Does anyone know how I can cross-compile software for a 1999 iMac G3 with a PowerPC processor? Are there resources on how to develop for this CPU and is there any community around it?

  • dparticiple@sh.itjust.works
    14·
    2 days ago

    I can’t speak for cross-compilation, but I was a serious Mac developer on System 7 - MacOS 9 back in the day, and Metrowerks CodeWarrior was my tool of choice for C/C++ . A thread on 68KMLA from a few years ago has an extensive discussion of CodeWarrior: https://68kmla.org/bb/threads/metrowerks-codewarrior-best-version-and-updates.42338/

    Bravo for keeping this great old software and hardware going (System 7 is perhaps my favorite OS of all time). Let us know what you build!

    • dr_robotBones@reddthat.comOP
      3·
      22 hours ago

      Wow I had no clue it would be possible to develop on the machine itself! I’m glad people have maintained archives of this system’s software, it may be worth it to develop on the iMac itself, thank you!

      • [object Object]@lemmy.world
        2·
        20 hours ago

        I mean, I’ve played ‘Deja Vu’ in a MacOS emulator on my Android tablet. Having first to boot from a system floppy image, then adding the game image. I’m quite sure there are archives of old Mac software around, just archive.org should have plenty.

        The most annoying aspect of getting software into the emulator was the fact that a lot of it is distributed in archives made by a popular compressing utility for Classic MacOS, I forget what it’s called. The util is proprietary, and even with my flexible morals I didn’t want to sully my emulator with it.

        • dparticiple@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          19 hours ago

          If I had to guess, I’d say that you’re referring to StuffIt archives (with a .sit file extension). They were the most common classic MacOS archive format. Copies of StuffItExpander (free, if I remember correctly) are readily available, however unrar on *nix platforms will also extract them and retain the Mac resource fork according to https://github.com/PiSCSI/piscsi/issues/630 . Good luck!

          • [object Object]@lemmy.world
            1·
            17 hours ago

            That’s the name, yeah.

            Personally I don’t expect to be fiddling with this stuff again anytime soon, although ‘Deja Vu 2’ remains on the tablet unfinished, so far.