General Category > LisaList2
Lisa OS and applications source code now available
stepleton:
--- Quote from: kgraaf on January 22, 2023, 03:10:23 pm ---Re: Pascal. Some people on here might not be aware, but the excellent FreePascal compiler has a Mac Pascal compatibility mode. I've been exploring the possibility of "porting" LisaOS to a new abstraction layer (would require a rewrite of QuickDraw and other assembly-written portions of course) that could run as an application on Linux or something like that.
--- End quote ---
Something like this was actually the reason I wrote the Clascal grammar for the compiler project I mentioned elsewhere --- instead of aiming for binary compatibility, I was wondering if it might be possible to achieve source compatibility for ToolKit apps that would compile to Python.
The python code itself wouldn't aim to be usable in other Python applications: instead, the Python interpreter would behave like an extremely CISCy microprocessor, with compiled subroutines/objects/methods using a large array of bytes (a megabyte or two) as a stand-in for the Lisa's RAM. Pointers would work in this scheme: they'd just be array indices. Integers in the array would be stored in the "RAM" in big-endian order, just like in the Lisa: in fact, the idea would be to try to store all user-defined "stack" and "heap" data in the same way that the Lisa would store them.
The hope is that this would be a development aid for people who wanted to write new ToolKit applications (for you see I would have written a runtime that recreated the ToolKit as well): if it compiled and worked under this system, then you could be reasonably confident in it compiling and working on the real Lisa.
Naturally this would have been a huge undertaking, but the pandemic had not been going for very long by then and who knew how long we were going to be cooped up at home? Anyway, we got as far as the parser.
kgraaf:
Yeah for sure. I think the fact that we have access to the source now means that trying to get it work under FreePascal would be the way to go. I would be, if nothing else, a very neat hack to have 40 year old code running as a native application on a modern OS. I am reasonably certain that Clascal should compile under MacPas mode with FreePascal. The harder part is doing e.g. the QuickDraw rewrite.
Al Kossow:
--- Quote from: kgraaf on January 22, 2023, 03:10:23 pm ---Al, any chance we'll ever get Workshop and/or compiler source releases?
--- End quote ---
I found the pascal compiler source on some floppies I had along with a few other things.
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/pascal_monitor/floppy
I'm waiting to see what happens in the future WRT Apple and future code releases.
Lisa was a much bigger deal than the previous code drops and there hasn't been any
official reaction from Apple. I'm hoping to be able to talk to some people in person
at the CHM event on the 31st.
One of the important things to think about is what is going to be done with this code.
If people just carve it up or publish fgreps of how many times 'fuck' appears in it
it is going to be really hard to justify why they should release more.
Al Kossow:
--- Quote from: kgraaf on January 22, 2023, 04:06:31 pm ---Yeah for sure. I think the fact that we have access to the source now means that trying to get it work under FreePascal would be the way to go.
--- End quote ---
The point was getting a historical artifact of a complete operating system and applications in source form, not doing some Frankenstein hack to reanimate it on another system in 2023.
I wrote a post that they decided not to run on the 19th coming out on the 24th that explains this.
Personally, I'm disappointed that so far no one has started to make a bugfix list. As far as I know, no one
has said that source patches couldn't be released.
compu_85:
Well, doesn't the license say we aren't allowed to discuss or distribute any patches made? :o
I'd love for my understanding to be wrong on this.
If we wanted to start a bug fix / feature request list, would a Google sheet be appropriate?
-J
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