forked from wezm/wezm.net
297 lines
16 KiB
Markdown
297 lines
16 KiB
Markdown
+++
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title = "Building a Classic Mac OS App in Rust"
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date = 2023-03-31T13:26:07+10:00
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#[extra]
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#updated = 2023-03-26T14:27:05+10:00
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+++
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Instead of using my funemployment to build useful things I have continued to
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build things for old versions of Mac OS. Through some luck and a little
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persistence I have actually managed to get Rust code running on classic Mac OS
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(I've tried Mac OS 7.5 and 8.1). In this post I'll cover how I got here and
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show a little network connected demo application I built—just in time for
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the end of [#MARCHintosh].
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<!-- more -->
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Before I get into the details this is where we're headed:
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{{ video(video="posts/2023/rust-classic-mac-os-app/ferris-weather-2023-03-31_12.37.49_edit.mp4", height=480, poster="png", preload="auto", alt="Video showing the Ferris Weather application in operation. Initially there is a window with a Ferris icon, the text, 'An application that exercises my Open Transport Rust bindings and HTTP client', and a button 'Get Weather'. Clicking the button results in an alert that says: 'The temperature in Brisbane is 26.9°C'.", caption="Ferris Weather, a weather app built with Rust (and some C)") }}
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### DeRez Redux
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In [the last post](@/posts/2023/derez/index.md) I got Nim code running on Mac
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OS and toyed with DeRez. [The author of `mpu-emu` replied on Mastodon][Ninji]
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letting me know that DeRez _should_ run via `mpw-emu` on Linux as the
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filesystem layer transparently handles [MacBinary] files.
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I spent some time in the debugger and worked out that `mpw-emu` supported
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MacBinary III but [Retro68] produced MacBinary II files. I contributed code
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to `mpw-emu` to add MacBinary II support and enabled some latent support for
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UNIX paths. After that DeRez did work (almost):
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```
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$ mpw-emu ~/Documents/Classic\ Mac/Shared\ 2/DeRez.bin Root:home:wmoore:Projects:classic-mac-rust:cmake-build-retro68ppc:Dialog.bin
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[2023-03-31T04:51:34Z ERROR emulator] Unimplemented call to InterfaceLib::SetFScaleDisable @10012C6C
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[2023-03-31T04:51:34Z ERROR stdio] Unimplemented format character: P
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[2023-03-31T04:51:34Z ERROR emulator] Unimplemented call to InterfaceLib::SecondsToDate @1000B2A4
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data 'DITL' (128) {
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$"0007 0000 0000 00A0 00E6 00B4 0136 0404" /* .......†.Ê.¥.6.. */
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$"5175 6974 0000 0000 009B 00E1 00B9 013B" /* Quit.....õ.·.π.; */
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$"0000 0000 0000 0046 000A 005A 0136 0818" /* .......F...Z.6.. */
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$"436F 6E76 6572 7369 6F6E 2070 6F77 6572" /* Conversion power */
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$"6564 2062 7920 5E30 0000 0000 001E 000A" /* ed by ^0........ */
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$"003E 002A A002 0080 0000 0000 0014 0032" /* .>.*†..Ä.......2 */
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$"0024 007D 8807 4365 6C73 6975 7300 0000" /* .$.}à.Celsius... */
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$"0000 0014 00AA 0024 00F5 8809 4661 7265" /* .....™.$.ıà∆Fare */
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$"6E68 6569 7400 0000 0000 0029 0036 0039" /* nheit......).6.9 */
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$"0081 1002 3235 0000 0000 002B 00AE 003B" /* .Å..25.....+.Æ.; */
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$"00F9 1002 3737" /* .˘..77 */
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};
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/* etc */
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```
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Success! DeRez running on Linux… only thing is that when you point at the type
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definitions to get structured output instead of hex dumps it hits an
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unimplemented function in `mpw-emu`. It's on my to-do list to fix that:
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```
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$ mpw-emu ~/Documents/Classic\ Mac/Shared\ 2/DeRez.bin Root:home:wmoore:Projects:classic-mac-rust:cmake-build-retro68ppc:Dialog.bin Root:home:wmoore:Source:github.com:autc04:Retro68:InterfacesAndLibraries:Interfaces\&Libraries:Interfaces:RIncludes:Carbon.r
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[2023-03-31T04:53:07Z ERROR emulator] Unimplemented call to InterfaceLib::SetFScaleDisable @10012C6C
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[2023-03-31T04:53:07Z ERROR stdio] Unimplemented format character: P
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[2023-03-31T04:53:07Z ERROR emulator] Unimplemented call to InterfaceLib::SecondsToDate @1000B2A4
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[2023-03-31T04:53:07Z ERROR emulator] Unimplemented call to StdCLib::fseek @10006A8C
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File "Root:home:wmoore:Source:github.com:autc04:Retro68:InterfacesAndLibraries:Interfaces&Libraries:Interfaces:RIncludes:CoreServices.r"; Line 0; ### /home/wmoore/Documents/Classic Mac/Shared 2/DeRez.bin - Can't FSeek on file Root:home:wmoore:Source:github.com:autc04:Retro68:InterfacesAndLibraries:Interfaces&Libraries:Interfaces:RIncludes:CoreServices.r.
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File "Root:home:wmoore:Source:github.com:autc04:Retro68:InterfacesAndLibraries:Interfaces&Libraries:Interfaces:RIncludes:CoreServices.r"; Line 0; ### /home/wmoore/Documents/Classic Mac/Shared 2/DeRez.bin - Fatal Error, can't recover.
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```
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### MacBinary
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Poking at the MacBinary code in `mpw-emu` got me wondering if there was already
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a MacBinary crate that could be used. Turns out there wasn't so I somehow
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nerd-sniped myself into [building one][macbinary-crate].
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The first challenge was finding a decent specification for the three versions
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of MacBinary. I was eventually I was able to dig up the following:
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- [MacBinary I]
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- [MacBinary II]
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- [MacBinary III]
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I then set about building the parser. I reused the binary parser code from
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[Allsorts] since I was already familiar with that code. I hit another roadblock
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when it came to the CRC in the header. Nothing describes the actual CRC
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algorithm used. I tried the CRC reversing tool [CRC RevEng][RevEng] without
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success. A lot of existing code seemed to use an implementation that originated
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in a late 80's UNIX utility, [mcvert], that has unclear licensing. I wanted to
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use the Rust [crc crate] instead.
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I eventually stumbled on the blog post,
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[Detecting MacBinary format](https://entropymine.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/detecting-macbinary-format/),
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which included the line:
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> Note that the spec does not even tell you what CRC algorithm to use — you
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> have to be a detective to figure it out. (It’s the one sometimes called
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> CRC16-CCITT.)
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That was the tip I needed and with a little trial an error I eventually worked
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out that it was [CRC-16/XMODEM] also known as `CRC-16/CCITT-FALSE`. In
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hindsight I could probably have worked this out from the discussion of XMODEM
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in the [MacBinary I spec][MacBinary I].
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With that sorted I was able to wrap up the parser and do some testing. I could
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now read the resource and data forks and figured it would be interesting to be
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able to parse the resource data too, so I added a resource fork parser as well.
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I wrote the parsers in a way that does not require heap allocation—only
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borrowing from the underlying data. Due to this it was straightforward to make
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the crate compatible with `no_std`, which allows it to be used in embedded
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environments and WebAssembly.
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As something of a test-bed I created some
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WebAssembly bindings and built a page that allows you inspect MacBinary
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files online, with all parsing done client-side via the crate. You can
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try it out at: <https://7bit.org/macbinary/>
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### Rust on Mac OS
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Now that I was well and truly in the classic Mac space again I took another
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stab at compiling Rust for PPC Mac OS
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([see this post for my previous attempt](@/posts/2023/rust-on-ppc-classic-mac-os/index.md)).
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It seemed that using the
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`powerpc-ibm-aix` LLVM target was most likely to produce a compatible library
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(Apple used AIX conventions for PPC Mac OS). Problem was that it was hitting
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unimplemented code in LLVM:
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> LLVM ERROR: relocation for paired relocatable term is not yet supported
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I set about trying to work out how this code path was being hit and ran `rustc`
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in a debugger. Unsurprisingly there were no debug symbols so I built `rustc`
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and LLVM from source. This was my `config.toml` for the Rust repo:
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```toml
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[llvm]
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release-debuginfo = true
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download-ci-llvm = false
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link-jobs = 4
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```
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After repeatedly running out of disk space and memory compiling LLVM (the
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binaries with debug info are huge) I eventually had new Rust compiler.
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Some of the LLVM binaries:
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```
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.rwxr-xr-x 2.0G wmoore 26 Mar 20:05 llc
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.rwxr-xr-x 2.1G wmoore 26 Mar 20:10 llvm-opt-fuzzer
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.rwxr-xr-x 2.1G wmoore 26 Mar 20:04 bugpoint
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.rwxr-xr-x 2.2G wmoore 26 Mar 20:09 llvm-lto2
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.rwxr-xr-x 2.2G wmoore 26 Mar 20:06 llvm-lto
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.rwxr-xr-x 2.2G wmoore 26 Mar 20:11 opt
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.rwxr-xr-x 2.3G wmoore 26 Mar 20:11 llvm-reduce
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```
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I linked the new compiler into `rustup` and then repeated my previous steps in
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the debugger… except this time the code compiled and did not hit the
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unimplemented LLVM code. This was my first lucky break. I'm not sure what
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changed but it was now happily compiling the code. I switched to a recent
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nightly compiler and that worked too! No need to build from source.
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I repeated the step described in my original post of using
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`powerpc-linux-gnu-objcopy` to convert the static library archive (`.a`) to a
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format that Retro68 would accept. After some fighting with `binutils` I was
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finally able to get it to link!
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<iframe src="https://mastodon.decentralised.social/@wezm/110098546361010915/embed" class="mastodon-embed" style="max-width: 100%; border: 0" width="400" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><script src="https://mastodon.decentralised.social/embed.js" async="async"></script>
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I rebuilt the temperature converter that I'd built in Nim in Rust ([source code][rust-temp]) and ran into
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more linker/`binutils` issues. After a _lot_ of trial-and-error and some more
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luck I was able to solve that by using the updated `binutils` on the
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`gcc12-update branch` branch of Retro68. I now had a working temperature
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converter:
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{{ video(video="posts/2023/rust-classic-mac-os-app/classic-mac-rust-2023-03-28_20.00.31.mp4", height=480, poster="png", preload="auto", alt="Video of the temperature converter converting values to and from Celsius, running on Mac OS 8.1 (in emulator).", caption="The temperature converter application ported to Rust") }}
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It worked on Mac OS 7.5 too:
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{{ figure(image="posts/2023/rust-classic-mac-os-app/rust-on-mac-os-7.png", link="posts/2023/rust-classic-mac-os-app/rust-on-mac-os-7.png", pixelated=true, border=1, alt="Screenshot of the temperature converter application running on Mac OS 7.5 (in emulator).", caption="Temperature converter application running on Mac OS 7.5") }}
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The Rust version is a bit more efficient than the [Nim version][nim-version] as
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it avoids some copying and heap allocation. That latter of which because I'm
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coding in a `no_std` environment without a heap.
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The Rust standard library is divided into three main parts (crates):
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1. `core` for things that do not require heap allocation, I/O, etc.
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2. `alloc` for things that use heap allocation but not I/O etc.
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3. `std`, the rest: files, networking, threads, etc. `std` re-exports the
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other two.
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By defining a custom allocator that called `malloc` and `free` provided by the
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Retro68 environment I was able to use the `alloc` crate in addition to `core`.
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This gained me access `String`, `Vec`, and friends.
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#### Networking
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I now wanted to build something a little more involved than a single dialog. I
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set about building bindings to Open Transport, Apple's network stack introduced
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with PCI Power Macs (like my 9500).
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Due to its heritage most of the Mac OS toolbox functions use the Pascal calling
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convention, [which LLVM does not support][llvm-pascal]. To bridge the C (and
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Rust) world to this Pascal world I had to create [trampoline functions] in C
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for each toolbox function that I wanted to call from Rust (if there's a better
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way to do this I'd love to know how). This works because `gcc` in Retro68
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understands both C and Pascal calling conventions. I appended an underscore to
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each of the wrapper functions. For example:
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```c
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OSStatus OTConnect_(EndpointRef ref, TCall *sndCall, TCall *rcvCall) {
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return OTConnect(ref, sndCall, rcvCall);
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}
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```
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I used the "Downloading a URL With HTTP" example from the [Networking With Open Transport]
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book as a guide for the functions I needed. Once the bindings were created I
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implemented the `TcpClientStack` trait from the [embedded-nal] \(embedded network abstraction layer)
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crate against Open Transport. Next I used this with the [http_io] crate to be able
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to make HTTP requests.
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As an initial test I wrote an app to fetch a friend's website (since it's
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available over plain HTTP) and show an alert with the number of bytes read.
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Amazingly this worked on the first try: the Open Transport bindings, the
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`TcpClientStack` implementation, the HTTP client, and my test code all worked!
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Finally I used my newfound networking abilities to build [Ferris
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Weather][ferris-weather], the application shown at the start of the post. This
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uses the HTTP client to fetch a JSON file containing weather observations,
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parses it with [serde] and then shows an alert with the most recent
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observation. I also drew a little 1-bit [Ferris the Rustacean][Ferris] in
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[ResEdit] for it.
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The idea for this was prompted by the [Australian Bureau of Meteorology][bom]
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still being accessible over HTTP. Unfortunately it wasn't working and after a
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lot of debugging I eventually discovered that I triggering their anti-scraping
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blocker for some reason. To work around this I copied a snapshot of the JSON to
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my own server. So, unfortunately the data shown by the application does not
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update but you still get the idea.
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{{ figure(image="posts/2023/rust-classic-mac-os-app/Ferris%20Weather.png", link="posts/2023/rust-classic-mac-os-app/Ferris%20Weather.png", pixelated=true, border=1, alt="Screenshot of the Ferris Weather application showing an alert with the temperature in Brisbane.", caption="Ferris Weather") }}
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So there you have it, that's how I built an application in Rust (and some C)
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for classic Mac OS. The [source code to Ferris Weather][ferris-weather] is on
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GitHub.
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### Next
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My intention is to take a bit of a break from classic Mac OS for a bit and work
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on some other projects—ones that might be useful to people in this century—but
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there are some things I want to look at when I come back to it:
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First is TLS support for the HTTP client. I think this should be relatively
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straightforward with the [embedded-tls] crate.
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Next I'd like to improve how Open Transport is used. I think with either
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the synchronous, non-blocking mode I'm using now or the asynchronous mode it
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should be possible to tie it into the async Rust ecosystem, which would allow
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it to play nicer with the event loop and cooperative multi-tasking.
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Finally, so far I've been working without the full Rust standard library, only
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`core` and `alloc`. It seems like it should be possible to implement a lot of
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the remaining standard library (io, networking), on top of the Mac OS toolbox,
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but that's a lot of work and will have to wait for another time.
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### Hire Me
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As mentioned at the start of this post I'm currently taking a break from
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employment but I will be looking for a new role next month, so if you're looking
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for a Rust developer get in touch.
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[#MARCHintosh]: https://www.marchintosh.com/
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[Ninji]: https://vulpine.club/@Ninji/110053455721324087
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[mcvert]: https://web.mit.edu/~mkgray/jik/sipbsrc/src/mcvert/mcvert.c
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[Networking With Open Transport]: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/mac/NetworkingOT/NetworkingOpenTransport.pdf
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[ferris-weather]: https://github.com/wezm/ferris-weather
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[Retro68]: https://github.com/autc04/Retro68
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[MacBinary]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBinary
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[macbinary-crate]: https://lib.rs/crates/macbinary
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[Allsorts]: https://github.com/yeslogic/allsorts
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[RevEng]: https://reveng.sourceforge.io/
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[crc crate]: https://lib.rs/crates/crc
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[CRC-16/XMODEM]: https://reveng.sourceforge.io/crc-catalogue/16.htm#crc.cat.crc-16-ibm-3740
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[MacBinary I]: https://web.archive.org/web/20050307030202/http://www.lazerware.com/formats/macbinary/macbinary.html
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[MacBinary II]: https://web.archive.org/web/20050305042909/http://www.lazerware.com/formats/macbinary/macbinary_ii.html
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[MacBinary III]: https://web.archive.org/web/20050305044255/http://www.lazerware.com/formats/macbinary/macbinary_iii.html
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[llvm-pascal]: https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/blob/bd20a344bbf813b2c39b57ad1a5248bff915ce25/clang/lib/CodeGen/CGCall.cpp#L60
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[trampoline functions]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trampoline_(computing)
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[embedded-nal]: https://docs.rs/embedded-nal/latest/embedded_nal/
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[http_io]: https://lib.rs/crates/http_io
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[serde]: https://serde.rs/
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[bom]: http://www.bom.gov.au/
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[Ferris]: https://rustacean.net/
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[ResEdit]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ResEdit
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[embedded-tls]: https://lib.rs/crates/embedded-tls
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[rust-temp]: https://github.com/wezm/classic-mac-rust
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[nim-version]: https://github.com/wezm/classic-mac-nim
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