Question about compiling SW on Intel Mac

G

GeorgineVJ

Registered
Let me preface this by saying that I am NOT a programmer. I am married to one - however, he works on a Windows XP platform. The Intel Mac is MY baby, and he may switch in the future should he figure out that he can do everything he needs to.

Anyway, my question is....

I am looking at Stella source code - Stella is an Atari 2600 emulator. They have a .dmg version for PPC but not for Intel. They also offer the source code as a .src file.

Assuming that all the necessary libraries are included in the source:

I am wondering if there is anything such as a free compiler for Intel MBP OSX that I could compile this .src file on and how I would go about making the thing run (eg. do I need to script a make file or is there a compiler that can also wrap up the .src as a .dmg file ready to go?).

Can anyone offer me any opinions and info on this?

Thanks!
 
All Macs ship with the Xcode development system. It is either preinstalled or it is available on the System Restore disk.

Caveat: A lot of PPC-based apps are developed using CodeWarrior rather than Xcode. CodeWarrior cannot compile Intel or Universal Binaries. It is also not free.
 
So does this mean that XCode might allow me to compile this in Universal? I guess I need to run XCode and see what it looks like and figure out whether I can hack this thing together or not.

Thanks for the heads up on XCode vs. CodeWarrior.
 
If the emulator is an Xcode project, then it should compile as an Intel or Universal Binary. However, this begs the question why it has not been done already. FWIW, it is likely that even an Xcode project may contain some unexpected processor-dependent code. CodeWarrior projects require a nontrivial conversion to Xcode. This conversion is holding up some important commercial apps' becoming UB.
 
This conversion is holding up some important commercial apps' becoming UB.
Click to expand...

I have heard a lot of discusson on this very topic in several Mac forums where people who just purchased a new MBP are complaining that the software they want/need professionally is not yet available as UB.

Thanks for the insight. As far as why it hasn't been done yet... well how many people do you think are clamouring for an Atari 2600 emulator compiled to UB to run on a MBP? Seriously now....

I expect I'll be able to find a solution if I keep digging...
 
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