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MacRelix – Unix-like features for classic Mac OS

macrelix.org

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Re: MacRelix – Unix-like features for classic Mac OS

#51

Post by fleeno »

rbanffy wrote: post #36
ianai wrote: post #14

Makes me wonder. What would it take for Mac the tech to have this sort of feel/appeal again? Would a full wintel+nvidia gpu daughterboard move any needles? Or something oddball and hardware like the lamp imac, idk. Basically, computing nowadays feels very well baked and staid at times. Stuff like a unixy subsystem feels experimental in ways computing hasn't in decades.

> Makes me wonder. What would it take for Mac the tech to have this sort of feel/appeal again? We tend to forget that, but Macs are the last standing members of the Unix workstation family, and quite good ones at that.

This! I've probably said it here before, but Apple won the Unix workstation wars in the most awesome way possible. You can now buy an insanely powerful RISC Unix workstation at the mall! How awesome is that?

Re: MacRelix – Unix-like features for classic Mac OS

#52

Post by Astraco »

lampiaio wrote: post #16
Astraco wrote: post #13

A installation guide would be great. I'm trying to install it and I don't know what to do with the mbin file. When click on it says something about connectfour application missing.

The mbin file can be opened with StuffIt Expander, it contains the installer application.

Stuffit extract the installer but it doesn't do anything, I don't know what I'm missing.

Re: MacRelix – Unix-like features for classic Mac OS

#53

Post by RodgerTheGreat »

Lammy wrote: post #30
cancerhacker wrote: post #19

Poking through it - it looks like it might include Perl, but no idea about what level of Perl-Unix-ism it might support. But I didn’t enjoy rereading ye old Perl implementation with Tolkien references [1] to give a feel for what the source file is about. [1] https://github.com/jjuran/metamage_1/blob/4d1a24875036fee128...

It does include Perl, though quite an old version: https://i.imgur.com/ySMhy3o.png (my screenshot) This is the same version that was available as “MacPerl” back in The Day https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/macperl-561

Doesn't look like there's an Awk included, which is a real shame.

Re: MacRelix – Unix-like features for classic Mac OS

#54

Post by lproven »

rcarmo wrote: post #40
Tevo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

9front, seemingly Plan 9's de-facto successor, is almost surely quirky, often whimsical, at times nostalgic. It might even be functional, depending on how you define that[1]. Is actively developed, has a vibrant community. Puts an interesting spin on how you lay out systems, but doesn't diverge much from the Bell Labs formula. I'd certainly recommend giving it a shot, for the UNIX-inclined. [1] I've daily driven it b…

I tried Plan9 as a minimalist desktop. I soon realised that three-button mouse chording isn't doable in this decade, and wish someone had written a Platinum-like window manager to replace rio.

> I soon realised that three-button mouse chording isn't doable in this decade,

The scroll wheel on any wheelmouse is a button and you can click it as well as spinning it.

All wheel mice are also 3-button mice.

Re: MacRelix – Unix-like features for classic Mac OS

#55

Post by rcarmo »

lproven wrote: post #54
rcarmo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried Plan9 as a minimalist desktop. I soon realised that three-button mouse chording isn't doable in this decade, and wish someone had written a Platinum-like window manager to replace rio.

> I soon realised that three-button mouse chording isn't doable in this decade, The scroll wheel on any wheelmouse is a button and you can click it as well as spinning it. All wheel mice are also 3-button mice.

Try doing that on a trackpad--but if I wanted to use a mouse, the chording is too cumbersome.

Re: MacRelix – Unix-like features for classic Mac OS

#56

Post by rcarmo »

anthk wrote: post #43
rcarmo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried Plan9 as a minimalist desktop. I soon realised that three-button mouse chording isn't doable in this decade, and wish someone had written a Platinum-like window manager to replace rio.

Forking Rio to create a Twm clone would be nice.

It's been somewhat done (there are a couple of forks out there, but nothing usable or maintained).

Re: MacRelix – Unix-like features for classic Mac OS

#57

Post by lampiaio »

jjuran wrote: post #26
Tevo wrote: post #17

Not entirely on topic, but it is such a pleasant touch to see the titles for the properties displayed before the shell all lining up just by word choice alone. I've seen people who pad out code comments like that; it has this rather capricious, sculpture-like feeling to it.

Author of MacRelix (and system-info) here. I'm delighted that you've noticed and appreciate this. :-)

Out of curiosity, how is MacRelix able to detect even under what emulator the system is running on?

Re: MacRelix – Unix-like features for classic Mac OS

#58

Post by gelstudios »

nolan879 wrote: post #10

I wonder if there would be a way to adapt this to also use MacTCP instead of OpenTransport.

Curious, what does someone gain with MacTCP? I'm not familiar with the space, but a casual glance (not an assessment!) suggests that OpenTransport was standard-ish from system 7.6 onwards.

Does it boil down to compatibility with older hardware?

Re: MacRelix – Unix-like features for classic Mac OS

#59

Post by cylinder714 »

rcarmo wrote: post #41
snovymgodym wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's this https://www.haiku-os.org/

Haiku lost the plot as far as I'm concerned when they didn't even try to support the Raspberry Pi as a target (where it would have been incredibly awesome). Right now the RISCv port is usable, but a lot of momentum was lost to the gods of fully open hardware...

Looks like they're working on it:

https://www.haiku-os.org/guides/building/compiling-arm64/

Re: MacRelix – Unix-like features for classic Mac OS

#60

Post by fsiefken »

philistine wrote: post #46
flembat wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had forgotten how strange it was to see a terminal in OSX, a huge step sideways, I won't say backwards as it has its uses, but that was also the nasty green screen world I thought we had escaped from...

Yeah, when I was younger and a neophyte, I thought it was idiotic that Mac OS X had a command line. Now that I’ve switched to Mac and that I’ve learned how to use it, I wouldn’t move to a platform without strong Unix roots. So what I guess I’m saying is I wouldn’t use Windows.

wsl with directory tree integration is also good, or cmd.exe with native gnu tools and additional binaries.
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