7 ms·

Swift on Mac OS 9 (2020)

122 points by Detrus 4y ago

ad-astra 4y ago
Awesome awesome awesome awesome, love reading about these retro hacking adventures. Huge props to the author!
IMcD23 4y ago
This should have (2020) in the title.
- saagarjha 4y ago
  And now it does :)
- eek2121 4y ago
  nice, wish I had seen it earlier. :D
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
saagarjha 4y ago
Discussion from when it was first written: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22754667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22754667
estebank 4y ago
I love these kind of anachronistic efforts, like the one in the article or the one getting Rust to run on Win98[1] from around the same time. [1]: https://seri.tools/blog/compiling-rust-for-legacy-windows/ https://seri.tools/blog/compiling-rust-for-legacy-windows/
- rgoulter 4y ago
  Slack on Windows 3.11 https://github.com/yeokm1/w31slack https://github.com/yeokm1/w31slack C# on Windows 3.11 https://www.hanselman.com/blog/net-everywhere-apparently-also-means-windows-311-and-dos https://www.hanselman.com/blog/net-everywhere-apparently-als...
  - anthk 4y ago
    With Win 3.1, some IRC client and Bitlbee you can chat everywhere :). Also, a gopher client makes the Win 3.1 desk not-so-obsolete. Ok, let's back to languages. I think some versions of Lazarus/Free Pascal still target Win 3.11 or Windows 9x at least.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
eek2121 4y ago
I was genuinely confused by the April 1st comment until I saw the URL, guys please timestamp your articles.
kybernetyk 4y ago
CodeWarrior was such a cool name. I wish Apple kept it over Xcode :)
- _moof 4y ago
  CodeWarrior wasn't an Apple product; it was a third-party IDE made by a company called Metrowerks.
- rvense 4y ago
  CodeWarrior was commercial software, Apple's pre-OS X developer tools were called "Macintosh Programmer's Workshop". It was bought up by Motorola/Freescale around the turn of the century and lived on as tools for embedded processors until fairly recently, although the later releases were based on Eclipse.
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    I wrote MPW tools integration for MetroWerks on contract; I delivered it to the VP Engineering for MWerks in person.
shp0ngle 4y ago
Mac OS 9 was really aging even at that point in time, was crashing all the time from what I heard, and so on, but. It looks amazing. Monterey wishes it looked half as good as OS 9 looks like
- jibbit 4y ago
  OS9 was very stable, but some apps weren't e.g. photoshop would crash a lot, and as there was no protected memory space for processes every app crash balked the entire system. Happy days.
  - anthk 4y ago
    OS9 was as stable as W98SE. Not as bad as W98/W95, but still crashy.
    - guessbest 4y ago
      Win98SE was the high water mark of a fast, stable, small MS Windows environment. Here it is in under 5 megs of hd space : https://web.archive.org/web/20080306134751/http://www.eteak.chalmers.se/~e8gus/nano98/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080306134751/http://www.eteak....
      - anthk 4y ago
        Heh. Small, but not stable. I suffered it at home. Sound/chipset driver install = BSOD. "High" load on IE with several (less than 10) Windows open = BSOD.
  - shp0ngle 4y ago
    If an app can crash your system, that means the system is not stable in my books
    - jibbit 4y ago
      Oh it wasn't robust by todays standards (or any standards really), but it would be wrong to infer from that that the quality of OS9 was inferior to OS8, OS7, rotting, etc.
meerita 4y ago
I'm trying to restore mac OS 9.2 on my still working iBook G4. I am ordering old CDs to see if I can restart the system. It has an Mac OS X Tiger installation that is blocking.
- eschaton 4y ago
  The iBook G4 only officially supports Mac OS X and Classic (a Mac OS 9 virtual machine), don’t waste your time ordering old CDs that won’t work. If someone has managed to get Mac OS 9 running, they’ll probably post instructions or a download on a forum like Mac OS 9 Lives.
  - meerita 4y ago
    When I bought the iBook it came with Mac OS 9 installed.
donatj 4y ago
Go until 1.3 supported all the way back to Windows 2000. I was pretty sad when they yanked support, the idea of becoming a hermit running Win2k writing Go is an oddly satisfying fantasy.
- bsaul 4y ago
  go is one of the rare language i can imagine using on a 20+ yo hardware / software stack. The whole go tooling is so much focused on simple and performant design that i think it wouldn't be too bad of an experience.
  - mhh__ 4y ago
    Until very recently the default linker for D on 32 bit Windows dated back to the 80s. You could nearly get D code working for a 16 bit computer due to the history of the dmd backend, even.
  - throwra620 4y ago
    Apart from it being an absolutely terrible programming language
    - Shadonototra 4y ago
      Go is a wonderful language, what are you talking about Cloud native language of choice for a reason ;)

122 points by Detrus 4y ago

ad-astra 4y ago

Awesome awesome awesome awesome, love reading about these retro hacking adventures. Huge props to the author!

IMcD23 4y ago

This should have (2020) in the title.

saagarjha 4y ago
And now it does :)
eek2121 4y ago
nice, wish I had seen it earlier. :D

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

saagarjha 4y ago

Discussion from when it was first written: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22754667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22754667

estebank 4y ago

I love these kind of anachronistic efforts, like the one in the article or the one getting Rust to run on Win98[1] from around the same time. [1]: https://seri.tools/blog/compiling-rust-for-legacy-windows/ https://seri.tools/blog/compiling-rust-for-legacy-windows/

rgoulter 4y ago
Slack on Windows 3.11 https://github.com/yeokm1/w31slack https://github.com/yeokm1/w31slack C# on Windows 3.11 https://www.hanselman.com/blog/net-everywhere-apparently-also-means-windows-311-and-dos https://www.hanselman.com/blog/net-everywhere-apparently-als...
- anthk 4y ago
  With Win 3.1, some IRC client and Bitlbee you can chat everywhere :). Also, a gopher client makes the Win 3.1 desk not-so-obsolete. Ok, let's back to languages. I think some versions of Lazarus/Free Pascal still target Win 3.11 or Windows 9x at least.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

eek2121 4y ago

I was genuinely confused by the April 1st comment until I saw the URL, guys please timestamp your articles.

kybernetyk 4y ago

CodeWarrior was such a cool name. I wish Apple kept it over Xcode :)

_moof 4y ago
CodeWarrior wasn't an Apple product; it was a third-party IDE made by a company called Metrowerks.
rvense 4y ago
CodeWarrior was commercial software, Apple's pre-OS X developer tools were called "Macintosh Programmer's Workshop". It was bought up by Motorola/Freescale around the turn of the century and lived on as tools for embedded processors until fairly recently, although the later releases were based on Eclipse.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  I wrote MPW tools integration for MetroWerks on contract; I delivered it to the VP Engineering for MWerks in person.

shp0ngle 4y ago

Mac OS 9 was really aging even at that point in time, was crashing all the time from what I heard, and so on, but. It looks amazing. Monterey wishes it looked half as good as OS 9 looks like

jibbit 4y ago
OS9 was very stable, but some apps weren't e.g. photoshop would crash a lot, and as there was no protected memory space for processes every app crash balked the entire system. Happy days.
- anthk 4y ago
  OS9 was as stable as W98SE. Not as bad as W98/W95, but still crashy.
  - guessbest 4y ago
    Win98SE was the high water mark of a fast, stable, small MS Windows environment. Here it is in under 5 megs of hd space : https://web.archive.org/web/20080306134751/http://www.eteak.chalmers.se/~e8gus/nano98/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080306134751/http://www.eteak....
    - anthk 4y ago
      Heh. Small, but not stable. I suffered it at home. Sound/chipset driver install = BSOD. "High" load on IE with several (less than 10) Windows open = BSOD.
- shp0ngle 4y ago
  If an app can crash your system, that means the system is not stable in my books
  - jibbit 4y ago
    Oh it wasn't robust by todays standards (or any standards really), but it would be wrong to infer from that that the quality of OS9 was inferior to OS8, OS7, rotting, etc.

meerita 4y ago

I'm trying to restore mac OS 9.2 on my still working iBook G4. I am ordering old CDs to see if I can restart the system. It has an Mac OS X Tiger installation that is blocking.

eschaton 4y ago
The iBook G4 only officially supports Mac OS X and Classic (a Mac OS 9 virtual machine), don’t waste your time ordering old CDs that won’t work. If someone has managed to get Mac OS 9 running, they’ll probably post instructions or a download on a forum like Mac OS 9 Lives.
- meerita 4y ago
  When I bought the iBook it came with Mac OS 9 installed.

donatj 4y ago

Go until 1.3 supported all the way back to Windows 2000. I was pretty sad when they yanked support, the idea of becoming a hermit running Win2k writing Go is an oddly satisfying fantasy.

bsaul 4y ago
go is one of the rare language i can imagine using on a 20+ yo hardware / software stack. The whole go tooling is so much focused on simple and performant design that i think it wouldn't be too bad of an experience.
- mhh__ 4y ago
  Until very recently the default linker for D on 32 bit Windows dated back to the 80s. You could nearly get D code working for a 16 bit computer due to the history of the dmd backend, even.
- throwra620 4y ago
  Apart from it being an absolutely terrible programming language
  - Shadonototra 4y ago
    Go is a wonderful language, what are you talking about Cloud native language of choice for a reason ;)