Programming on an old Macintosh

[MaxL]

Hi,
I know this is kind of an awkward question, but I would like to try programing something on my macintosh... just for fun. I know there is like Macintosh Programmers Workshop, but I can't find a .img file, which I would be able to write on a Floppy drive. There are some .image files, but I can't really use them because the Macintosh (Performa 475 or Macintosh SE FDHD) doesn't seem to recognize that format. Is there any other IDE you know of? Please let me know.

Have a nice day!
Max

 

[cheesestraws]

Hi Max and welcome to the forums!

Macintosh Programmer's Workshop would be a ... brave choice, its UI is extremely eccentric by modern standards. It has very good points, but the learning curve would launch you into space. As a starting point, I suggest not using it.

There are loads of tools for programming on the Mac, depending on what language you want to use and what you're actually trying to build.

For compiled/"traditional" languages, probably the friendliest IDEs are THINK C and THINK Pascal. THINK Pascal, as an IDE, is rather better than THINK C, and still has one of the best debuggers I've ever used in it. Its editor has a few eccentricities if you're used to modern code editors, but it's solid and once you're used to its slightly different idioms, they don't get in the way. These were distributed on floppies.

CodeWarrior Pro is a rather heavier-weight option; perhaps not the best for the SE, but 475 should deal with it. It was distributed on CD-ROM. It's very close to a "modern" IDE—which has both good and bad points—and it's what I use for most stuff personally.

But really that was a period of great interest and experimentation in programming languages, especially about how to make programming accessible, so beyond those two you have a great swathe of other available gubbins. An honorary mention here goes to HyperCard, which is an amazing tool. It is limited—intentionally so—being more intended as a construction kit than as a heavy engineering tool, but it let lots of people write software who otherwise wouldn't have braved the learning curve to get in, and things like Myst started in HyperCard. It's extremely influential, well worth a visit, and would work beautifully on your SE.

 

[Crutch]

+1 on all that.

Programming on an old Mac for fun is not at all weird.

There is no reason to use MPW unless, in addition to the challenge of programming 30-year-old-machines, you also want the extra bonus challenge of learning all about a weird vestigial branch of the family tree of programming tools and incurring a lot of frustration along the way.

If I were to recommend a single IDE for early-90s-era Mac coding, it would be Symantec C++ 7.0 (aka THINK C 7) with the PopUpFuncs/TechniColor add-on (syntax coloring is a must for me to feel functional). It comes on floppies, is a very fast compiler, and generates good code.

CodeWarrior is also a fine choice, though feels weird to me for 68k code (I think of it as a PowerPC tool) and I dislike the CD-based install.

 

[cheesestraws]

Yup, if I were running CW Pro on actual hardware I might feel different about it, tbh—I mostly write code on an emulator so I can get the benefits of modern laptops.

To add to the above even more, not only is it not weird to program for fun on the mac, but of the early GUIs, MacOS is probably the nicest to program for. It's immeasurably nicer than GEM/GEMDOS, say. Around the era of the PPC transition and especially into MacOS 8, the accretions start building up and the model slightly falls to bits; it all gets rather messy and incoherent. But in the era you're talking about, things remain reasonably clear.

 

[MaxL]

Thank you so much for both your replies! I have tried THINKC Version 6 and I really like it. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get C++ 7.0 working ...yet, we will see about that.

 

[cheesestraws]

THINK C is a very decent C IDE, good choice

 

[Crutch]

Around the era of the PPC transition and especially into MacOS 8, the accretions start building up and the model slightly falls to bits; it all gets rather messy and incoherent. But in the era you're talking about, things remain reasonably clear.

Couldn’t agree more. Right from the get go of the PPC transition with the UniversalProcPointers or whatever they were called, mixed-mode whatnots and general inability to really know what’s going on behind the scenes anymore, the whole thing stops being much fun for me. I like to know that the processor is looking at my 68K code with the registers doing what they are supposed to be doing, trap patches directly patching actual traps, and being able to Macsbug-step right into the ROM or system software like it’s 1984.

 

[MaxL]

Guys, I have another quick question, my Macintosh Performa 475 has an Ethernet card built into it. I tried for a bit to get a connection to my FTP Server, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work. Do you guys know a proper way, to establish a connection? Or do you know a manual I can take a look at?

 

[cheesestraws]

I don't actually use TCP/IP on my old Macs at all: I do all my file sharing over AppleTalk, so I don't really know about getting FTP set up. You might have better luck creating a new thread with information on what you've already tried, so that people who aren't interested in programming tools but do know about MacTCP/OT are more likely to see your question .

 

[cheesestraws]

the PPC transition with the UniversalProcPointers or whatever they were called, mixed-mode whatnots and general inability to really know what’s going on behind the scenes anymore

Agreed. The 68k emulator is a marvel—it's a really good bit of software and frankly it has no business working as well as it does, under the circumstances—but it adds a lot of mess. I respect it, but I do not love it.

 

[MaxL]

I don't actually use TCP/IP on my old Macs at all: I do all my file sharing over AppleTalk, so I don't really know about getting FTP set up. You might have better luck creating a new thread with information on what you've already tried, so that people who aren't interested in programming tools but do know about MacTCP/OT are more likely to see your question .

True, thanks for your help!