ThinkC [Study Group 0] Getting your Development Environment Setup & Hello, World!

[eric]

Welcome to the FIRST Study Group Getting your Development Environment Setup & Hello, World!

Remember if you're not ready to start this week, don't worry, just come back when you are, we'll still be here to help!

Our goals for this week:

• Setup your environment
• Start reading Chapter 1 & 2 of Macintosh C Programming Primer 1992
  • Provides a quick overview and getting your first Hello, World!ANSI C app running
    • Share a screen shot of your app in this thread once complete!
• Post here with questions, tips, and help each other out
• Positive attitude, all are welcome. Everyone is here to learn and have fun.
• Ask questions - no idea what "ToolBox" means - ask here!

We will be focusing on ThinkC 5 or 6 for this Study group. The book is based on ThinkC 5 but there are only minor differences which we will call out for ThinkC.

If your development machine is System 6, use ThinkC 5, if you're on System 7 use ThinkC 5 or 6. I believe the resulting binaries of eitehr will run on System 6+.

Environment Setup:

Real Hardware or an Emulator are fine, whatever experience you'd like to use!

Mini VMac - I recommend the MacII version as you will get 8mb of ram (can have Think Reference and ThinkC open at the same time)

Basilisk II

Basilisk II - E-Maculation

Ample (Mame) https://github.com/ksherlock/ample/releases

Software Links

• Required
  • ThinkC 6 - The tool we'll be using to build and run our software.
  • Think Reference 2 - Documentation for ToolBox and libraries used in ThinkC
  • ResEdit - Create Resources for your apps
• Optional but good to have:
  • Amend - Source Control system on System 6+
    • Can share your amend files on amendhub.com
  • Popfuncs - An optional function navigator utility for THINK C
  • Hex Wrench 1.0 - A decimal to hexadecimal converter (need garden link)
  • HexEdit 1.0.7 - View/Edit/Diff binary files
  • MacTech Vol 1-12 - TONS of examples, articles, resources for mac programming.
  • Do you have any other recommendations? Post them in this thread!

Remember to have fun, post status updates on this thread, your profile posts, twitter, or anywhere you'd like!

 

[pfuentes69]

I think the pre-made image has Symantec C++ 6, not ThinkC 6. Is this OK to follow the book?

 

[eric]

I think the pre-made image has Symantec C++ 6, not ThinkC 6. Is this OK to follow the book?

No idea, I'll remove the link for now.

 

[pfuentes69]

I used this link to the Garden. It's 6.0.1, but it contains an IMG file with TC pre-installed.

I need to re-read the intro of the book, but here you go!

 

[atariorbit]

OK, I'm game. I'll be using Think v5 and playing along with some real hardware. I'm hoping to learn enough to build a little config app for the Fujinet - which would be used on older mac's via the Disk drive port (like a floppy emu but mount disks over the net).

Two other interesting books:

Programmer's Introduction to the Macintosh Family

Macintosh programmer's introduction to the Macintosh family : Apple Computer, Inc : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Written by Apple Computer, Inc

archive.org

Amazon.com

Learn C on the Macintosh

Learn C on the Macintosh - Macintosh Repository

Learn C on the Macintosh (Mac abandonware from 1995)

www.macintoshrepository.org

Learn C on the Macintosh - Macintosh Garden

Are you sick of pushing paper in a job that's taking you nowhere, except to the copy machine? Did you enjoy BASIC as a kid, but feel left behind by the programming world and unsure how to catch up? Do you want to spend your spare time on your computer doing something more productive than...

macintoshgarden.org

Amazon.com

 

[atariorbit]

I hope we'll be using Amend to manage our projects in this group- maybe for Workshop 2?

 

[jupo]

This is a cool idea! I've never tried to do any programming on my Macs, but the combination of coming across handouts and notes from some old Amiga programming classes the other day and seeing this here now, I think I want to give this a try using the SE/30 at my desk.

 

[retr01]

I hope we'll be using Amend to manage our projects in this group- maybe for Workshop 2?

Yeah. @eric set up Amend, I believe.

 

[pfuentes69]

I tried Amend and it has an issue so it only works with short file names.
Hopefully this will be solved before we have to use it.

 

[Crutch]

Popupfuncs garden link - from our own @Mu0n I think! https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/popupfuncs

Popupfuncs came bundled with another extension called Technicolor which I highly highly recommend - it provides syntax coloring in THINK C 6. Not sure if this link includes Technicolor - if not I can upload it to the Graden.

 

[eric]

I tried Amend and it has an issue so it only works with short file names.
Hopefully this will be solved before we have to use it.

https://jcs.org/amend 3.5 was just released
Changes in this version:

• Add metadata editor to change author name, date/time, and log messages of existing amendments
• Change references of “commits” to “amendments” to be consistent
• Change temporary filename generation to avoid generating bogus filenames when diffing
• Show progress while opening repo
• Tweak font sizes
• Fix bug that may have shown a bogus character at the end of a log message in the amendment list

Updated first post with everyone's feedback, keep it coming, thanks!

 

[eric]

Not sure if this link includes Technicolor

It does! this is great

 

[eric]

Here's my setup -

Quadra 950 132MB RAM, 6gb SCSI spinny drive, BlueSCSI, Internal SCSI CD, External CD, Zip Drive, Design Speakers, NEC LCD, Image Writer II, sticky notes for writing down some notes, and books!

I also use Mini vMac Mac II for doign quick testing while this machine isn't on.

 

[Trash80toG4]

Very cool stuff here! Just one question, why not Pascal or Apple Pascal as that was the development environment in the early days, no?

 

[eric]

Very cool stuff here! Just one question, why not Pascal or Apple Pascal as that was the development environment in the early days, no?

I guess "had to choose one" is the best answer to this question. The few times I've tried to learn Pascal it's syntax has felt foreign to me and I gave up. Trying to learn a new language while trying to learn a framework as well can be frustrating. I feel much more comfortable in a C environment coming from Java, c++, python, etc. Also the books I've found that are based on C felt more "complete" for someone who knows nothing about toolbox/etc (I'm sure there's the same for Pascal)

That of course doesn't mean there isn't room for both here - but I think starting out we should focus on one. If you want to share some code or resources around Pascal please do and use the Pascal Prefix in this forum.

 

[Trash80toG4]

Not a code kinda guy outside of Basic and batch programming that's late 80s to mid-90s out of date. Just along for the ride, as much as I can understand it anyway. Great stuff, thanks!

I was figuring the answer might be that learning C is applicable across the board in a more modern world than the classic Mac development environment. I think you very much made the right choice.

 

[Patrick]

for me personally. learning c is more interesting because its more portable. maybe if i get better on it on the mac. i can take that knowledge and use it on other platforms easier. (like embedded stuff or on modern computers or whatever)

 

[retr01]

Exactly, @Patrick. C is still in demand today, related to C+, C++, C#, and others like Python, Java, Swift, etc.

Maintained by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Scratch is an excellent way to learn programming concepts via point, click, drag, and drop high-level programming.

 

[atariorbit]

I'm waiting for some real books to come in from ebay. PDF versions are nice for quick lookups but this stuff deserves the real physical paper...

 

[Crutch]

Random belated endorsement for the excellent choice of using C.

I resurrected some old Pascal game code I wrote in 1992 (https://macintoshgarden.org/games/beamwars) for an updated “30th anniversary edition” (still coming soon … eventually) and dealing with the Pascal quickly became a giant slog. Eventually I ran the whole thing through a Pascal-to-C converter, which was its own small adventure but eventually paid off. Plenty of people were writing Mac Toolbox code in C by 1990 so it’s still historically legit