18 Mar
2012
18 Mar
'12
10:26 p.m.
I have a lead on an IBM 083 card sorter, located on the east coast. I
do not know the condition. I had hoped it was an 084, but no such
luck, and I already have two 083s. Any interest out there?
--
Will
18 Mar
18 Mar
10:50 p.m.
I have a lead on an IBM 083 card sorter, located on
the east coast. I do not know the condition. I had hoped it was an 084, but no such
luck, and I already have two 083s. Any interest out there?
--
Will
We're interested for the MARCH museum. We have an 082 but the previous
owner gutted it and used it as a bar. :(
19 Mar
19 Mar
12:14 a.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
Hi
I'd had this AppleIIe for a number of years but no
disk or operating system.
It didn't have a SuperSerialCard ( SSC ) so transfering data would
have been fun. I'd recently found that I could have used the audio
through the cassette but I'm told it is slow and would take
a long time to do simple stuff.
When I got my IIe it came with one goodie. It had a QuikLoader
board. I'd been searching for a manual on it for quite some time
I'd finally found a fellow in France that had it and the disk set that
goes with it, just a few weeks ago.
I discovered that the EPROMs on it had both DOS3.3 as well as ProDos
Having DOS3.3, I could at least INIT disk. Still, I needed the SSC
to do serious down loads.
Before I'd done much with it, I'd recreated a SwyftCard from a proto
board and parts. It has been fun but only useful as an editor for
non-standard disk.
Well, I'd finally located a SSC and only needed to make up a cable
from the 10 pin header to a serial connector.
I
then started searchng for some code to download. I found that
there was quite a bit but all in squished format. The ADT program
only take expanded images. On seaching some more I found that
the CiderPress tool would expand it for me.
Now for the next problem. Getting the client software onto the
Apple. My windows machine has no serial port and I have no idea
where the USB to serial adapter has got to since my last move.
I know it'll show up so reluctant to buy another.
The machine I intend to use for the transfers has DOS but no
com software.
After some thinking, I decided to enter it by hand onto the Apple
( not a good thought though ).
After several hours of typing, I finally got it all entered. Luckily,
I used the DOS3.3 on the QuikLoader to save a copy. On first
attempt, it just crashed.
I realizes I needed a way to check the code. One the PC sde I
quickly though to gether a check sum program that displayed
the code offset, the byte abd the sum. This was kind of specialized
to match the format of the file that came with ADT.
On the Apple side, a quick check of the manuals showed that
the BASIC might interfer some with the location used by ADT
so I loaded it at $4000. Nice that Apples BASIC/DOS lets one do that.
I wrote a similar program on the Apple, to do the same as the
PC program ( in BASIC ).
I was astounded by how slow the Apple was compared to a 10 year
old laptop. I could do the entire check sum on the PC about as fast
as I could type the return. On the Apple, it was slow enough that
I needed to partition it.
I'd thought I'd only made a few minor errors. In earlier days, I'd
entered bigger programs with no errors.
As I got to work comparing check sums, I realized that age my
have caught up with me. I found at least 3 lines that I'd most
likely type the wrong address for. All totaled, about 48 errors
in 3K of code.
Thank all that I had a disk to save images on.
I finally got ADT up and running. Down loaded some useful
software and had a good time.
The one thing I found is that the BASIC on the Apple is really
slow. It is about the slowest I've ever used. How people put
up with it I don't know.
Dwight
4:03 a.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
dwight elvey wrote:
The one thing I found is that the BASIC on the Apple
is really
slow. It is about the slowest I've ever used. How people put
up with it I don't know.
We put up with it back in the late 1970s because none
of the common,
inexpensive microcomputers available at the time were any faster. And
although the Atari 800 had better graphics, it had far worse I/O.
Even the 4 MHz Z80 systems and 5 MHz 8088 systems weren't much faster,
because the 6502 is more cycle-efficient than either. It really wasn't
until the 286 era that it became commonplace for microcomputers to be
significantly faster than the Apple II. Of course, by then there were
also faster Apple II models, but that was about the end of the line for
general-purpose microcomputers using the 6502, while the x86 was still
being aggressively developed.
9:59 a.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
Hi Eric
I'm not knocking the processor. I used to write
embedded code for 6502s and Z80s, years ago.
You are correct that the compact code of the 6502
was often a winner.
It is just that the BASIC running on the Apple IIe
was really bad. Even the simple code to run the check
sum ( less than 10 lines of code ) was enough to
put one to sleep.
The good part was that I could ^S the screen and
stop when I wanted to compare a smaller block of
bytes. On the laptop, I'd have had to put periodic
delays. It was easier to just set the terminal value
and run the entire code.
I could be wrong but it seems that the BASIC code
on my Poly88 was faster ( after a 20 minute cassette
load ).
I know that some BASIC code was slowed by the search
used to do things like GOTO and GOSUB. I recall writng
BASIC code on a powersupply tester and putting
all the subroutines at the begining of the code to
speed things up.
I just find the thought of writing a business application
with this slow a BASIC would have been tough. I'd
have made 90% of the code in assembler.
Apple's inefficient use of page0 is another thing. There
are many variables that might be used, maybe,
once in 100000 code executions. Some were only
used once to initialize hardware. Things like baud rates
and such had no place on page0.
One could tell that the 6502 was a great embedded
processor. I enjoyed using it.
Dwight
From: eric at brouhaha.com
dwight elvey wrote:
The one thing I found is that the BASIC on the
Apple is really
slow. It is about the slowest I've ever used. How people put
up with it I don't know.
We put up with it back in the late 1970s because none
of the common,
inexpensive microcomputers available at the time were any faster. And
although the Atari 800 had better graphics, it had far worse I/O.
Even the 4 MHz Z80 systems and 5 MHz 8088 systems weren't much faster,
because the 6502 is more cycle-efficient than either. It really wasn't
until the 286 era that it became commonplace for microcomputers to be
significantly faster than the Apple II. Of course, by then there were
also faster Apple II models, but that was about the end of the line for
general-purpose microcomputers using the 6502, while the x86 was still
being aggressively developed.
10:25 a.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
On Mar 19, 2012, at 9:59 AM, dwight elvey wrote:
Apple's inefficient use of page0 is another thing. There
are many variables that might be used, maybe,
once in 100000 code executions. Some were only
used once to initialize hardware. Things like baud rates
and such had no place on page0.
Agreed in a sense, but a lot of Apple's use of zero-page
locations was an attempt to conserve ROM space. Each
peripheral card only has 256 bytes of address space
available for ROM (if you're using the Apple II's built-
in address decoding, anyway); each zero-page access takes
a byte less than its absolute equivalent, which can add
up.
If you've never looked at the disassembly of the Disk II
card's ROM, try it sometime. It's pretty impressive; it
initializes the GCR decoding table, steps to track zero
and reads off the first sector (and jumps to it) all in
under 256 bytes of code. It makes some clever use of
known ROM locations to do so, which isn't the best idea
(they had to work around that when updating the Monitor
ROM for the II+/Autostart ROM), but it made it work.
One could tell that the 6502 was a great embedded
processor. I enjoyed using it.
As 8-bit micros go, I prefer the 6809, but it's halfway
to 16-bit. The 6502 is far and away my next favorite,
and certainly one of the most interesting chip designs
of that era.
- Dave
noon
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
In article <SNT129-W15107256AB6C3D68448E7A3420 at phx.gbl>,
dwight elvey <dkelvey at hotmail.com> writes:
I just find the thought of writing a business
application
with this slow a BASIC would have been tough.
IIRC, "professional" developers were expected to use Pascal or C. I
seem to recall that the PFS suite was written in C (and poorly
written at that, if the code snippets in "Programmers at Work" are
anything to judge by).
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
12:16 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 12:00 PM, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote:
In article <SNT129-W15107256AB6C3D68448E7A3420 at
phx.gbl>,
? ?dwight elvey <dkelvey at hotmail.com> writes:
Maybe with ProDOS and the IIgs, but not with AppleDOS and the
II/II+/IIe/IIc/IIc+. "Real" apps were either assembly or perhaps
compiled BASIC. Not a lot of serious language choices on 6502
platforms prior to 1986.
Having read the Hernia Manuals when they came out on 3-ring binders,
all I saw were references to Pascal. It looked painful/excessively
verbose to call the toolbox routines from 68K assembler. I don't
think I saw much for C on the Mac until 1986 or 1987, but there are
probably others here who were closer to that world at that time who
could provide more precise dates.
-ethan
?I just find the thought of writing a business
application
with this slow a BASIC would have been tough.
IIRC, "professional" developers were expected to use Pascal or C. 
12:31 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 4:16 PM, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
Maybe with ProDOS and the IIgs, but not with AppleDOS and the
II/II+/IIe/IIc/IIc+. ?"Real" apps were either assembly or perhaps
compiled BASIC. ?Not a lot of serious language choices on 6502
platforms prior to 1986.
Having read the Hernia Manuals when they came out on 3-ring binders,
all I saw were references to Pascal. ?It looked painful/excessively
verbose to call the toolbox routines from 68K assembler. ?I don't
think I saw much for C on the Mac until 1986 or 1987, but there are
probably others here who were closer to that world at that time who
could provide more precise dates.
UCSD Pascal was useless. All it did was take up all the RAM, so you
couldn't actually write any code. The disk system was insane. Were
there any other Pascal flavours? I can't remember...
--
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: ?"The Future Begins Tomorrow"
Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net
--------
Your mama's so FAT she doesn't support files larger than 4 GB.
2:53 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
John Many Jars wrote:
UCSD Pascal was useless. All it did was take up all
the RAM, so you
couldn't actually write any code. The disk system was insane. Were
there any other Pascal flavours? I can't remember...
Certainly. Kyan Pascal was quite usable. For the IIgs, there was MPW
Pascal.
4:02 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
I wrote quite a bit of code in UCSD pascal. It wasn't useless to me :D
Kevin
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2012 11:53:15 -0700
From: eric at brouhaha.com
To:
Subject: Re: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
John Many Jars wrote:
UCSD Pascal was useless. All it did was take up
all the RAM, so you
couldn't actually write any code. The disk system was insane. Were
there any other Pascal flavours? I can't remember...
Certainly. Kyan Pascal was quite usable. For the IIgs, there was MPW
Pascal.
6:47 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
UCSD Pascal was useless. All it did was take up all
the RAM, so you
couldn't actually write any code. The disk system was insane. Were
there any other Pascal flavours? I can't remember...
There were many on the apple II:
Laser PascalPegasus PascalSaturn PascalTurbo Pascal (for DOS and CPM)Complete Pascal (Used
to be TML before the IIgs)Kyan PascalApple Pascal (based on UCSD)UCSD Pascal
Might have been others...those the ones I have seen in the wild...
Kevin
12:57 p.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls (was: Finally running with new software Apple IIe)
On Mar 19, 2012, at 12:16 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Having read the Hernia Manuals when they came out on
3-ring binders,
all I saw were references to Pascal. It looked painful/excessively
verbose to call the toolbox routines from 68K assembler. I don't
think I saw much for C on the Mac until 1986 or 1987, but there are
probably others here who were closer to that world at that time who
could provide more precise dates.
Actually, Toolbox routines from assembly weren't *that* bad. You had
to marshal your parameters properly and then drop a word in there
whose first nybble was 0xA; this was an explicitly illegal
instruction prefix (much like 0xF was the floating-point instruction
prefix) which invoked the A-Line Instruction exception handler. The
other 12 bits indicated which Toolbox instruction you were trying to
call.
If I recall correctly, this isn't too different from how TOPS-10 did
its system calls. I haven't worked much with TOPS-10 yet.
Unfortunately, that method of trapping A-line instructions makes it
impossible to try to port MacOS to Coldfire (something which I had
the harebrained idea to do once), because Coldfire uses the 0xA
prefix for its enhanced MAC (multiply-accumulate, not Mac, though
the irony is delicious) unit. You'd have to do other opcode
translations, too, but that pretty much blows the Toolbox calls out
of the water, since there's no equivalent illegal prefix.
As far as C on the Mac, it didn't come until rather later. Most of
the system which wasn't done in assembly was done in some compiled
version of Pascal (i.e. not UCSD Pascal), which is why all the
strings are Pascal-style strings (prefixed with a length byte) and
all callbacks have to use Pascal function return conventions for
stack cleanup, etc.
- Dave
2:56 p.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls
David Riley wrote:
Unfortunately, that method of trapping A-line
instructions makes it
impossible to try to port MacOS to Coldfire (something which I had
the harebrained idea to do once), because Coldfire uses the 0xA
prefix for its enhanced MAC (multiply-accumulate, not Mac, though
the irony is delicious) unit. You'd have to do other opcode
translations, too, but that pretty much blows the Toolbox calls out
of the water, since there's no equivalent illegal prefix.
So what? Since
you're going to have to reassemble/recompile code
anyhow, just do the system calls with two words instead of one. If you
felt strongly about it, the second word could even be the exact Axxx
word used on the Mac.
3:20 p.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls
On Mar 19, 2012, at 2:56 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
David Riley wrote:
Well, that's a good point. I was mostly being lazy. :-) Certainly
a subroutine jump would provide the address of the A-line on the
stack.
There are, of course, other things that make it a bit harder, like
the fact that the Coldfire architecture got rid of some of the more
CISC-y instructions (or modes of instructions) and rearranged a few
others for opcode efficiency; I know there's an automatic converter
out there somewhere, but I'm sure some of the clever tricks employed
by the ROM writers would make it a little hard. I'd hope for
something that could be patched in without moving much around, but
that's almost always too much to ask for.
- Dave
Unfortunately, that method of trapping A-line
instructions makes it
impossible to try to port MacOS to Coldfire (something which I had
the harebrained idea to do once), because Coldfire uses the 0xA
prefix for its enhanced MAC (multiply-accumulate, not Mac, though
the irony is delicious) unit. You'd have to do other opcode
translations, too, but that pretty much blows the Toolbox calls out
of the water, since there's no equivalent illegal prefix.
So what? Since
you're going to have to reassemble/recompile code anyhow, just do the system calls
with two words instead of one. If you felt strongly about it, the second word could even
be the exact Axxx word used on the Mac. 
3:18 p.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls (was: Finally running with new software Apple IIe)
From: David Riley
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2012 9:58 AM
Actually, Toolbox routines from assembly weren't
*that* bad. You had
to marshal your parameters properly and then drop a word in there
whose first nybble was 0xA; this was an explicitly illegal
instruction prefix (much like 0xF was the floating-point instruction
prefix) which invoked the A-Line Instruction exception handler. The
other 12 bits indicated which Toolbox instruction you were trying to
call.
If I recall correctly, this isn't too different
from how TOPS-10 did
its system calls. I haven't worked much with TOPS-10 yet.
On the PDP-10 architecture, illegal instructions trap. The instruction
itself is stored in location 40, and the calculated effective address is
stored in location 41. In kernel mode, these are physical locations 40
and 41; in user mode, they are locations 40 and 41 in the program address
space.
All PDP-10 operating systems utilize this behaviour as their system call
mechanism. In TOPS-20, the JSYS instruction (op code 104) is used, and
if the effective address is < 1000, a monitor call dispatch is performed;
if 1000+, a dispatch to a handler in the user's program or an error
handler is made. JSYS is essentially a defined illegal instruction.
Tops-10 and its variants (e.g., WAITS at Stanford, TymCOM-10 at Tymshare,
and the operating system used at CompuServe) and ITS use the hardware-
defined monitor calls. Opcodes in the range 001-037 are user program
calls; those in the range 040-077 are monitor calls.
(Because these do not interfere with the TOPS-20 mechanism, the original
developers included a partial emulation package for the Tops-10 monitor
calls. Execution of a Tops-10 call causes the emulation package to be
mapped into the user's address space, where it handles many of the most
common cases.)
As far as C on the Mac, it didn't come until
rather later. Most of
the system which wasn't done in assembly was done in some compiled
version of Pascal (i.e. not UCSD Pascal), which is why all the
strings are Pascal-style strings (prefixed with a length byte) and
all callbacks have to use Pascal function return conventions for
stack cleanup, etc.
Object Pascal was an object-oriented dialect of Pascal developed at Apple
for Lisa operating system and applications development, IIRC. Its size
and complexity were the reason that official development for the Mac was
done on Lisas for a long time. (Assembly was discouraged for large
programs on the Mac for the same reason it was discouraged on mainframe
systems: On average, the same number of lines of debugged code can be
generated per day in any language, so HLLs are more efficient of programmer
time.)
I don't think Apple programmers began using Objective-C in earnest until
MacOS 9, though it could have been MacOS 8. (Certainly the manual set for
MacOS 7 was still very much Object Pascal oriented.) Third-party programs
were much more frequently in C than in any form of Pascal, of course.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
3:33 p.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls (was: Finally running with new software Apple IIe)
On Mar 19, 2012, at 3:18 PM, Rich Alderson wrote:
I don't think Apple programmers began using
Objective-C in earnest until
MacOS 9, though it could have been MacOS 8. (Certainly the manual set for
MacOS 7 was still very much Object Pascal oriented.) Third-party programs
were much more frequently in C than in any form of Pascal, of course.
Did Apple ever use Objective-C before OS X? I was under the impression
that was primarily a NeXT thing that got absorbed as Cocoa. I certainly
never saw a hint of it the entire time I was developing for the Mac pre-
OS X. Carbon (the bridge between the Toolbox and OS X) was still very
much C-oriented.
- Dave
4:02 p.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls (was: Finally running with new software Apple IIe)
I don't
think Apple programmers began using Objective-C in earnest until
MacOS 9, though it could have been MacOS 8. (Certainly the manual set for
MacOS 7 was still very much Object Pascal oriented.) Third-party programs
were much more frequently in C than in any form of Pascal, of course.
Did Apple ever use Objective-C before OS X? I was under the impression
that was primarily a NeXT thing that got absorbed as Cocoa. I certainly
never saw a hint of it the entire time I was developing for the Mac pre-
OS X. Carbon (the bridge between the Toolbox and OS X) was still very
much C-oriented. 
4:13 p.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls (was: Finally running with new software Apple IIe)
There was MPW C, too, right? Which reminds me, I need to inventory and
dispose of a pile of old Mac developer stuff (circa 1993-1998).
- John
4:25 p.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls (was: Finally running with new software Apple IIe)
There was MPW C, too, right? Which reminds me, I need
to inventory and
dispose of a pile of old Mac developer stuff (circa 1993-1998).
MPW C was MrC, which (IIRC) is an evolution of old THINK C.
For my Classic Mac development, though, I use either CodeWarrior 5, 7, or
FutureBASIC. I never did much with MPW.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- Commodore on desk/Power light glowing brightly/The computer waits -- T. Lake
4:36 p.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls (was: Finally running with new software Apple IIe)
On 3/19/12 1:25 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
MPW C was MrC, which (IIRC) is an evolution of old
THINK C.
The original MPW C was licensed from Green Hills. The Apple
developed compiler was written in Pascal by the MPW team.
8:18 p.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls (was: Finally running with new software Apple IIe)
On Mar 19, 2012, at 4:36 PM, Al Kossow wrote:
On 3/19/12 1:25 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
That's fascinating, I had no idea. I see a lot of applications
where our clients should have used Green Hills OSes. :-)
The original MPW compilers (I don't recall if it was C or not)
had some pretty funny error messages, too. Shame those got
lost in the transition to SC (which was, I think, Symantec).
- Dave
MPW C was MrC, which (IIRC) is an evolution of
old THINK C.
The original MPW C was licensed from Green Hills. The Apple
developed compiler was written in Pascal by the MPW team. 
9:48 p.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls (was: Finally running with new software Apple IIe)
On 19/03/12 8:18 PM, David Riley wrote:
On Mar 19, 2012, at 4:36 PM, Al Kossow wrote:
At one time somebody collected them on the web.
Oh wait, they're still there:
http://www.ralentz.com/old/mac/humor/mpw-c-errors.html
I remember getting several of these.
--T
On 3/19/12 1:25 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
That's fascinating, I had no idea. I see a lot of applications
where our clients should have used Green Hills OSes. :-)
The original MPW compilers (I don't recall if it was C or not)
had some pretty funny error messages, too. Shame those got
lost MPW C was MrC, which (IIRC) is an evolution of
old THINK C.
The original MPW C was licensed from Green Hills. The Apple
developed compiler was written in Pascal by the MPW team. in the transition to SC (which was, I think,
Symantec).
- Dave
20 Mar
20 Mar
12:15 a.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls (was: Finally running with new software Apple IIe)
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 9:48 PM, Toby Thain <toby at telegraphics.com.au> wrote:
I remember these. My favorite:
"a typedef name was a complete surprise to me at this point in your program"
-ethan
The original
MPW compilers... had some pretty
funny error messages, too. ?Shame those got lost
At one time somebody collected them on the web.
Oh wait, they're still there:
http://www.ralentz.com/old/mac/humor/mpw-c-errors.html
I remember getting several of these. 
10:04 a.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls (was: Finally running with new software Apple IIe)
On 20 March 2012 01:48, Toby Thain <toby at telegraphics.com.au> wrote:
On 19/03/12 8:18 PM, David Riley wrote:
Excellent! Nicked for Twitter. :?)
A very brief Google revealed that some hero has collected all the BeOS
NetPositive browser haiku errors, too:
http://8325.org/haiku/
--
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Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
On Mar 19, 2012, at 4:36 PM, Al Kossow wrote:
At one time somebody collected them on the web.
Oh wait, they're still there:
http://www.ralentz.com/old/mac/humor/mpw-c-errors.html
I remember getting several of these. On 3/19/12 1:25 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
That's fascinating, I had no idea. ?I see a lot of applications
where our clients should have used Green Hills OSes. :-)
The original MPW compilers (I don't recall if it was C or not)
had some pretty funny error messages, too. ?Shame those got
lost MPW C was MrC, which (IIRC) is an evolution of
old THINK C.
The original MPW C was licensed from Green Hills. The Apple
developed compiler was written in Pascal by the MPW team.
19 Mar
19 Mar
7:56 p.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls (was: Finally running with new software Apple IIe)
On 19/03/12 4:25 PM, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
Yes it is, and for 68K, we ended up with SC. (MrC being PowerPC.)
--Toby
There was MPW
C, too, right? Which reminds me, I need to inventory and
dispose of a pile of old Mac developer stuff (circa 1993-1998).
MPW C was MrC, which (IIRC) is an evolution of old THINK C.
For my Classic Mac development, though, I use either CodeWarrior 5, 7, or
FutureBASIC. I never did much with MPW.
4:16 p.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls (was: Finally running with new software Apple IIe)
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 3:33 PM, David Riley <fraveydank at gmail.com> wrote:
Did Apple ever use Objective-C before OS X? I was under the impression
that was primarily a NeXT thing that got absorbed as Cocoa. I certainly
never saw a hint of it the entire time I was developing for the Mac pre-
OS X. Carbon (the bridge between the Toolbox and OS X) was still very
much C-oriented.
I don't think Objective-C existed for classic MacOS development. Maybe
Tenon made some weird compiler for it, but it wasn't an officially
supported language.
IIRC MPW had compilers for C, C++ and Pascal, and MacApp was geared toward
Pascal first, then C++ later on.
8:02 p.m.
New subject: Remember Dylan? - Re: Mac 68k toolbox calls
On 19/03/12 3:33 PM, David Riley wrote:
On Mar 19, 2012, at 3:18 PM, Rich Alderson wrote:
Before the return of Steve, the hot new future of Mac development was
Dylan - like JavaScript, heavily Lisp inspired. I remember being excited
about Dylan at the time and then shocked when it was deep-sixed in a flash.
--Toby
I don't think Apple programmers began using
Objective-C in earnest until
MacOS 9, though it could have been MacOS 8. (Certainly the manual set for
MacOS 7 was still very much Object Pascal oriented.) Third-party programs
were much more frequently in C than in any form of Pascal, of course.
Did Apple ever use Objective-C before OS X? I was under the impression that was primarily a NeXT thing that got absorbed as
Cocoa. I certainly
never saw a hint of it the entire time I was developing for the Mac pre-
OS X. Carbon (the bridge between the Toolbox and OS X) was still very
much C-oriented.
- Dave
8:33 p.m.
New subject: Remember Dylan? - Re: Mac 68k toolbox calls
On 3/19/12 5:02 PM, Toby Thain wrote:
Before the return of Steve, the hot new future of Mac
development was Dylan - like JavaScript, heavily Lisp inspired.
Not surprising, since it was done by the Mac Common Lisp team.
clozure.com is the closest living descendant of all that.
3:48 p.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls
Rich Alderson wrote:
Object Pascal was an object-oriented dialect of Pascal
developed at
Apple for Lisa operating system and applications development, IIRC.
Close. The
language developed for Lisa application development (but not
the OS, AFAIK), was Clascal, which was a different object-oriented
dialect. Experience with Clascal was one of the inspirations for Object
Pascal.
It's hard to consider Object Pascal to have been much of a success for
Apple, but Borland and its successors have been quite successful with it
to this day. I wonder how much of that is a result of Borland
downplaying the "Pascal" name, which has a bad reputation with many
developers, in favor of the name "Delphi"?
Its size and complexity were the reason that official
development for
the Mac was done on Lisas for a long time.
Actually almost all Mac developers moved
off the Lisa as fast as they
could. While the limited memory of the original 128K Mac was a hindrance
to development, the 512K came around pretty soon, and unofficial
upgrades before that. It took Apple a while to get MPW out, but there
were plenty of other options for natively hosted development early on.
8 p.m.
New subject: Mac 68k toolbox calls
On 19/03/12 3:48 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
... It took Apple a while to get MPW out, but there
were plenty of other options for natively hosted development early on.
I used quite a few of them, including the Consulair 68K development
environment (editor, assembler), Whitesmiths C, Aztec C,
THINK/Lightspeed Pascal and C, TML Pascal, Symantec C, and probably some
I've forgotten, until eventually MPW became the dominant environment.
--Toby
1:39 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
From: Ethan Dicks
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2012 9:17 AM
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 12:00 PM, Richard <legalize
at xmission.com>> wrote:
> IIRC, "professional" developers were
expected to use Pascal or C.
On the Apple II family???
Having read the Hernia Manuals when they came out on
3-ring binders,
all I saw were references to Pascal. It looked painful/excessively
verbose to call the toolbox routines from 68K assembler. I don't
think I saw much for C on the Mac until 1986 or 1987, but there are
probably others here who were closer to that world at that time who
could provide more precise dates.
There was a native C compiler for the Macintosh (128K) in the latter
half of 1984. I'm sure of the date because I saw it before leaving
Chicago for Stanford, which was the end of September, 1984.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
3:36 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
In article <539CFBE84C931A4E8516F3BBEA36C7AA4D80275F at 505MBX1.corp.vnw.com>,
Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com> writes:
Well, I don't know if the compiler actually ran on the Apple ][ or if
it was cross-compiled, but unless the author of the PFS series *lied*
when he submitted code to "Programmers at Work", it was written in C,
and pooly at that. (i.e. IIRC, his "append two strings" routine which
he included in the snippet for the book traversed both strings twice.)
--
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<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
On Mon, Mar
19, 2012 at 12:00 PM, Richard <legalize at xmission.com>> wrote:
> IIRC, "professional" developers
were expected to use Pascal or C.
On the Apple II family???
2:28 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
In article <CAALmim=0zeLW7Q=9CXTso3=6H0wrmfQc2GcG=fOKjb6WooGDCA at mail.gmail.com>,
Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> writes:
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 12:00 PM, Richard <legalize
at xmission.com> wrote:
The PFS suite ran on Apple ][e, at least, and was written in C.
I don't have a year on it, but I want to say before 1986 at a minimum.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
In article <SNT129-W15107256AB6C3D68448E7A3420
at phx.gbl>,
dwight elvey <dkelvey at hotmail.com> writes:
Maybe with ProDOS and the IIgs, but not with AppleDOS and the
II/II+/IIe/IIc/IIc+. "Real" apps were either assembly or perhaps
compiled BASIC. Not a lot of serious language choices on 6502
platforms prior to 1986. I just find the thought of writing a business
application
with this slow a BASIC would have been tough.
IIRC, "professional" developers were expected to use Pascal or C.
2:52 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
Ethan Dicks wrote:
Having read the Hernia Manuals when they came out on
3-ring binders,
all I saw were references to Pascal. It looked painful/excessively
verbose to call the toolbox routines from 68K assembler.
I never found calling the toolbox from assembly to be particularly
onerous. It used Pascal calling conventions, but there's nothing
complicated about that. And I prefer counted strings to null-terminated
strings any day.
10:40 a.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 4:03 AM, Eric Smith <eric at brouhaha.com> wrote:
dwight elvey wrote:
Yep.
I got my start on a 1MHz 6502. The BASIC game engine for Scott Adams'
first two adventures ("Adventureland" and "Pirate's Adventure")
took
several seconds to loop through the 151-entry-long action table, so
even if you knew what to do, the game took hours. The first real 6502
machine language program I wrote was a Scott Adams' engine. That flew
through the game almost as fast as you could type.
The Apple II in text mode isn't any faster than what I started with
(32K PET), and I don't know of any serious work involving hi-res
graphics and BASIC. That was all done with 6502 assembly.
BASIC on an 8-bit micro is just slow.
-ethan
?The one thing I found is that the BASIC on the Apple is really
slow. It is about the slowest I've ever used. How people put
up with it I don't know.
We put up with it back in the late 1970s because none of the common,
inexpensive microcomputers available at the time were any faster. ?And
although the Atari 800 had better graphics, it had far worse I/O.
Even the 4 MHz Z80 systems and 5 MHz 8088 systems weren't much faster,
because the 6502 is more cycle-efficient than either. 
4:24 a.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
Interesting story Dwight, Good one.
Cheers
Terry (tezza)
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 5:14 PM, dwight elvey <dkelvey at hotmail.com> wrote:
Hi
I'd had this AppleIIe for a number of years but no
disk or operating system.
It didn't have a SuperSerialCard ( SSC ) so transfering data would
have been fun. I'd recently found that I could have used the audio
through the cassette but I'm told it is slow and would take
a long time to do simple stuff.
When I got my IIe it came with one goodie. It had a QuikLoader
board. I'd been searching for a manual on it for quite some time
I'd finally found a fellow in France that had it and the disk set that
goes with it, just a few weeks ago.
I discovered that the EPROMs on it had both DOS3.3 as well as ProDos
Having DOS3.3, I could at least INIT disk. Still, I needed the SSC
to do serious down loads.
Before I'd done much with it, I'd recreated a SwyftCard from a proto
board and parts. It has been fun but only useful as an editor for
non-standard disk.
Well, I'd finally located a SSC and only needed to make up a cable
from the 10 pin header to a serial connector.
I then started searchng for some code to download. I found that
there was quite a bit but all in squished format. The ADT program
only take expanded images. On seaching some more I found that
the CiderPress tool would expand it for me.
Now for the next problem. Getting the client software onto the
Apple. My windows machine has no serial port and I have no idea
where the USB to serial adapter has got to since my last move.
I know it'll show up so reluctant to buy another.
The machine I intend to use for the transfers has DOS but no
com software.
After some thinking, I decided to enter it by hand onto the Apple
( not a good thought though ).
After several hours of typing, I finally got it all entered. Luckily,
I used the DOS3.3 on the QuikLoader to save a copy. On first
attempt, it just crashed.
I realizes I needed a way to check the code. One the PC sde I
quickly though to gether a check sum program that displayed
the code offset, the byte abd the sum. This was kind of specialized
to match the format of the file that came with ADT.
On the Apple side, a quick check of the manuals showed that
the BASIC might interfer some with the location used by ADT
so I loaded it at $4000. Nice that Apples BASIC/DOS lets one do that.
I wrote a similar program on the Apple, to do the same as the
PC program ( in BASIC ).
I was astounded by how slow the Apple was compared to a 10 year
old laptop. I could do the entire check sum on the PC about as fast
as I could type the return. On the Apple, it was slow enough that
I needed to partition it.
I'd thought I'd only made a few minor errors. In earlier days, I'd
entered bigger programs with no errors.
As I got to work comparing check sums, I realized that age my
have caught up with me. I found at least 3 lines that I'd most
likely type the wrong address for. All totaled, about 48 errors
in 3K of code.
Thank all that I had a disk to save images on.
I finally got ADT up and running. Down loaded some useful
software and had a good time.
The one thing I found is that the BASIC on the Apple is really
slow. It is about the slowest I've ever used. How people put
up with it I don't know.
Dwight
8:56 a.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 4:14 AM, dwight elvey <dkelvey at hotmail.com> wrote:
?The one thing I found is that the BASIC on the Apple
is really
slow. It is about the slowest I've ever used. How people put
up with it I don't know.
It was faster than the TI 99/4 basic... (;
I used to write things in Integer basic if I could get away with it.
It was much faster.
Failing that, I had an Applesoft "compiler".
Just about anything that required any speed you'd do in assembler.
--
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: ?"The Future Begins Tomorrow"
Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net
--------
Your mama's so FAT she doesn't support files larger than 4 GB.
6:30 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Kevin Reynolds <tpresence at hotmail.com> wrote:
UCSD Pascal was actually pretty decent, heck the
original Wizardry was written using it.
Maybe I am projecting my own lack of skill with it. (;
I recently found my manual... I'm amazed that I managed to do anything
with that much memory.
I'd love to see the code to Wizardry..
--
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: ?"The Future Begins Tomorrow"
Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net
--------
Your mama's so FAT she doesn't support files larger than 4 GB.
10:33 a.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
I remember taking the applesoft compiler and feeding it the applesoft breakout game?.
Fun and made the game unplayable!
George Rachor
On Mar 19, 2012, at 5:56 AM, John Many Jars wrote:
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 4:14 AM, dwight elvey
<dkelvey at hotmail.com> wrote:
The one thing I found is that the BASIC on the
Apple is really
slow. It is about the slowest I've ever used. How people put
up with it I don't know.
It was faster than the TI 99/4 basic... (;
I used to write things in Integer basic if I could get away with it.
It was much faster.
Failing that, I had an Applesoft "compiler".
Just about anything that required any speed you'd do in assembler.
--
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow"
Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net
--------
Your mama's so FAT she doesn't support files larger than 4 GB.
11:57 a.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
In article <CAEvVyqEx5dhnVartkyLsODpd+fe-hmHNU2_8AB+Xq2XhCQeO3w at mail.gmail.com>,
John Many Jars <john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net> writes:
Just about anything that required any speed you'd
do in assembler.
or FORTH.
I saw some impressive Apple ][ FORTH demos in '86.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
12:17 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote:
I saw some impressive Apple ][ FORTH demos in '86.
I used to have an (ahem) illegal copy of GraphForth. I didn't have a
manual, and didn't know forth, and it was way before the Internet, so
I never figured out how to use it.
The demo ran impressively fast!
--
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: ?"The Future Begins Tomorrow"
Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net
--------
Your mama's so FAT she doesn't support files larger than 4 GB.
12:40 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 4:17 PM, John Many Jars
<john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net> wrote:
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Richard <legalize
at xmission.com> wrote:
> I saw some impressive Apple ][ FORTH demos in '86.
Been looking into that (now that I have the Internet). It's all stack
based and weird.
No wonder it's fast though...
--
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: ?"The Future Begins Tomorrow"
Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net
--------
Your mama's so FAT she doesn't support files larger than 4 GB.
1:04 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
I saw some
impressive Apple ][ FORTH demos in '86.
Been looking into that (now that I have the Internet). It's all stack
based and weird.
No wonder it's fast though...
1:18 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
From: john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 4:17 PM, John Many Jars
<john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net> wrote:
Hi
If you want to fiddle with Forth, I believe Starting Forth is online now.
It is a fun book to go through and is applicable to most versions of Forth.
The exception might be the varies editors used with screens rather than
sequencial files. Most of the early ones such as found on the Apple II would
most likely be screens.
Stacks are not overly efficient on the 6502 but better than on the 8080.
Stack processors never seem to catch on too much, even though they are
fast. I have a 4MHz Novix chip that can do sorts faster in Forth than a
33 MHz 386 can do in machine code. Sorting 1K 16 bit integers in 19 ms.
Like many DSPs, it can combine several instructions in a single clock
cycle and operate 2 data busses at the same time.
Dwight
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Richard
<legalize at xmission.com> wrote:
> I saw some impressive Apple ][ FORTH demos in '86.
Been looking into that (now that I have the Internet). It's all stack
based and weird.
No wonder it's fast though...
-- 
9:02 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
Stack processors never seem to catch on too much,
even though they are
fast. I have a 4MHz Novix chip that can do sorts faster in Forth than a
33 MHz 386 can do in machine code. Sorting 1K 16 bit integers in 19 ms.
Like many DSPs, it can combine several instructions in a single clock
cycle and operate 2 data busses at the same time.
Forth chips are awesome, as is Forth. I've never messed with the
Novix chips (NC4000 series?) but I have a couple of Harris RTX2010 chips
here, as well as one of Chuck Moore's new GA144s. 144 hly simple cores
on a chip! Great stuff. I'll have that on a board soon.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
2:07 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
I got the manual on abebooks.com, I'll have to scan it someday :) GraFORTH
is pretty neat, very fast for graphics and music. Paul Lutus wrote
TransFORTH as well which is a floating point FORTH. I've messed with them
but never got around to making anything meaningful, but they're on my
shelf. If anyone's interested in the docs let me know.
Regards,
Gord
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 11:17 AM, John Many Jars <
john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net> wrote:
On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 3:57 PM, Richard <legalize
at xmission.com> wrote:
--
Gord Tulloch, Winnipeg, MB Ph. 204-223-4627
--
I saw some impressive Apple ][ FORTH demos in
'86.
I used to have an (ahem) illegal copy of GraphForth. I didn't have a
manual, and didn't know forth, and it was way before the Internet, so
I never figured out how to use it.
The demo ran impressively fast!
--
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow"
Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net
--------
Your mama's so FAT she doesn't support files larger than 4 GB.
1:02 p.m.
New subject: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
Hi
Down loading a Forth was one of my first things to do once ADT was
running.
Dwight
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Finally running with new software Apple IIe
From: legalize at xmission.com
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2012 09:57:07 -0600
In article <CAEvVyqEx5dhnVartkyLsODpd+fe-hmHNU2_8AB+Xq2XhCQeO3w at
mail.gmail.com>,
John Many Jars <john at yoyodyne-propulsion.net> writes:
Just about anything that required any speed
you'd do in assembler.
or FORTH.
I saw some impressive Apple ][ FORTH demos in '86.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
5:58 p.m.
On 03/27/2012 05:41 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
Where on the east coast? I'll be in a truck soon making (hopefully)
my last trip to FL.
(maybe someone can reply to this so Will will see it? thanks)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
I have a lead
on an IBM 083 card sorter, located on the east coast. I
do not know the condition. I had hoped it was an 084, but no such
luck, and I already have two 083s. Any interest out there?
Prod, prod.
Razorblades by May.
4502
days inactive
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days old
51 comments
20 participants
participants (20)
-
aek＠bitsavers.org -
dkelvey＠hotmail.com -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
evan＠snarc.net -
fraveydank＠gmail.com -
george＠rachors.com -
gord.tulloch＠gmail.com -
jbmcb1＠gmail.com -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
john＠yoyodyne-propulsion.net -
legalize＠xmission.com -
lproven＠gmail.com -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
RichA＠vulcan.com -
spectre＠floodgap.com -
terry＠webweavers.co.nz -
toby＠telegraphics.com.au -
tpresence＠hotmail.com -
wdonzelli＠gmail.com