Hey everyone, wanted to share my latest project that looks to help bridge the gap when it comes to building apps for classic Macs, specifically PPC and 68K apps for OS 7~9. I used LLms, mostly Codex, extensively for this work.
The idea was to bring the ability of CodeWarrior to the command line. Retro68 is a fantastic tool, but I found it difficult to build anything beyond basic applications. I asked "what specifically does CodeWarrior do when it is building an app? What made it work the way that it did and how did it handle all the elements it takes to create an application for Mac OS?"
v0.1 release path builds Classic Mac OS 9 PowerPC CFM/PEF applications, validates their structure, and packages their files in MacBinary II. Earlier PowerPC versions of System 7 and Mac OS 8 are not currently supported in this version but I have been able to begin building applications for older systems in the current dev build and will release the updates soon.
The ability to utilize languages that never existed on the classic systems is also already proven. For example, I was able to use macMAKE to create an application primarily in Rust. macMAKE itself is built with Rust so it made sense to give it a shot and I have previously done some experiments with using Rust with CodeWarrior itself. This not only means the limits of CodeWarrior projects, such as large amounts of files, is no longer an issue. I have made my way almost all the way through building Classilla with its original project files. I have learned so much from Classilla and I'm forever grateful for the work Cameron put into that legendary browser.
Either way, if you are a traditional programmer or even a slop jockey such as myself, this opens the door for almost anyone to start building apps for classic Macs.
macmake.dev
The idea was to bring the ability of CodeWarrior to the command line. Retro68 is a fantastic tool, but I found it difficult to build anything beyond basic applications. I asked "what specifically does CodeWarrior do when it is building an app? What made it work the way that it did and how did it handle all the elements it takes to create an application for Mac OS?"
v0.1 release path builds Classic Mac OS 9 PowerPC CFM/PEF applications, validates their structure, and packages their files in MacBinary II. Earlier PowerPC versions of System 7 and Mac OS 8 are not currently supported in this version but I have been able to begin building applications for older systems in the current dev build and will release the updates soon.
The ability to utilize languages that never existed on the classic systems is also already proven. For example, I was able to use macMAKE to create an application primarily in Rust. macMAKE itself is built with Rust so it made sense to give it a shot and I have previously done some experiments with using Rust with CodeWarrior itself. This not only means the limits of CodeWarrior projects, such as large amounts of files, is no longer an issue. I have made my way almost all the way through building Classilla with its original project files. I have learned so much from Classilla and I'm forever grateful for the work Cameron put into that legendary browser.
Either way, if you are a traditional programmer or even a slop jockey such as myself, this opens the door for almost anyone to start building apps for classic Macs.
macMAKE — Build Classic PowerPC software from Linux
Build Classic PowerPC Macintosh software from Linux with macMAKE, a C-focused CFM/PEF toolchain for Classic Mac OS 9.
macmake.dev