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[Jubadub]

Using Classic mode on OS9 to run BSD apps is great. Just tried out MachTen for the first time ever today. LOVE IT!

Now we update all tools.

Then we run QEMU-PPC.

 

Once someone is bored enough, or determined enough, to try this, please let us know. I plan to try this, too, but not now. Too involved with Bochs already.

[teroyk]

Using Classic mode on OS9 to run BSD apps is great. Just tried out MachTen for the first time ever today. LOVE IT!

Now we update all tools.

Then we run QEMU-PPC.

Once someone is bored enough, or determined enough, to try this, please let us know. I plan to try this, too, but not now. Too involved with Bochs already.

Good that you try make new version of Bochs before QEMU, because Bochs is originally programmed with Code Warrior.
I remember testings with OSX that Code Warrior made 30% faster code than Xcode with gcc...and I think that Code Warrior is best to optimize code for PPC,
but it is not 100% gcc compatible (because it is better, I think). But gcc is not standard anyway, although some unix guys think so.

But about topic Power MachTen it is good to run GNU-stuff without x86-emulation in MacOS9 with it, but of course the best if program is converted and compiled
directly to plain Mac OS 9.

[Jubadub]

But about topic Power MachTen it is good to run GNU-stuff without x86-emulation in MacOS9 with it, but of course the best if program is converted and compiled
directly to plain Mac OS 9.

Exactly. The UNIX tools in it also allow me to run a shell script (called "configure" script) that generates a C header file to be used on the source code of Bochs with CodeWarrior on the Mac side. It's also possible to skip this step and do things more manually just on Mac side, but I think it's likely I will be compiling Bochs multiple times (I hope I succeed), which means I should probably make good use of some of the automation, especially because we have Power MachTen... And no need to reboot to OS X and then reboot back to OS 9, either, or use a separate machine.

[Jubadub]

So, in case anyone wants to get the ball rolling, here are the official instructions on how to compile most of the (older) versions of QEMU under UNIX systems, which are (were) listed as having the same steps as GNU/Linux:

https://web.archive.org/web/20080203073227/http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/qemu-doc.html#SEC76
https://web.archive.org/web/20150928012001/http://qemu.weilnetz.de/qemu-doc.html#compilation (this one doesn't mention anything about GCC versions)

Code: [Select]

6. Compilation from the sources
6.1 Linux/Unix
6.1.1 Compilation

First you must decompress the sources:

cd /tmp
tar zxvf qemu-x.y.z.tar.gz
cd qemu-x.y.z

Then you configure QEMU and build it (usually no options are needed):

./configure
make

Then type as root user:

make install

to install QEMU in `/usr/local'.

6.1.2 GCC version

In order to compile QEMU successfully, it is very important that you have the right tools. The most important one is gcc. On most hosts and in particular on x86 ones, gcc 4.x is not supported. If your Linux distribution includes a gcc 4.x compiler, you can usually install an older version (it is invoked by gcc32 or gcc34). The QEMU configure script automatically probes for these older versions so that usually you don't have to do anything.
For most of the duration of QEMU's existence, that is how it was documented.

In more recent years, they changed it here and there, although the same general idea applies:

https://wiki.qemu.org/Hosts/BSD
https://www.qemu.org/download/

In the past, they used to say that GCC 4 was "too new" and instead an earlier version was preferred (which is great for us). However, it seems to suggest that QEMU might want GCC 3.2.x or GCC 3.4.x, and Power MachTen might be stuck with gcc 2.8.1: According to Cameron Kaiser from Floodgap (from Classilla/TenFourFox/Talospace fame), he was unable to upgrade to GCC 3 or GCC 4, although he did not specify which exact version he tried, nor if he tried building GCC 2.95.x or even rebuilding 2.8.1 to try things out. So honestly, there's still a lot to explore in terms of updating GCC in Power MachTen.

Kaiser's page talking about GCC: http://www.floodgap.com/retrotech/machten/base.html
GCC versions in release order: https://gcc.gnu.org/releases.html

Finally, here you can find the official downloads for the source code of most QEMU versions:

https://download.qemu.org/

You can dig for even earlier versions' source codes if you want, over here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030601085257/http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/
https://web.archive.org/web/20050220020835/http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/index.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20071018041459/http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/index.html

Note how the versioning numbers only changed in very recent years (version 3 onwards). That's because they decided to change how they do version numbering itself, and not because they suddenly made breakthrough after breakthrough more than ever in the past. So it's confusing what they did, but it's no big deal.

One question that remains is: what versions will build with gcc 2.8.1? It seems fair to estimate that QEMU 1.x.x versions are a good place to start.
Another route is to try multiple GCC versions, exact versions, and see how that goes. Maybe see what needs patching, and where, and why. And of course, not to assume, for example, that if GCC 3.4 doesn't work, that then no 3.x.x version will work, or any other hasty conclusion like that.

There might be other dependencies to keep an eye out for besides GCC, but it is the only dependency that I saw the old docs focus so much attention to.

Ok, now back to Bochs.

[teroyk]

Maybe little offtopic, but it might be nice that Power MachTen X-window gets look refresh like this:
http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/4409/2312/1600/923457/FreeBSD_241104.jpg
more about how that done in FreeBSD: http://oesediez.blogspot.com/2007/01/os-x-wanna-be-on-freebsd.html
And it compile some OSX stuff for Power MachTen then it would be "OSX Classic" for Mac OS 9 

[teroyk]

How far Power MachTen compatibility is from Darwin OS? Could it be use as compatibility layer to compile Darwin 1-5 apps to Mac OS 9 with MachTen?
from wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)):
"Up to Darwin 8.0.1, Apple released a binary installer (as an ISO image) after each major Mac OS X release that allowed one to install Darwin on PowerPC and Intel x86 systems as a standalone operating system.[10] Minor updates were released as packages that were installed separately. Darwin is now only available as source code."
or will it be better try x86 version in VirtualPC? What is last Darwin version that doesn't need SSE?

[laulandn]

BTW Over at macintoshgarden a user named Flk157 and I made a fresh effort to get a version of GCC 3.x for MachTen...and did not succeed.  The discussion started with a problem using g77, the Ada part of the GCC suite...but then Flk157 needed a newer version, and since g77 is really just another face for GCC, started working on that.  I followed along, offered ideas and encouragement, as I could:

You can read all the gory details, but my conclusion is that, although MachTen is truly an amazing piece of engineering, it is built on too limited a foundation, and many compromises were made in memory management.  Because of these, it is very likely impossible to build natively. 

Although Flk157 made a truly valiant attempt to figure out where things were breaking down and was trying workarounds, he is still stuck as far as I know.  Personally, I think it COULD be possible, but probably would entail a very large amount of work, learning and hacking the Byzantine GCC build process...which makes many assumptions about memory, how it is shared between processes, how pipes work, and more, which, unfortunately, look like they are not QUITE good enough in MachTen.

https://macintoshgarden.org/forum/problems-machtencodebuilder-and-ada

But...talking about it just now I had an idea...it might be possible to build a cross compiler on another host...or something like that.  In fact...it might be possible to do so using the M68k version of MachTen, because it reportedly, compared to the PowerPC version, has a more sophisticated memory subsystem...it at least provides some amount of memory protection, which implies they are using the MMU, and, if so, they COULD have done shared memory and pipes correctly...I'm going to mention this to him now...

[Jubadub]

But...talking about it just now I had an idea...it might be possible to build a cross compiler on another host...or something like that.

Not a bad idea! In fact, how did Tenon compile GCC 2.8.1 for Power MachTen in the first place, despite all the unfinished memory management in the PowerPC version of MachTen (Power MachTen)?

Cross-compilation might be a VERY good answer!

[laulandn]

GCC 3.x was a huge jump. 3.0 is a completely different beast from the previous versions.  We were able to build GCC 2.95 (I believe) and earlier with no problems on Power MachTen, but not any version of GCC 3.

We were able to get parts of it compiling, such as the binutils, cpp preprocessor, and many support libraries, but got stuck getting the whole thing together.

The trick will be if the m68k version of MachTen has a good enough virtual memory system, as any m68k machine will probably have a LOT less memory than any of the PowerMacs we've been running it on.

That MIGHT allow the compile to go through, but it will surely really thrash the swap subsystem...if it is good enough to handle it.  On a real *nix system you can (almost) keep allocating memory until you run out of disk space...almost...

The other things the m68k version hopefully does better is mmap and other shared memory, and pipes between processes.  I won't know until I try it.