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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Some ideas from the Mac
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| RC_tech Newbie  Joined: 05/07/2020 Location: GermanyPosts: 14 |
I'm using a Mac. So If I'im inserting the card of the CMM2, macOS will always create some default files and folders on the card. It's rather annyoing to remove them manually. Would it be possible to create an optional 'Mac/Unix Mode' which does not show files and folders beginning with a dot (.DS_Store)? How are invisible files handled on the CMM2? A more interesting feature would be the 'bundle' method. Nearly everything on the Mac is a directory. An application is a directory with the suffix '.app'. A driver is a directory with the suffix .kext (Kernel EXTension). Inside is always the same directory structure: A XML file info.plist contains various details about the bundle. Inside the folder MacOS is the binary. Inside the folder Resources are various files, f.e. graphical images for icons, help files, language files and so on. It would be good to use this on the CMM2. Actually larger programs are stored in directories, with different other files and subdirectories, like in Windows. You have to locate the executable program manually. Kinda annoying, if more than one .bas file is existing. This could be made much easier by using the bundle method. During development, the normal folder structure will be used. When a project is finished, the main folder will get the suffix '.prg'. This folder can then be started directly from the file manager. Possible standardized files and directories: - file info.bas for various informations of the bundle, f.e. the main executeable program, Author, Date, Version, Revision, Firmware which is was programmed, Firmware which is neccessary and so on. - standard directory names: gfx, vid, font, mus, snd, lang, save, data, misc. Files with a known extension (bmp png gif jpg mp3 flac mod wav) will automatically searched in one of these folders. Files with no or unknown extension will be searched in misc, if no other path is given. Save is for savegames (.sav). A language standard should be defined (.lng). Other executable BASIC programs are all stored in the main directory of this bundle. The 'bundle' method seems unknown to the most users. Even most Mac users don't know it. But it is very useful. For example, on Windows or Linux DOSBox Frontends open a large list of games. For the Mac exists the Frontend 'Boxer'. It registeres the bundle suffix '.boxer'. So, you have just to throw all your MS-DOS files in a folder and add the suffix '.boxer'. Now you can start the MS-DOS program like a normal Mac program with a double-click. It's even possible to start multiple instances. At first start, all .com .exe .bat files are listed, and you are also asked if the file should be started by default. Normally, you have to start a 'setup.exe' to configurate sound settings for a game first, so the default program will be selected later. You can get this selection every time by holding the 'option' key during program start. The bundle method is really good, it should be integrated on the CMM2. It also makes sense to define default directory names. Standardization is always good, and it should be done early. Greets, RC. Edited 2020-07-05 20:06 by RC_tech |
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| matherp Guru  Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8579 |
I'm sorry but rubbish disposal services are available in most countries. |
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panky Guru Joined: 02/10/2012 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1094 |
... tut, tut Peter  Seriously RC_Tech, MMBASIC is what it is, a BASIC language interpreter written to run on single chip microcontrollers. It is NOT an OS! If you want some exotic file/directory structure on the SD card, there is nothing to stop you - you could write your own high level disk management system but it is certainly way out of the bounds of the BASIC interpreter to manage or cater for unique directory structures. panky ... almost all of the Maximites, the MicromMites, the MM Extremes, the ArmMites, the PicoMite and loving it! |
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| robert.rozee Guru Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 2288 |
i've always found that intel-based MACs can be turned into excellent Windows PCs and Linux machines  alas, apple have other ideas, and i hear are moving towards using their own processors (non-intel) in the not-too-distant future  cheers, rob :-) |
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| RC_tech Newbie Joined: 05/07/2020 Location: GermanyPosts: 14 |
@matherp and «robert.rozee: This is an absolutely jack-ass behaviour and I hope there some moderator who is telling you how to talk to other members! It's a true agressive fanboy behavior from the book. I thought that was an Apple and Tesla owner thing, but there's more. I'm born in 1976 and made lots of stuff. I know all these kinds of wars, like the video format war (VHS, Betamax, Video 2000). We had Video 2000, which was the best analog video system at this time. I know the C64/Spectrum and Amiga/Atari ST wars. In the PC scene they are always bugging around Intel/AMD or ATI/nVidia. The Linux guys are arguring which of the thousand distributions are the best. And smartphone users are hacking about iOS and Android. Gamers are always preferring their game console. I HATE THIS KIND OF CHILDISH BEHAVIOUR! If I've started with a Mac and wouldn't know something else then it could be that I don't know anything else. But I do. I started with a C64, some years later I got an Amiga 500. Several years later I bought a new Amiga 4000T, CyberGraphX 64/3D and Cyberstorm MKII/060 later. I got my first PC with Windows 98 probably 1999, but I still used the Amigas and for work and desktop publishing GEOS 64, with the accelerator board Flash8 boosted to 800% speed, with 3 MB RAM and CMD hard drive. Directly in front of me is an Amiga 1200 with Blizzard 1260, SCSI module, 130 Megs of RAM, IDEfix Express and two CF cards. In my 30 years of computer experience, I worked with about 30 operating systems, if you're counting the subversions. There was no Linux. And I know a lot more OS's. Do you know what 'Red Star OS 3.0' is, without checking the internet first? In January 2006 the first Intel Macs came out. In March I joined the OSx86 community. In May I had my first OSx86 machine running, with an AMD Athlon 64 Socket 754 and a Radeon X1600 AGP. No drivers for SATA, graphics, LAN. 60 Hz on an 21" IBM CRT. But it was awesome. I'm still using only OSx86 and mostly OS X 10.9.5 Mavericks. The other versions are much slower. And I'm modifiying OS X where I can, because a lot of stuff after 10.6 is crap. The interesting part: The OSx86 scene is the best computer community ever. Everything is allowed, Intel, AMD, ATI, nVidia, Windows, Linux, real Mac. You can ask everything, even if it is possible to run OSx86 on a Pentium 4. And it does! The only goal is to get OSx86 working on the machine. This community is really the best ever. No wars and conflicts, and lots of great software - for free! And now I'm here and saying I'm using a Mac - or Mac OS X - and get mocked for it. I've programmed the C64 from the beginning - only in BASIC. On the AMiga I programmed AmigaDOS and ARexx, which is a scripting language. On the PC MS-DOS scripts. In MacOS I'm writing AppleScript. I saw the video of the Color Maximite 2 from the 8-bit-Guy, and immediately bought one. And I don't have too much money. So, I'm a real experienced retro computer user with lots of ideas and a wide knowledege of platforms and operating systems. And now this idiotic agressive fanboy behaviour, from two 'Gurus' who should be glad that there's a new member in the CMM2 community! If this goes on, I'm leaving this forum soon. I presume you will be proud of this, matherp and robert.rooze! One MacOS user less! |
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thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3841 |
Dear RC_tech, I doubt anybody is intending to mock you, they're just having a little private amusement. Stay a while and show some tolerance for the they've put a lot of work into this and are heavily emotionally invested. Panky's point about MMBasic not being some fully fledged O/S should also be well taken. (In my opinion) The CMM2 isn't some new general purpose computer designed to shake the foundations of an industry it is, whether intentionally or not, a "toy" allowing users to play about doing some programming (in BASIC, but now with the possibility of diving into cross-compiled native code) with none of the complex bar to entry and productivity sucking overhead of a modern O/S. Perhaps just as with the micros of the 8-bit era some users will find a professional use for it, it does belong in a venerablerich the lives of a few casual hackers. In any case I'm having fun Just my 2 cents, Tom Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
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| thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3841 |
Gah!, Gizmo if you see this you might want to check out my last post, when I try to edit/correct it I get: Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 63767352 bytes) in C:\inetpub\wwwroot2\TheBackShed\forum\includes\FormatPost.php on line 306 I'll try again. Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
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| thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3841 |
Dear RC_tech, I doubt anybody is intending to mock you, they're just having a little private amusement. Stay a while and show some tolerance for the Grognard's they've put a lot of work into this and are heavily emotionally invested. Panky's point about MMBasic not being some fully fledged O/S should also be well taken. (In my opinion) The CMM2 isn't some new general purpose computer designed to shake the foundations of an industry it is, whether intentionally or not, a "toy" allowing users to play about doing some programming (in BASIC, but now with the possibility of diving into cross-compiled native code) with none of the complex bar to entry and productivity sucking overhead of a modern O/S. Perhaps just as with the micros of the 8-bit era some users will find a professional use for it (it does belong in a venerable line of "useful" micromites) or perhaps it will just enrich the lives of a few casual hackers who require respite from the fight against the complex software dependencies of their day jobs. In any case I'm having fun Just my 2 cents, Tom Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
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| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8579 |
Don't get all upset, there is no malice in any comments. My problem with Mac is precisely described by your first post in the thread. Apple have gone out of their way to try and hide the concept of a simple hierarchical file structure from their users. My wife's best friend is a MAC user. She is not a stupid woman having a Ph.D. in an Arts subject and has been convinced that "artists" use Macs. Her Mac usage is a complete disaster. She has no idea where files are and often loses them or accesses old versions. She repeatedly ends up spending hours on the phone to Apple support to try and resolve issues. As a 40 year IT professional I still find it impossible to help her as I can see no logic to how things are organised. By your own admission: The CMM2 follows the simple concept of a "standard" file system. It may not be the fastest to use in all circumstances but it is easy to understand and document. It doesn't and won't cater for "hiding" files that have been put on a SDcard because it has been formatted on a particular machine in anything other than a standard way. I just put a card from my camera into the CMM2 and there is folder created on it by the camera that the CMM2 can't delete despite it being empty. I'm not going to try and solve that one with the CMM2 either. If the Mac works for you that's great but it is a minority operating system compared to Linux or Windows so whereas developments may make compromises for those systems I'm afraid that won't be the case for the Mac. |
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| RC_tech Newbie Joined: 05/07/2020 Location: GermanyPosts: 14 |
@thwill matherp: I'm sorry but rubbish disposal services are available in most countries. This is fun? I'm not sure if you're laughing if some 'Guru' with lots of experience is saying this to your car. Or anything else you're working with. And, no, the point is NOT taken. The file manager is an operating system. Or how would you create, edit and start programs, create files, directories, ciew images and play music? As a C64 user, I know the differences of BASIC as an operating system. The BASIC V2 and the kernal were taken very close from the VIC-20. The only disk commands are LOAD, SAVE and VERIFY. In the VIC-20 the serial floppy routines had to be reprogrammed because the shift register of the VIA 6522 was faulty. The processor has to the over the function of the shift register, so disk access was much slower. Well, the VIC-20 had 5 K RAM, so this was not the issue. Then came the C64, with programs up to 50K. And the floppy had to clocked down, due to the timing of the VIC-II. Loading 50 K took 1:24 min or 84 seconds. But the C64 didn't have the faulty 6522, it uses the 6526. Why weren't real routines programmed? Time pressure! New routines which utilized the shift register of the 6526 were realized on the C128, three years later. But only in C128 mode. Years later JiffyDOS appeared. This is a replacement ROM for computer and floppy. It isn't using the shift register, but because it is better programmed 50 K needed just 12 secs! Several characters have different functions, / for loading programs, ^ for loading and starting programs, but most noticeably @ for sending floppy commands. With Ctrl-D it is possible to toggle between the connected disk drives - 20 will be possible. And JiffyDOS is still fully compatible. It is obvious that the CMM2 was developed by Windows users. So they copied 1:1 the MS-DOS file and directory structure, including the commands. On August 12, 2020 this system is 39 years old! And nearly nobody uses it anymore. There are a lot of other operating systems which have a command line, like AmigaOS and MacOS. Why not checking out what can be used from there? |
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| abraxas Regular Member  Joined: 16/06/2020 Location: CanadaPosts: 99 |
Totally what matherp says. I’m a 10 year OSX veteran and not one day goes by when OSX doesn’t piss me off trying to be “friendly” and hiding the file structure. It is still a hair better than Windows 10 which is a sh*tshow in its own myriad of ways but I put up with OSX because at least it grants me a real Unix shell and decent fonts. That’s why it has become the default machine for many devs, but the issues matherp raised are painfully real. Apple are trying to be cute and insist that somehow most users are too stupid to understand files and folders. I have no idea who in that company came up with this rotten idea. Also Finder is the most rotten file manager in existence. It would take a lot of conscious effort to create something worse, |
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| RC_tech Newbie Joined: 05/07/2020 Location: GermanyPosts: 14 |
@matherp: I'm getting upset because the behaviour at all isn't accepteable. If you are just in Windows communities mocking may be common, but not in other communities. If you're starting with OSx86, you have to know Mac OS X system-internally from the beginning. Sure, Mac users are only using their computer, they're not caring that Apple is restricting their systems more and more. I hate Apple, it's such an annyoing company. From the Apple II, they're doing the same strategy: Using standard parts, building cheap, selling expensive and making upgrades user-unfriendly. And how could they remove 32 bit support in MacOS 10.15? Any other company would get a sh*tstorm. Apple is protected by the hype, the same is for Tesla. No other car manufacturer could allow so many quality issues and faults. Apple isn't very innovative, Steve Jobs just copied ideas and presented them as Apple's. That's the problem for Apple: They can't copy ideas anymore. Because I know a lot about operating systems and computer platforms, you should compare first instead of blocking from the beginning. And tell me one reason why standardization of the directory structure is a bad idea. @abraxas: You're saying you are 10 a year MacOS veteran. Only 'user' or 'system-internal' user? I'm using OS X for 14 years system-internally and I'm knowing lots of tricks. And because I don't have a real Mac I'm not caring about Upgrades and so. Have you disabled the System Integrity Protection? Then you have complete access to all folders again. There are so many things to know about the Mac. It is possible to free memory using 'sudo purge' in the terminal. This clears the disk cache, which can be some gigabytes after working with the system. And if the memory is full, OS X gets rather quickly unresponsive. I wrote an AppleScript for clearing the disk cache. And I have to completely disagree, I like the Finder very much. I used GEOS on the C64 and various versions of the Amiga Workbench. I always liked to design icons. I never liked the Windows Explorer, so I used IdosWin, a file manager. So I always had text in Windows. For somebody who likes graphics this is very bad. Then I got OS X, and I felt at home immediately. Windows with background images, large icons, easy to make. I created more than 170 MS-DOS games in Boxer, all with 512x512 pixel icon. This is fun for me. If you are only *using* the Finder, you don't know the full potential. For more functions there's the alternative Path Finder, which can completely replace the Finder. But I'm using this mostly in text mode. Some examples for my folders: Comics Boxer1 Boxer2 Yep, these are MS-DOS games in Boxer bundles. Directly executable. Edited 2020-07-06 02:42 by RC_tech |
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| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8579 |
Because the CMM2 is pretty much a finished product and the file handling follows the same approach as the CMM and the MM+. A change would need lots more coding and documentation for marginal benefit and I guarantee we would not get consensus on an approach. Remember I have coded this as a hobby and the code is freely available. I don't sell anything and don't get any income from anyone who does. It is what it is and hopefully some people will get pleasure out of it. Everyone is fully entitled to their opinions on what could have been but at the end of the day I'm the one who has done the coding and it is therefore obviously my background and knowledge that has shaped it. |
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| RC_tech Newbie Joined: 05/07/2020 Location: GermanyPosts: 14 |
Well, I wouldn't change things on my own. I also can't program actual computers or processors. That's why I bought the CMM2. |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3659 |
Looking at the comments from so many people, you can be sure your considerable efforts are very much appreciated. It may just be the way the supposed wonders of the Apple directory structure have been explained, but it doesn't look exciting at all. John |
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| Paul_L Guru Joined: 03/03/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 769 |
This thread is getting silly! All OSs are kludges! They come into being when guys working on the metal (remember machine language?) suddenly realize that they'd better develop some logical structure for keeping the stacks of Hollerith cards organized and sorted properly. These kludges are usually very difficult for new guys walking into the room to understand quickly. Here's a little OS history from the fuzzy memories of a very old engineer. In 1956 I and 8 other guys began writing an assembler for the brand new IBM 1401 which had been installed to replace an IBM 701 but they had not finished the assembler. We wrote the thing in machine opcodes! In 1964 MULTICS (Multiplexed Information and Computer Service) developed began by MIT, GE and Bell Labs in Cambridge using a single level memory map of 32 bit words and 16 bit indexes. It supported dynamic linking of procedures and multiple processors, time sharing of the CPU by multiple processes, and a free form hierarchical file system with directory structures. It was written mostly in PL/1 and was unnecessarily complex. In 1969 Ken Thompson and Denis Ritchie started simplifying MULTICS into UNIX, (UNIpleXed as opposed to multiplexed), (UNIX is pronounced "unuchs" meaning a castrated MULTICS), at Bell Labs. They had to develop a high level language closer to the metal than PL/1 which they called "B", a typeless language where the data type was determined by the word length of the CPU instruction, supporting recursion and machine independence and the word was treated either as an integer or a memory location. Thompson and Ritchie later added internal and user-defined variable types to "B" and produced "C" to support the character data type introduced by the PDP-11. C is an imperative procedural language which compiles to low level calls which map efficiently to machine level instructions. UNIX was originally written in assembly language but Version 4 was rewritten in C in 1973. The file system, beyond the kernel and development environment, does not enforce any specific directory structure on the user program. Due to an anti-trust case AT&T was originally required to license UNIX to all comers. In 1984 AT&T divested Bell Labs which then began selling UNIX as a proprietary product. In 1991 Linus Torvalds began independently developing a UNIX like OS which he named LINUX. This has been modified and adapted to become ANDROID and CHROME. In 1972 Gill Gates and Paul Allen formed a company called Traf-O-Data which made a rudimentary computer to analyze traffic data. In 1975 Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry System (MITS) began making the Altair 8800. Paul Allen developed a simulator while Bill Gates wrote a basic interpreter for the Altair 8800. In 1972 Gary Kildall had started working for Intel as a consultant using the names Microcomputer Applications Associates and Intergalactic Digital Research. He got Control Program / Monitor or CP/M running by 1974. CP/M did not enforce any specific directory structure leaving that up to the user. He didn't think that there was much of a requirement for a directory structure on a 160 KB single sided 5 1/4 inch floppy disk. IBM, at the new PC division in Boca Raton about 1981, knew that they would need a disk operating system in order to progress beyond using Bill Gate's interpreted basic stored in ROM to load programs from a cassette recorder, but they didn't want to allocate development resources, (the Meyers Corners OS development division was busy with system 360 OS/VM 3.0 development), so they tried to buy one. IBM first tried to buy a modified CP/M from Gary Kildall's Digital Research but they were discouraged when Gary refused IBMs restrictive terms. Bill Gates then offered to sell IBM a redeveloped version of 86DOS which Bill had acquired from Seattle Computer Products. 86DOS, like CP/M, did not enforce any specific directory structure. Bill called it MS-DOS and then PC-DOS after IBM agreed to buy it. In 1977 Steve Jobs introduced the Apple II with a cassette storage interface and Bill Gate's basic in ROM. In 1982 Apple began developing "Mac OS" as a proprietary product with a graphical control strategy. They deliberately hid the bundle of files concept from the user to reinforce the graphical nature of the OS. The final version, "Mac OS 9" in 1999. Apple then rewrote the OS to one more closely based on UNIX and began by naming it "Mac OS X 10.1". In 2016 they began calling it "macOS". It is currently based heavily on UNIX and still hides the enforced "bundle" directory structure from the user which results in confusion trying to find where the system has placed files in the directory structure. To sum up, 1964 begat >> MULTICS, 1969 >> UNIX (assembly based), 1973 >> UNIX 4 (C based), 1974 >> CP/M, 1982 >> "Mac OS", 1982 >> MS-DOS (86DOS based), 1988 >> "macOS" (UNIX based), 1991 >> LINUX. All of these, except for Apple, allow the user to establish a directory structure of their own choosing. Apple hides the actual files in "bundles" but doesn't really tell you where on the disk they are placed. The discussion is silly because every user should establish his own storage indexing pattern. I use C: to store the Windoze10 OS and the programs which insist on being installed on C:. I make image copies of C: frequently using Macrium Reflect. I force all my programs, whenever possible, to store their data files on a separate platter named H: in a directory structure which seems intelligible to me. I don't depend on graphic screens or dictates by OS manufacturers to tell me where to store my data. I make file copies of the data drive H: on a daily basis using Robocopy. The purpose of an OS is to start programs, store indexed data files on a disk and communicate with the physical peripherals. The purpose of a programming language is to write user programs which will run as close as is practical to bare metal. A GUI file manager or OS manager is supposed to let you click on gadgets on the screen which start programs which do things and to let you find and manipulate your data stored wherever you think it should be stored. The sudden appearance of a graphical window, penguin, or fruit is immaterial and silly. Paul in NY |
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halldave Senior Member  Joined: 04/05/2014 Location: AustraliaPosts: 121 |
Hey, I've been on a Mac since the PowerPC days, also have Linux and Windows I'll publish a few routines in the next couple of days so you can programmatically handle the hidden .files that the Mac writes to the SD card and ignore them. There are the same type issues and folders with Linux as well. All can be programatically handled/ignored in MMBasic regards David |
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KeepIS Guru Joined: 13/10/2014 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1357 |
I absolutely 100% agree with you and your thoughts about this thread. The only good thing that came out of this thread was your short overview of file systems history. Mike. It's all too hard. Mike. |
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| Paul_L Guru Joined: 03/03/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 769 |
Hi Mike, I tried to keep the overview short and I did it mostly from memory. I had to access some long ignored areas of my RAM and I may have screwed up some dates and I definitely left out some really nice OSs which fell by the wayside. I just thought that you guys should hear something from a guy who was there sorting stacks of Hollerith cards. Paul in NY |
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| BrianP Senior Member Joined: 30/03/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 292 |
Hey Paul I find I am insanely jealous of your vast life experience - it makes me wish I could rewind & start over.  I too use the same logic for file partitioning / storage / backup - have been for years. For me I've always found it the easiest & quickest way to find stuff - even many years later when you have no recollection about what you did then...  Having said that, I in no way belittle other ways of doing things. The saying "horses for courses" is very apt - WE ALL SHOULD USE WHAT WORKS BEST FOR US!. @RC_tec - a warm welcome to the forum. Any comments about Apple were made "tongue in cheek" & most certainly were NOT mocking you. I'm sorry you feel that way. The FRIENDLY banter between PC & MAC users has been going on forever...  Cheers Brian P. |
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