Re:THE MOTHER OF ALL PBEM GAMES

From: cg@primenet.com (mystro)

Date: Sun, 06 Aug 1995 00:00:00 +0000

From: asterian@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Andrew Sterian)
Subject: Re: MACS need porting 4 VGAP
Date: 6 Aug 1995 03:35:42 GMT

J Strout wrote:

>All OS?!?  I checked what claims to be the official PHOST WWW site, and
>it supports: DOS, DEC Alpha AXP, i386 (BSDs, Linux, or Win32), HP-Pa
>HP/UX, MeXT Mach, IBM RS/6000 AIX, Sun Solaris, SPARC SunOS, and DEC
>Ultrix 5000.  The Mac OS is noticably absent (though there are probably
>more Mac computers than HP/UX, Mach, AIX, AXP, and Ultrix combined).  It
>looks like they ported it to every Unix-descended platform that can do
>Xwindows, but I'd hardly call that "portable".

Sigh. We *do* have a PHOST port for the Macintosh but we just can't get it
working.  It works fine on the machine that it is compiled on but when it is
transferred to another machine, it craps out. No idea why. If you'd like to
try out the port that we do have (or anyone else who wants to experiment
with the Mac port) then drop me a line.

>(The Mac isn't hard to program, folks -- I do it -- and it's easy,
>because the toolbox has most of the code built right in.  That's why good
>Mac programs are 3 MB, and Microsoft programs are 20 MB...)

Without starting a religious battle, I strenuously beg to differ. Our PHOST
code was written in 99.999% ANSI C and porting it from DOS to all of the
Unix platforms usually took on the order of 15 minutes to an hour per
platform. The Mac took several attempts over several weeks, and even so it
doesn't always work. The Symantec Think C compiler says it is ANSI C but
it is not. Perhaps it is this tool that is at the root of all the problems,
but suffice it to say that trying to port PHOST to the Mac was one of the
most frustrating computer-related experiences I've ever had in my life.
(To be fair, my Mac-illiteracy probably had a lot to do with this)

This is a classic case of he-said-she-said and I don't really want to debate
this. The bottom line is there *is* a port of PHOST to the Macintosh but it
is not 100% solid.

FYI, there is at least one person that is working on a client program for
the Macintosh (with Tim's permission, I understand).  So don't give up on
VGAP yet.

Author of Phost