Karl Baron

So after finally getting my framework for making tools for classic Mac OS in a usable state last weekend, this weekend my project was to start getting familiar with the AppleTalk APIs.

I'm now scanning all of #GlobalTalk in 8 seconds flat!

A wee bit faster than the HyperCard XCMD setup I was using for TalkCrawler earlier this year...

#VintageApple #RetroComputing

Jul 13 at 2:56pmWeb
Show threadvga256Jul 13
@kalleboo haha wow what a difference! poor hc - never meant for the big jobs
Show threadKarl BaronJul 13

@vga256 It’s really crazy, haha!

The biggest speed up is just that the XCMD I had would just scan one zone at a time, whereas in the native code I’m scanning every zone at once!

But even after that when I’m grouping up entities into nodes… not doing everything with massive strings you’re constantly looping over by line and itemDelimiter is crazy fast… the node grouping code right now is really naive (just a full linear scan over and over again) and yet on this G4 it’s just instant

Show threadvga256Jul 13
@kalleboo haha any additional performance benefits after this are obscene
Show threadKarl BaronJul 13
@vga256 Although working on this increases the urgency for me to finally get around to fixing one of my dead 68k Macs so I have some native machine to test this on System 7 and over LocalTalk - the AppleTalk APIs have things that each app needs to manually tune for how long you wait for replies and retry, with no useful guidance from the documentation, so what is fast on my G4 with Gigabit might miss replies on an LC III over LocalTalk…
Show threadvga256Jul 13
@kalleboo hurk. this is the kind of system-specific stuff i loathe.
Show threaddan 💾Jul 13
@kalleboo !!!
Show threadDaniel TufvessonJul 14
@kalleboo Wow! Nice work! I really want to learn more about this. Ping if you need a beta tester :)
Show threadKarl BaronJul 14
@danieltufvesson Sure thing! Right now I'm just messing about with the APIs but the first project I put out there will probably be a slightly snazzier tool in the style of Trawl/Who’s There as a precursor to a native TalkCrawler, and I'll upload it with the source code and everything.
Show threadeuroplus Jul 14
@kalleboo wowsers!
Show threadJon Schwenn4d ago
@kalleboo 😍 do you have a ideal target for the minimum supported OS version?