Running 'things' on non-mainstream operating systems and/or hardware.

[tperry2x]

I'm sure I'm only being overly cautious, but what if...
What if I do use this OS to test / create something for older PPC macs, and Shuriken did contain something nasty. I'd not be able to live with myself if I passed something on.

Because I'm a compulsive hoarder when it comes to preservation of software, I just pulled the updates to 10.4 off my backup server. This should allow me to take it to 10.4.11 so that it can be run under intel virtualisation too.
(the last official version that Apple produced, and interestingly was perfectly able to run the classic environment too)

updates.png (481.2 KiB) Viewed 3489 times

This proves how old-skool I am - I prefer the look of this over any recent MacOS, and even though I'm emulating it from PPC on intel right now, it's super responsive, but again - probably just me

[richmond62]

I do like the Dark Mode that came in with Catalina in a big way, but apart from that I generally agree with you.

You will find that a large number of people are using MacOS 10.4.12 Shuriken and there have been NO complaints whatsoever.

Previously I was running Sorbet Leopard:

https://macintoshgarden.org/forum/intro ... nvigorated

But installing the thing was a long-winded fag, and as it is based on MacOS 10.5 one cannot run the 'Classic' emulator with it.

"Sorbet Leopard can be thought of not only as something of an entirely new Mac OS X distribution, but also as an effective version 10.5 and 10.6 hybrid."

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/a- ... 2.2344789/
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Siberian Tiger Banner.png (453.94 KiB) Viewed 3478 times

[tperry2x]

Well, it runs what I wanted to try - my zig code. (Compiled on my linux computer) and illustrates how you can easily make a PPC mac version if all you have is an intel linux computer to hand.
(see the end of this post if anyone is bothered)
https://www.openxtalk.org/forum/viewtop ... 5544#p5544

(Although I'll be trying what you sent on it too)
That's a separate topic, because I'd like to see if the video works for me on there. If so, I'll probably also look to test a Linux version of that file you sent, then do a 'compare and contrast' exercise on the player. Although I increasingly have a nasty feeling this is embedded in the engine.

[overclockedmind]

First off, two separate thought streams, one above, and in the update. I'll be on one of the OXT variants going forward. I jumped from where explained below, to LiveCode. I've honestly a lot to learn; I've gotten to "Prime Number Finder" so far.

OK, so I'm thinking either Mac OS 9, or DP2's appearance (Aqua-9 if you follow me) and get it modern browser support, firewall, that kind of thing. You can see how 9 would be a stretch when in DP2, some of those things "just exist." But I was thinking that perhaps the Web... stuff on something 9-able might be possible if our Web rendering engine was updated.

I know it's off the wall and whatnot, but so is this entire thread.

richmond, can you PM me with ways (if the site's gone, then it's abandonware in my book) that I might explore in that area?

Update:
Someone should probably tell me if I wanting to be playing what I knew properly at the time: MetaCard, SuperCard, runRev, or all the above. Ultimately in HS, I learned HyperCard, then either Metacard or SuperCard... 1998. I was building the tech demo, using KPT Bryce's renders, for some sort of game that probably wouldn't have been a Myst, or a Final Fantasy VII, but I loved both, with the 3d-but-out-of-bounds environment rules. I don't know which one it was, but I believe it was what got eaten, and became runRev.)
EDIT 2: On an 8100/80AV, the Fastest Mac in the House. Individual teachers had LC 475s.)
EDIT 3: I'm writing drafts until these things look right, for $DEITY's sake.

[tperry2x]

Experiments in Runrev 2:
Installs and launches - free version?

free.png (222.27 KiB) Viewed 3436 times

Very much like hyperstudio:

tips-like-hyperstudio.png (28.66 KiB) Viewed 3436 times

Video works:

yes-but.png (416.93 KiB) Viewed 3436 times

So next thing is to try this in linux, and see if it plays video. If it does, will have to compare with LCC 9.6.3 / OXT Lite's video offerings and play "spot the difference".

[overclockedmind]

Experiments in Runrev 2:
Installs and launches - free version?
free.png

Very much like hyperstudio:
tips-like-hyperstudio.png

Video works:
yes-but.png

So next thing is to try this in linux, and see if it plays video. If it does, will have to compare with LCC 9.6.3 / OXT Lite's video offerings and play "spot the difference".

From whence have you summoned this thing of beauty? (RunRev and freeness?) PM me plz.
EDIT1: (Darn it) Will the Intel incarnation run Classic, and emulate PowerPC? Or can I not take emulation out? [Do I gotta stay in QEMU or can I bust out out VirtualBox?] Oddly, the first Intel machines I saw as an ACMT were 10.5, and later 10.5.1, because apparently some condition existed that the point upgrade fixed.

[overclockedmind]

I just realized something from my ACMT days... and something you guys mentioned... there WAS an Intel version of 9.

In order to run diagnostics on an Intel Mac, you had to press Command-D. Which dropped it into something sure the heck looking like... freaking Classic.

The gold-standardized Intel Classic lives on those restore CDs. And I'll bet it was that way a LONG while.

[richmond62]

Nope: that's just going to be a waste of time: RunRev for Linux could NOT play video: mainly as RunRev was dependent on Quicktime for that.

[richmond62]

In order to run diagnostics on an Intel Mac, you had to press Command-D.

10.1? 10.2? . . . 10.7?

When booting up?

Can you be a bit more specific?

https://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=79
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51910-102966-mac-plus-pane-xl.jpg (50.21 KiB) Viewed 3430 times

[overclockedmind]

In order to run diagnostics on an Intel Mac, you had to press Command-D.

10.1? 10.2? . . . 10.7?

When booting up?

Can you be a bit more specific?

https://kb.wisc.edu/helpdesk/page.php?id=79
-
51910-102966-mac-plus-pane-xl.jpg

Starting with 10.5, the sequence to initiate diagnostics, WITH THE COMPUTER'S REPLACEMENT RECOVERY MEDIA FIRST DISK, was either to press Command-D or just "d" as I do wonder which it was. It wouldn't have been documented anywhere except study materials for the exam.

I always advocated all users keep that media (the recovery disks) and told them why... no diagnostics without it. Not for them to run around, running diagnostics... so the technicians still could run them at a later date.

And I mean the Platinum look, not ... whichever the pic is?

[overclockedmind]

Nope: that's just going to be a waste of time: RunRev for Linux could NOT play video: mainly as RunRev was dependent on Quicktime for that.

Can we in any way get it to depend on, perhaps, the VLC libraries? Total shot in the dark.

[tperry2x]

Nope: that's just going to be a waste of time: RunRev for Linux could NOT play video: mainly as RunRev was dependent on Quicktime for that.

Well, that's a real pity. I'd really hoped that might've yielded something useful.
Back to turning off the player function in that case, and finding some other alternative way to play audio for Linux in this IDE too.

[richmond62]

Can we in any way get it to depend on, perhaps, the VLC libraries?

[redacted] re; sorting out video for LC Linux for at least 20 years (started asking them questions in 2003!) . . .

My personal feeling is that being dependent on anything external to the acutal IDE is going to cause problems sooner or later (after all an end-user who get a shopping list telling him/her/it a vast number of 'other stuff' they have to install on their rig just to watch a 30 second movie of someone changing their trousers is NOT going to be a happy camper).

Also . . .

If the "totally cross-platform" mantra is to keep humming (and it never was totally true), a programmer should, as the [redacted] keep banging on about "program once, spread everywhere" (a bit like peanut butter, really - sticks between you teeth); so whatever is going to play video on Windows has to play it on Linux has to play it on Mac, and has to play it on any other platforms any OXT developer is aiming at.

In several instructional standalones I have authored for my school and so on, I have used animations so that I am 100% sure they will work 'Whereever': of course this is alright ONLY if it involves simple stuff such as a cartoon of some kid picking potatoes, but NOT for a movie-qua-movie.

[richmond62]

to play audio for Linux in this IDE too

In 2005 I ran up some cute little numbers for my nascent ELF school that played Audio on Ubuntu 5.10 and found that I had to slow the sound files down to half their normal speed to play properly in the standalones on Ubuntu 5.10 . . . come 6.04 of WTF it was called ("Sodomistic Salamander" perhaps?) and sound just stopped working . . . that's why I transferred to Xubuntu . . . not that that worked re sound files, but it was one hell of a lot less clunky on Pentium III computers.

Now, in my school, where all the "front-facing" computers run on Xubuntu, and all the software for "Content Delivery and Reinforcement" (you couldn't invent such crappy titles for that if you tried), err, Programs, deployed on them has been authored using LiveCode there is no sound whatsoever; which, in the context of noisy classrooms is not completely bad, but, of course, the option would be a good thing.

[tperry2x]

Exactly, I mean - I'm of the mindset that if it's there, then it should work.

Yeah - in an ideal world and all that.
Otherwise, what's the point of including it?

Pointless to say that "Runrev / Livecode / OXT / Whatever" has a comparable feature set on all platforms as it plainly doesn't.

Re the video, we could bundle a vlc library into the IDE (a dll on Windows, a .so file on Linux, and a .bundle(?) on MacOS) could we not? If this gets automatically packaged up and included when building a standalone, then we have a reliable way of running video across all platforms and with the added bonus that the syntax for scripting is the same.

Just need either VLC to write us a plugin (free advertising / name dropping for them), so would need to go on bended-knee to them I guess.

[richmond62]

Just need either VLC to write us a plugin

https://forum.videolan.org/

I wonder if they don't have something already?

[richmond62]

Pointless to say that there's a comparable feature set on all platforms as it plainly isn't.

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SShot 2024-01-08 at 12.47.27.png (23.36 KiB) Viewed 3408 times

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[overclockedmind]

Tell them that we are leveraging their product in a way to benefit an OSS project such as theirs, and that we'll add them to the About or Help window? "Video playback or whatever was kindly provided via VLC @ https://www.videolan.org/ ?

That's my last post, lmao. Bedtime for sure.

[tperry2x]

Tell them that we are leveraging their product in a way to benefit an OSS project such as theirs, and that we'll add them to the About or Help window? "Video playback or whatever was kindly provided via VLC @ https://www.videolan.org/ ?

This is exactly what I mean - we could have a footnote in the inspector when the VLC Player tool was chosen, or a VLC player object selected - that could contain any credit or attribution (or whatever) as a link that shows up. Something like ("Why not add VLC as the default video player to your system? Click here for more info")

I found one mention of someone asking about Midi support in RunRev on that forum. No mention of Livecode plugins or anything. The OP asked:

is anyone working with MIDI in VideoLan?

The response was:

No.

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.ph ... nrev#p3687

However, that was a long time ago, and things have changed a lot since. I wonder if they'd be receptive to the idea.

[tperry2x]

After a bit of trial-and-error (locking up OXT lite, and/or VLC - or both), I've got this kind of working:

Screenshot at 2024-01-08 11-43-46.png (19.12 KiB) Viewed 3403 times

It plays audio and video on linux if you already have VLC installed (most distros come with it now anyway don't they?)

vlc-test.oxtstack

(3.26 KiB) Downloaded 531 times

I could probably make this have a nice tool icon or whatever & inspector-palette aware so that it can be easily configured. I know TerryL had mentioned using VLC previously too, but I didn't know about the cvlc command then.
(command-line-vlc, which comes as part of VLC.)

The command for just playing an audio file is a bit awkward:

Code: Select all

put "cvlc --no-video --no-loop --no-repeat --play-and-exit --ignore-config" & " '" & cd fld "sndpath" & "'" into termCommand
set the hideConsoleWindows to true
get shell(termCommand)

But, at least it works. I could probably do all sorts of interesting things here, like changing the pitch, speed etc - just by changing the commands in the 1-line shell script, as cvlc / vlc supports this.

A bit more awkward for video, and still needs refining. Like how I get the video to display without VLCs window border at a x/y loc I specify:

Code: Select all

put the left of this wd into tLeft
put the top of this wd into tTop
put "cvlc --video-x=" & tLeft & "--video-y=" & tTop & " --no-video-deco --no-embedded-video --no-loop --no-repeat --play-and-exit --ignore-config" & " '" & cd fld "vidpath" & "'" into termCommand
set the hideConsoleWindows to true
get shell(termCommand)

Then, little things annoy me, like setting the sound volume via this command for the 'audio' or 'video' I attach a file dump of vlc's help (manpage), but gain is not the same as volume.

vlc-help.txt.zip

(63.77 KiB) Downloaded 533 times