TCP/IP networking? HTTP Requests? Visual MSB??

[TechEdison]

Hello!

I am pondering creating my own chat app for old 68k macs. I've done many different chat apps before, for many different platforms. I've discovered Visual MacStandardBasic which appears to be the easiest way to create gui applications for 68k macs. I'm wondering if it has any networking built in aside from serial capabilities?

If not, what would be the easiest way to program a binary that could send simple http requests using MacTCP for networking.

If there is no simple way, I will just have to use a host PC to relay serial data to the web 

 

[TechEdison]

Well, it was a nice idea anyways.

Both VisualMSB and RealBasic produce binaries that give address errors on both my macs. One running the latest 7.5.5.

Just gives "address error" and forces it to restart... Not sure why, it runs fine on my iBook G3 on OS9

 

[dcr]

What about FutureBASIC?

 

[Dog Cow]

Try HyperCard. You can do TCP in a HyperCard stack. Here is an example Newsreader which uses MacTCP. And here's an OpenTransport XFCN.

 

[techknight]

Well, it was a nice idea anyways.

Both VisualMSB and RealBasic produce binaries that give address errors on both my macs. One running the latest 7.5.5.

Just gives "address error" and forces it to restart... Not sure why, it runs fine on my iBook G3 on OS9

I have had zero issues using RealBASIC apps on Mac 68Ks. I even did a new years eve/day rollover years ago on my YouTube channel with a CC and a realBASIC app. 

but it IS buggy. it takes sometimes 2 or 3 compiles before it works. 

Also, CFM68K is a requirement for RB to run. 

Whichever platform you do choose to use, My personal opinion is use the MQTT protocol. Its awesome and works great for chat apps. You can compile using the new 68K GCC compiler for a C lib and bring the C lib into RB. 

 

[ants]

I've written a basic HTTP library in C++ (based on MacTCP): https://github.com/antscode/MacHTTP

It can be compiled using Retro68 on a modern Mac or PC.

 

[TechEdison]

Whichever platform you do choose to use, My personal opinion is use the MQTT protocol. Its awesome and works great for chat apps. You can compile using the new 68K GCC compiler for a C lib and bring the C lib into RB. 

I wonder if you could expand on this a little more. I am not familiar with programming in RealBasic (or any 68k mac programming), Does RealBasic itself have any networking capabilities that interact with MacTCP?

 

[TechEdison]

So it appears RB creates binaries that need CFM68K and will not do anything else.... That rules it out simply because the built apps won't run on my old machines (specifically my Macintosh Classic, which is my main internet machine). My PB160 needs a recap to be fully useful, and I'd rather build something compatible with 68000.

 

[TechEdison]

Another question comes to mind: Does VMSB need CFM68k? And if not, why do the applications show an address error?

 

[Dog Cow]

Another question comes to mind: Does VMSB need CFM68k?

The documentation for 4.0 doesn't mention CFM68k, and says the compiler can produce a fat binary to run on 68k System 7.1.

 

[techknight]

I wonder if you could expand on this a little more. I am not familiar with programming in RealBasic (or any 68k mac programming), Does RealBasic itself have any networking capabilities that interact with MacTCP?

Yes it does, it has TCP/UDP socket support. I wrote a small little app to transfer the clipboards between my PC and my mac when I was using the PC to browse and look up items, and the Mac to handle the spreadsheet. 

Also CFM68K can run on a 68000 with enough RAM and the 020 "emulator" extension but its slow as molasses. 

 

[TechEdison]

The documentation for 4.0 doesn't mention CFM68k

Very odd... the binaries produced give the same error the RB binaries do.

To clear things up, here is my setup:

Dev environment: iBook g3 with os 9.2.2

Target machine: Macintosh Classic with 7.5.5

 

[techknight]

Well the documentation spells this:

For an application created using Visual MacStandardBasic:

• Macintosh (68K) or Power Macintosh Computer
  
  Runs native on Power Macintoshes
  
  System 7.1 or greater
  
  4MB RAM
  

which is funny because thats the same requirements for CFM68K so chances are its using the same runtime. the statement of "runs native on powerPC" means that the 68K part is using some sort of emulation or outside runtime, just like CFM68K is designed to do. 

But then again, it could simply be it just depends on 32-bit access. But I am not sure. 

Do you have the 4MB of RAM?

 

[techknight]

However, if you know Python, I think there is a Classic 68K as well as cfm68k python runtime for Mac. 

but Sys 7 is a must. 

Edit: Python 1.5.1 has a Classic 68K version. 

Here is a link on building python apps for mac:

https://svn.python.org/projects/python/trunk/Mac/Demo/example2.html

 

[TechEdison]

I do have 4mb of ram.

I am quite uneducated on programming these old macs and am having second thoughts on taking this route.

I am however a backend web developer. Are there any better web browsers that would run on those specs aside from MacWeb? Looking for something with more HTML and preferably recognizes some css.

My website nocss.ml was just a glimpse of what I would be able to do regarding websites on these old machines. It was my RetroChallenge project, completed in 1 month.

 

[TechEdison]

I guess netscape navigator will be a good choice to target. Though it never had proper CSS, I can probably learn JSSS. It has a CSS to JSSS converter but it seems like that would make it further unstable and laggy..

 

[techknight]

You know, the last time I was in web development long long ago, I never used CSS. Still dont. 

But I dont develop for the web anymore either. 

 

[TechEdison]

Yea I haven't done computer programming in ages. Web development is my thing.

I'm working on learning the JSSS syntax and then I'm going to integrate a vintage compatible site with my already complete chat software, https://www.shout.tk

My goal is to make it fully Netscape 4.0 compatible, which is the last release for 68k macs as far as I'm aware.