4 ms·

It's been a couple of years since my last deep-dive on Amiga development inside MacOS. I never did find smooth dev workflow: compile inside the emulated enviro

It's been a couple of years since my last deep-dive on Amiga development inside MacOS. I never did find smooth dev workflow: compile inside the emulated environment, or cross-compile from macos? Edit inside the emulated environment, or edit inside VS Studio? etc. Has anyone found a slick and effective dev flow?

actionfromafar 2y ago
If you want to have modern C++ (for instance), you basically have to cross-compile. If only using C or older g++, I'd compile inside the Amiga, I think. https://github.com/Slamy/m68k-elf-gcc https://github.com/Slamy/m68k-elf-gcc - can generate bootable floppies! https://github.com/bebbo/amiga-gcc https://github.com/bebbo/amiga-gcc - modern (gcc-13.2) C and C++ for cross-compiling from Mac/Linux/Windows. It even supports the post-Motorola 68080 Natami VHDL CPU extensions.
- khazhoux 2y ago
  Thanks for the links! But what’s this “C++” you speak of, future-man?
  - actionfromafar 2y ago
    We must ask hackerman! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1uvr7CJazqE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1uvr7CJazqE
  - pavlov 2y ago
    First released in 1985! Amiga and C++ are actually contemporaries. As kids they used to hang out together watching Miami Vice on TV. Then she got married to a con man named Commodore, while he moved to Seattle and got a career in big business.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    There were C++ compilers available for the Amiga, even if at the time it was slowly taking off.
- anthk 2y ago
  On Amiga I'm amazed of AmiGemini+AmiSSL, a Gemini client for an OS from 1993 (a 68030 it's requiered and a 68040 encouraged, but hey...) whlle Windows XP still lacks a native client (and compiling LibreSSL on it with w32Devkit it's a breeze). And don't even start me talking about Windows 95/98...
  - snvzz 2y ago
    I do not care much about Gemini, but AmiGemini is also an excellent client for Gopher and other protocols. >a 68030 it's requiered and a 68040 encouraged Gopher is blazing fast on standard, 020 A1200. Probably fine on 68000 as well. These performance requirements come from SSL, which Gemini needs.
    - anthk 2y ago
      Gemini has gemini://gemi.dev/cgi-bin/waffle.cgi which does wonders on reading main news sites (and newspapers) without completely destroying the layout on an Amiga/simple Nix web browser, even for something like Dillo on Nix, which I tuned to avoid remote CSS files and set to send the PSP User Agent (Sony's console browser was respected from most CMS') , but even with that using News Waffle from Gemi it's far better. It cut downs the bandwith even more and the layout it's pretty much simplified and far better rendered.
    - anthk 2y ago
      >Gopher gopher it's fast even under a 8086. It's just a step over Netcat and echo. If you can push bytes over the network and later print them, you are done. But, as I said, from gopher I love gopher://magical.fish (portal to everything, Gopherddit, HNGopher, News, text games...) and most sites from the Bitreich Gopher Lawn. But Gemini has jewels, too.
_the_inflator 2y ago
Amiga is a broad term: what chipset etc.? What I really highly advise is this MS Studio Code Plugin: https://github.com/BartmanAbyss/vscode-amiga-debug https://github.com/BartmanAbyss/vscode-amiga-debug For me a revelation in ease of use. Hit compile and run - and it does in an emulator. You can use C or Assembler. The author is a well-known scene contributor since the 80th, and does a hell of a job with this nice IDE. Best tool and workflow for someone like me, who only casually writes some not so leetcode Amiga 500 ECS demos these days.
- icedchai 2y ago
  There's also a fork that lets you build apps that run on AmigaOS: https://github.com/jyoberle/vscode-amiga-debug https://github.com/jyoberle/vscode-amiga-debug Coincidentally, I first learned C on an Amiga 500, back in the late 80's!
  - moosedev 2y ago
    Thanks for sharing this! I've been using vscode-amiga-debug for a while but have often wished it had a stdlib, if only for quick prototyping & debugging side quests.
mark_round 2y ago
I wrote an article about the very subject : https://www.markround.com/blog/2023/08/30/amiga-systems-programming-in-2023/ https://www.markround.com/blog/2023/08/30/amiga-systems-prog... Which also featured on HN at the time, with some very insightful comments and discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37389376 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37389376 TL;DR is I cross-compile using VSCode & Docker from Mac/Win/Linux mainly, but if I want to develop in the Amiga environment (e.g. on native) I use VBCC on 68k.

actionfromafar 2y ago

If you want to have modern C++ (for instance), you basically have to cross-compile. If only using C or older g++, I'd compile inside the Amiga, I think. https://github.com/Slamy/m68k-elf-gcc https://github.com/Slamy/m68k-elf-gcc - can generate bootable floppies! https://github.com/bebbo/amiga-gcc https://github.com/bebbo/amiga-gcc - modern (gcc-13.2) C and C++ for cross-compiling from Mac/Linux/Windows. It even supports the post-Motorola 68080 Natami VHDL CPU extensions.

khazhoux 2y ago
Thanks for the links! But what’s this “C++” you speak of, future-man?
- actionfromafar 2y ago
  We must ask hackerman! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1uvr7CJazqE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1uvr7CJazqE
- pavlov 2y ago
  First released in 1985! Amiga and C++ are actually contemporaries. As kids they used to hang out together watching Miami Vice on TV. Then she got married to a con man named Commodore, while he moved to Seattle and got a career in big business.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  There were C++ compilers available for the Amiga, even if at the time it was slowly taking off.
anthk 2y ago
On Amiga I'm amazed of AmiGemini+AmiSSL, a Gemini client for an OS from 1993 (a 68030 it's requiered and a 68040 encouraged, but hey...) whlle Windows XP still lacks a native client (and compiling LibreSSL on it with w32Devkit it's a breeze). And don't even start me talking about Windows 95/98...
- snvzz 2y ago
  I do not care much about Gemini, but AmiGemini is also an excellent client for Gopher and other protocols. >a 68030 it's requiered and a 68040 encouraged Gopher is blazing fast on standard, 020 A1200. Probably fine on 68000 as well. These performance requirements come from SSL, which Gemini needs.
  - anthk 2y ago
    Gemini has gemini://gemi.dev/cgi-bin/waffle.cgi which does wonders on reading main news sites (and newspapers) without completely destroying the layout on an Amiga/simple Nix web browser, even for something like Dillo on Nix, which I tuned to avoid remote CSS files and set to send the PSP User Agent (Sony's console browser was respected from most CMS') , but even with that using News Waffle from Gemi it's far better. It cut downs the bandwith even more and the layout it's pretty much simplified and far better rendered.
  - anthk 2y ago
    >Gopher gopher it's fast even under a 8086. It's just a step over Netcat and echo. If you can push bytes over the network and later print them, you are done. But, as I said, from gopher I love gopher://magical.fish (portal to everything, Gopherddit, HNGopher, News, text games...) and most sites from the Bitreich Gopher Lawn. But Gemini has jewels, too.

_the_inflator 2y ago

Amiga is a broad term: what chipset etc.? What I really highly advise is this MS Studio Code Plugin: https://github.com/BartmanAbyss/vscode-amiga-debug https://github.com/BartmanAbyss/vscode-amiga-debug For me a revelation in ease of use. Hit compile and run - and it does in an emulator. You can use C or Assembler. The author is a well-known scene contributor since the 80th, and does a hell of a job with this nice IDE. Best tool and workflow for someone like me, who only casually writes some not so leetcode Amiga 500 ECS demos these days.

icedchai 2y ago
There's also a fork that lets you build apps that run on AmigaOS: https://github.com/jyoberle/vscode-amiga-debug https://github.com/jyoberle/vscode-amiga-debug Coincidentally, I first learned C on an Amiga 500, back in the late 80's!
- moosedev 2y ago
  Thanks for sharing this! I've been using vscode-amiga-debug for a while but have often wished it had a stdlib, if only for quick prototyping & debugging side quests.

mark_round 2y ago

I wrote an article about the very subject : https://www.markround.com/blog/2023/08/30/amiga-systems-programming-in-2023/ https://www.markround.com/blog/2023/08/30/amiga-systems-prog... Which also featured on HN at the time, with some very insightful comments and discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37389376 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37389376 TL;DR is I cross-compile using VSCode & Docker from Mac/Win/Linux mainly, but if I want to develop in the Amiga environment (e.g. on native) I use VBCC on 68k.