241–250 of 337 posts
This was an incredible read! Especially for what looks like the first post to this blog too? I wanted to subscribe to the RSS feed but unfortunately it gives a 404 error.
Chiming in as well to say to the author when the victory lap here is over: please consider adding the RSS feed! I want to see whatever you do next, regardless of how long it takes.
Wow! This is really impressive! I kind of want to try some project like this sometime, but I wouldn't even know where to start...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IOKit was actually built from the ground up for OS X! NeXT had a different driver model called DriverKit. I've never coded against either, but my understanding was they're pretty different beasts. (I could be wrong) That said, indeed, the abstraction layer here is delightful! I know that some NetBSD devs managed to get PPC Darwin running under a Mach/IOKit compatibility layer back in the day, up to running Xquartz on…
There’s a great video of a NeXT-era Steve Jobs keynote floating around—I think the one where he announces the x86 port as NeXT was transitioning to a software-only company—where he specifically calls out DriverKit and how great it is. Steve was not a developer but he made it his business to care about what they cared about.
For some reason, though, it means that people overlook how NeXT’s hardware was _very_ far from fast. You weren’t going to get SGI level oomph from m68k and MO disks.
In addition to the incredible engineering work here the OP casually flexes by showing the development happening _in an economy class airplane seat_.
Apple had a commercial about this a million years ago, where a guy decides to edit a video on a plane. https://youtu.be/LQWjxAdSsHE
> As for RAM, the Wii has a unique configuration: 88 MB total TIL Wii has only 88MB of RAM. Fortunately games weren't electron-based.
Another funny history fact with the Wii is Windows Vista released the same month in North America. People were so upset that the minimum requirement for Vista said 512 MB (which was already more than the average existing home PC of the time had without an upgrade) but it ran like crap unless you had more. We truly had to get away with less back then. These days it feels like there is a bit more headroom where 8 GB is…
Before figuring out how to tackle this project, I needed to know whether it would even be possible. According to a 2021 Reddit comment: There is a zero percent chance of this ever happening. Feeling encouraged, I started with the basics: what hardware is in the Wii, and how does it compare to the hardware used in real Macs from the era. I LOL'd
[1] https://xdaforums.com/t/how-do-i-port-pocos-miui-camera-to-c...
[2] https://xdaforums.com/t/anxcamera-closed-on-xda-only-16th-fe...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s a great video of a NeXT-era Steve Jobs keynote floating around—I think the one where he announces the x86 port as NeXT was transitioning to a software-only company—where he specifically calls out DriverKit and how great it is. Steve was not a developer but he made it his business to care about what they cared about.
Yeah - even from the start, I remember NeXT marketing was spending a disproportionate amount of their time selling NeXT’s “object technology”, AppKit and Interface Builder, DPS as an advanced graphics model. It was good hunch from Steve, given how how modern NeXTSTEP feels in retrospect. For some reason, though, it means that people overlook how NeXT’s hardware was _very_ far from fast. You weren’t going to get SGI l…