/Ethernet adapter like BlueSCSI it can be slow to answer, hungry for memory, and awkward to set up.
Which... I don't own a Mac Classic, so I can't speak it its factual accuracy, but that doesn't sound like bashing.
I like to show people Hunter Cressall's parody of the Switchers ad campaign to remind/educate them that the Macs of yore were no panacea. It's hilarious and spot-on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEvYETWVK6M
Source: I accidentally became the other Mac guy at an ISP in-era (1995?).
Our family Mac was the first machine I loved. Unfortunately I never got to use with so much as a modem, so I have no first hand experience with using MacTCP.
It works so well I had Claude make vcctrl[1] with a full set of skills and an MCP server to fully automate deployment and testing. No more sdcard swaps.