Re: gs/os

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Dave Althoff Jr <dalloff@gcfn.org> wrote:

> Prior to OS-X (perhaps even in the Jaguar era...) was the Macintosh
> toolbox ever rewritten in a higher-level language?  Or are they still
> building Macintoshes with "clean" assembly code in them?  It would explain
> the use of things such as platform-dependent "system enablers" in some
> versions of MacOS...

The Mac OS toolbox was generally rewritten in a high level language
(probably C) as it was ported to PowerPC native code.  This happened
over a long period of time - each system version from 7.5 through to 9.x
typically included a higher proportion of "native" toolbox code and less
emulated 68K toolbox code.

I expect that some of the higher level toolbox code on the 68K was also
written in a high level language (e.g. QuickTime).

The "system enablers" were required to identify new machine types and/or
provide extra support code for new chipsets and other features.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz