Coding project - Macintosh Garden

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2018, February 23 - 12:13pm

nil0bject

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Joined: 2012 Nov 14

Coding project

I've been itching to code again for 68k/ppc macs.
Anyone have any ideas of a useful project for the community?

My first thought was a customisable user interface for JSON API's. This could be used to make a UI for easily searching and downloading software from this site(when the JSON API is created). But, it could also be used for requesting data from other API's, such as youtube, etc.

Any thoughts? Thanks

November: 2019:
Data driven application environment
https://macintoshgarden.org/forum/terminal
June 2019:
Watch me code - http://twitch.tv/nilobject

26 Apr 2018: ResEditX - http://macintoshgarden.org/forum/reseditx

Comments

2018, February 23 - 12:30pm

madalynmcworm

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Joined: 2017 Mar 28

Parsing and manipulating JSON?

2018, November 16 - 1:41pm

(Reply to #2) #3

nil0bject

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Joined: 2012 Nov 14

anyone interested?

2018, November 16 - 8:59pm

(Reply to #32) #4

fogWraith

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Joined: 2009 Oct 23

This looks interesting, and it does coincide with an ongoing project

2018, November 17 - 5:46pm

(Reply to #33) #5

nil0bject

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Joined: 2012 Nov 14

what's the project? a JSON API for the garden? classic macos package manager?

2018, November 17 - 7:27pm

(Reply to #34) #6

fogWraith

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Joined: 2009 Oct 23

There will be a JSON API for developers, and some tools for parsing / creating JSON data packages

2018, November 18 - 11:26am

(Reply to #35) #7

nil0bject

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Joined: 2012 Nov 14

ok. let me know any details as you know them.
fyi, i made a web based resource fork repo a while ago. i think with the trend of increased bandwidth and cheaper storage, that it is now possible to store data unarchived. The issue with this is loss of data, i.e. resource forks, attributes. My solution was to read the files on a platform that can read them correctly, and then upload the data of the file in binary.
The site is still up, http://resourceforks.herokuapp.com
Forum post: http://macintoshgarden.org/forum/resourceforks-in-the-cloud-the-app

2018, November 18 - 12:50pm

(Reply to #36) #8

fogWraith

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Joined: 2009 Oct 23

This had entirely passed under my radar, and it's something I would love to test... you wouldn't happen to have the files and such still? any progress with it?

2018, November 18 - 2:41pm

(Reply to #37) #9

nil0bject

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Joined: 2012 Nov 14

I still have all code. I haven't tested for years though.
The progress I made was about architecture. I've now written an app with very few dependencies that has a web server built into it. The app is running on amazon AWS. I had plans for adding the resource fork repo to it, as I could store the data in s3 instead of a database.
Thing stopping me is how much use it will get. My initial plan was for an online resource fork editor, personally so i could create 'escape velocity: override' maps. The next idea was for a resource like the macintosh garden, where users could search, view info about and download abandonware. All without a web browser(which, tbh, will be abandonware in ten-ish years).

2018, February 24 - 12:11am

#10

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

a useful project for the community?

3rd party USB 2.0 driver for OS 9.2.2 and earlier. - For Macs that can boot native into 0S 9 or earlier and have PCI slots available to take such cards.

2018, February 24 - 1:31am

(Reply to #3) #11

SkyCapt

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Joined: 2017 Jan 11

I'd like to see "Driver Construction Set" be made.

2018, February 24 - 4:11pm

(Reply to #3) #12

Gary

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Joined: 2011 Jul 21

>USB 2.0 driver for OS 9.2.2 and earlier

This would be awesome! But I thought that 2.0 on older Macs was impossible due to hardware issues.

Gary

2018, February 24 - 10:13pm

(Reply to #8) #13

MikeTomTom

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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

The hardware issue would be related to the chipset onboard Macs that can boot native into OS 9 and earlier. But added hardware in the the form of USB 2 PCI cards shouldn't be an issue - Such 3rd party cards run at full USB 2.0 speed if the boot OS is 10.x on those Macs.

2018, February 25 - 4:49pm

(Reply to #10) #14

SkyCapt

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Joined: 2017 Jan 11

Yes, the PCI cards can do most anything if given the right drivers. It's even strange that USB2/FW800/SATA don't just 'naturally' clock UP to their correct speeds due to 'forward compatibility' of their drivers. In OS9 these things function great but do not seek the best speed, SATA behaves like a modified ATA and FW800 is no faster than FW400. Apple did a lot of shenanigans to bolster OSX thru suffocating OS9.

2018, February 24 - 2:35am

#15

WhosIt.There

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Joined: 2014 Aug 23

Anyone have any ideas of a useful project for the community?

combined Xbox Scorpio / PlayStation 5 / Nintendo Switch emulator
PowerPC conversion of macOS X High Sierra

2018, February 25 - 6:36am

(Reply to #5) #16

os9er

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Joined: 2013 Nov 15

PowerPC conversion of macOS X High Sierra

I know you were at least partly joking, but I'll say this anyway: That particular job has about a one-in-1-billion chance of happening, if that. LOL

2018, February 24 - 9:56am

#17

Knez

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Joined: 2010 Feb 11

If you know Realbasic (or even VB), I would love to collaborate on MacTorrent if you feel like its something you want to do.

2018, February 24 - 12:11pm

(Reply to #6) #18

nil0bject

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Joined: 2012 Nov 14

I'd love to help.
Have you seen:
http://www.torrantula.com

2018, February 24 - 9:45pm

(Reply to #7) #19

Knez

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Joined: 2010 Feb 11

Yes, MacTorrent is based on Torrantula, but using native RB objects instead of custom ones. MacTorrent is also using other listboxes and some parts are rewritten to speed everything up and cope with the lack of double buffered drawing in Mac OS 9 and earlier.

Have a look: https://sourceforge.net/projects/mactorrent/

2018, February 28 - 7:08am

(Reply to #9) #20

adespoton

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Joined: 2015 Feb 15

Why not just build something out from MacPython with an appropriate wrapper?

Having written distributed file sharing apps in RB and in MacPython back in the day, I always preferred the one I made in MacPython. Basically a Hotline client that doubled as andistribted file system (pre-torrent). But since the reference code for BitTorrent is in Python 2.7 already....

2018, February 25 - 5:20am

#21

uyjulian

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Joined: 2013 Jul 13

There is a gcc-based cross compiler for 68k and PPC Classic Mac: https://github.com/autc04/Retro68

2018, April 30 - 9:30pm

#22

Neal1974

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Joined: 2018 Apr 21

I know an SSL and authentification based email client for 68k macs would be awesome ????

2018, April 30 - 11:04pm

(Reply to #15) #23

melomac

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Joined: 2018 Feb 26

In theory yes. So, I used stunnel for POP to POPS, and postfix relay for SMTP to SMTPS, and it worked. But guess what? Everybody use UTF8 these days (and even HTML), but not "your" 68k email client

2018, May 1 - 4:03am

(Reply to #15) #24

nil0bject

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Joined: 2012 Nov 14

if you can find a HTTPS API(or another type of networked, external service) that can accomplish what you want and design a user interface, I can make it for you.

2018, May 14 - 12:24pm

#25

Gary

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Joined: 2011 Jul 21

About 10 years ago I started collecting fonts. I quickly amassed a vast number of them. And I soon discovered that some of them were treasures and a bunch more were junk. Lots of them caused Finder to crash when I tried to open the font suitcase.

I went looking for a font manager app. I found several but none would handle my collection (now 120,000 fonts).

So I decided to write my own.

My project is incomplete. It turns out that Fonts are VERY complex things. Everyone who dealt with Fonts did things "their own way" and invented lots of variants.

After a couple of years of work (part time) I sort of burned out. Anyway I'm willing to provide the source code, project files, notes and sample fonts to anyone (or group) to continue my work.

It's a Codewarrior Pro v6 project written in C.

I've posted the app in its current form here on MG for you to examine.

Gary

2018, May 23 - 2:46am

(Reply to #18) #26

nil0bject

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Joined: 2012 Nov 14

That'd be great if you could post the code!

2018, May 24 - 4:28pm

(Reply to #20) #27

Gary

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Joined: 2011 Jul 21

Are you just curious or does my project sound like something you want to tackle?

Gary

2018, May 26 - 1:25pm

(Reply to #21) #28

nil0bject

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Joined: 2012 Nov 14

curious more than anything. this could be turned into a web service

2018, May 22 - 4:30am

#29

adespoton

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Joined: 2015 Feb 15

Thanks for sharing!

Personally, I've used Linotype FontExplorer and LFE X since around 8.6. It does some basic error checking and font matching as well as enabling/disabling individual font families, and supports bitmaps through OpenType.

2018, May 24 - 4:30pm

#30

Gary

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Joined: 2011 Jul 21

The app is here: http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/font-a-doodle-doo

Gary

2018, July 13 - 5:28am

#31

Temporary Joe

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Joined: 2009 Nov 14

About 7-8 years ago, I had two ideas that would've bridged the Mac OS to the modern world. I had no experience in coding (but I wanted to learn, different time in my life) but others did and someone did apparently start some work. The first was MEAD, with the backronym of the "Macintosh Environment Application Development" or something like that...it was a pun on WINE, and it was supposed to be a modern attempt to translate system calls of the classic Mac OS to a universal system that could be understood by modern systems. The second was "Nueve", which would be an open-source reinterpretation of the entire operating system, based on the idea of Haiku, which was still in development at the time. Years ago, someone actually attempted that as a commercial program, Executor, and it was open-sourced (MIT license anyway) but no attempt has been at it for years.

2018, August 23 - 4:12am

(Reply to #24) #32

robertson

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Joined: 2018 Aug 23

Are you familiar with the v68k and Advanced Mac Substitute projects? They seem like they may be perhaps a start on fulfilling some of the goals of MEAD/Nueve.
https://www.v68k.org/
https://www.v68k.org/advanced-mac-substitute/

Perhaps the work of Executor and v68k/ams could be "syngergized?"

Also, is or was there ever a website for either the MEAD or Nueve projects? I have a vague memory of coming across a website in the past year or so that was for a project that wanted to re-create the classic Macintosh environment for the future. Of course I didn't bookmark it and never found it again. The closest I came was the v68k/ams stuff, but the website I am remembering had a bit more of a "manifesto" vibe about perpetuating the human-friendly classic Mac stuff for future ages. Anywho.

EDIT: Perhaps this elusive project webpage is the same one referred to by kd0tpc at this thread?
http://macintoshgarden.org/forum/good-ide-mac-os-9#comment-37195

This is my first post on Macintosh Garden. Hello all! I love this site and all of the sweet abandonware. Platinum 4 lyfe!

- James ('robertson')

2018, August 24 - 6:25pm

(Reply to #29) #33

cbone

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Joined: 2011 Sep 17

That would so rock!

Welcome to the Garden, Robertson, by the way! The only things I've used are Classilla, which is a brilliant little browser to get old Macs online, kudos to those devs!

The other thing I've seen was the macos9lives.com, with ideas of generating the next version of the OS, but then again, the programming arts are not my forte at all, lol, which is why I hadn't heard of anything else relating to the next-gen of Classic.

Bry has been designing some killer new software hacks like Functional Keys to bring more functionality to our old Mac OS, and I'm excited to see that kind of enthusiasm to our beloved old platform. And then when you see out-of-the-box creations like MorphOS, you have to wonder about all of the possibilities, you know? Now I know those guys started that project from the ground up (smart since Apple would have been all over them if they used their stuff), which seems like a miracle in itself since building an OS without a billionaire's budget sounds insane, but that's what Macs were all about back then

2018, September 3 - 10:49pm

(Reply to #30) #34

robertson

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Joined: 2018 Aug 23

Hi cbone,

Thanks for the reply and the welcome! Classilla is pretty awesome. Mulberry is a great e-mail client, even today on Mac OS 9. I'm a big fan of the Notepad program, desktop clippings, FinderNote, clipEdit, and ProTools 5 Free.

Cameron Kaiser, the guy behind Classilla and TenFourFox, has some sweet web sites (and Gopher pages too!). Just a few:
https://tenfourfox.blogspot.com/ - About developing TenFourFox and various PPC and Mac stuff.
https://www.talospace.com/ - About the POWER9 based Talos systems from Raptor.
http://www.floodgap.com/ - His main page.

Mac OS 9 Lives is a great site!

And I'm generally in favor of those alternate operating systems such as MorphOS. Another neat one is Haiku, the recreation of BeOS. I've been a Linux guy for many years. But the classic Mac desktop still takes the cake for me.

Cheers!

2018, July 21 - 12:17am

#35

BryMD

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Joined: 2018 Jul 2

Cheekily moved my comment to a new thread

http://macintoshgarden.org/forum/coding-software-mac-os-9-in-2018/

2018, July 20 - 3:57am

#36

m68k

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Joined: 2016 Dec 30

I would gladly donate a sizeable amount to any project that would help extend the disk size of the Android port of Basilisk-II beyond 2GB (to min. 4GB) and/or the number of disk files beyond four.
Last not least, getting the VirtualMem Manager to work in B2 for Android would be an absolute killer.
Also, even so the latest Android port of B2 offers HighRes/HighColor I can not get anything beyond 800x600 256 Colors to boot reliably (so I end up booting low color and the go high color manually).
Any help with fixing these issues be greatly appreciated.
Unfortunatly the original porter of B2 for Android told me that he has no time to maintain the port.

2018, July 20 - 7:05am

(Reply to #26) #37

cbone

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Joined: 2011 Sep 17

You know you're right, that port's the real deal..I love it. I remember when Lubomyr agreed to add more display sizes, so it can be displayed on HD displays and have native resolutions on a lot of Chromebooks, tablets and phones. He also added networking, which was perfect.

I hope someone is able to step in and work on the volume limitations. Funny, I've had no un-fixable issues with higher resolutions. As I type, I booted BSII and it was set to 1080p at millions of colors and changed it down to 1280 by 800 at millions with no trouble. I know that I usually have glitches the first time I change some settings, but after I leave it on one display mode, the settings remain and work perfectly each time I fire the emulator up, so something similar to that may be what's been happening on your end. I might suggest installing it on other Android devices to see if you have the same issues show up.

2018, July 20 - 1:13pm

(Reply to #27) #38

m68k

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Joined: 2016 Dec 30

I had this issue with unreliable high color startups already on Android 5.x and now I am on 7.1.2.
Thus I am pretty sure its not entirely "device related" (maybe rather some issue with a specific graphic's chip set) - and even if it is, I run all my stuff on (costly) high end tablets and would really prefer not having to buy myself a brand new setup just for an attempt to boot up B2 with more than 256 colors.
Once I am up and running, I can switch to high color display via the monitor tool, but its a cumbersome manual process.

2019, May 30 - 1:48pm

#39

Gary

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Joined: 2011 Jul 21

I would like to build a CNC router. Current technology has G-Code based commands imbedded in hardware with stepper motor outputs on one side of the circuit board and a USB connection on the other.

Several programs exist in the Windows space for turning a PC into a machine controller. Probably the best known of these is MACH3. See https://www.machsupport.com/shop/mach3/ for details.

No such program exists for Macs. Most responses to "How about on a Mac?" are answered with "Bootcamp" "VMWare" or the like. One guy said I should do it with an Arduino.

This would be an AWESOME project. I could/will help but I've never written a USB driver which would be a necessary/required part of the app.

Thoughts?

Gary

2019, May 31 - 2:55pm

(Reply to #39) #40

nil0bject

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Joined: 2012 Nov 14

great idea. I have a 3d printer, running on an arduino. I'd like to experiment with this sort of thing.
I'll take a look