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  • Re: What source language for the various Mac OSs

    From Frederick Cheung@fglc2@srcf.DUH.ucam.org to comp.sys.mac.system on Thursday, July 03, 2003 17:10:29
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

    On Thu, 3 Jul 2003, P K wrote:

    I was wondering what language OSX was written in and decided to broaden
    the question to find out what languages all the past versions used.
    I know the first few were written in Pascal, but after that ... ?
    Thanks
    --Pakob

    OS X is mainly C and Objective C I think
    OS 7 -> 9 are written in C.
    earlier versions were written in pascal

    Fred.

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  • From tacitr@tacitr@aol.com (Tacit) to comp.sys.mac.system on Thursday, July 03, 2003 16:21:08
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

    I know the first few were written in Pascal, but after that ... ?

    OS versions from 1.0 through 6.0.8 were written in a combination of 68000 assembly and MPW Pascal, an Apple variant on ascal.

    Starting with OS 7, large parts of the operating system were rewritten in MPW C. Much of the interior of the OS remained in 68K assembly, however.

    OS X is written largely in a different variety of C, called Objective-C.

    --
    Rude T-shirts for a rude age: http://www.villaintees.com
    Art, literature, shareware, polyamory, kink, and more: http://www.xeromag.com/franklin.html

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  • From Tom Dowdy@dowdy@apple.com to comp.sys.mac.system on Thursday, July 03, 2003 09:24:33
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

    In article <pakob-329C6F.11561703072003@central.isp.giganews.com>,
    P K <pakob@yahoo.com> wrote:

    I was wondering what language OSX was written in and decided to broaden
    the question to find out what languages all the past versions used.
    I know the first few were written in Pascal, but after that ... ?

    Actually, a large percentage of the "first few" were written directly in
    68k Assembly, with remainders in Pascal.

    Pre OS X versions of the Macintosh Operating System contained
    combinations of (in rough order of appearance):
    - 68k assembly
    - Pascal
    - Object Pascal
    - C
    - C++
    - PowerPC assembly
    - Forth (used in Open Firmware)

    The largest amount of the OS in the System 7 and onward era was in C and
    C++.
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  • From Tom Harrington@tph@pcisys.no.spam.dammit.net to comp.sys.mac.system on Thursday, July 03, 2003 11:03:19
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

    In article <20030703122108.13565.00000068@mb-m01.aol.com>,
    tacitr@aol.com (Tacit) wrote:

    OS X is written largely in a different variety of C, called Objective-C.

    I don't have any inside information or anything, but I'd be really
    seriously surprised if the OS itself is written in Objective C. Cocoa's great, and I love it, but I wouldn't write an OS in it. Many of Apple's
    own applications are not Objective C-- iTunes, for example, goes nowhere
    near Cocoa.

    The BSD layer of Mac OS X is almost entirely C (just download the Darwin source and see for yourself). I don't know what Mach is written in, but
    it's likely to be C as well, probably with some assembly. Quartz et.
    al. are likely the same way, though some is probably C++.

    --
    Tom "Tom" Harrington
    Macaroni, Automated System Maintenance for Mac OS X.
    Version 1.4: Best cleanup yet, gets files other tools miss.
    See http://www.atomicbird.com/
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  • From Barry Twycross@barry@netbox.com to comp.sys.mac.system on Saturday, July 05, 2003 02:29:07
    From Newsgroup: comp.sys.mac.system

    In article <Pine.LNX.4.44.0307031708500.14246-100000@kern.srcf.societies.cam.ac.uk>,
    Frederick Cheung <fglc2@srcf.DUH.ucam.org> wrote:

    OS X is mainly C and Objective C I think

    The IO system in OS X, know as ioKit is written in Embedded C++, which
    is C++ with a couple of features taken out (multiple inheritance,
    exceptions). Cocoa programs probably need to be written in Objectve C.
    I've written all my Carbon aps in plain C.

    --
    Barry
    Barry@netbox.com <http://www.netbox.com/barry>
    ------
    (I should put something down here).
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