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My small, quick and hacky #MARCHintosh 2025 project

Posted by: Toni_ on 2025-03-25 15:20:47

Hi!

I haven't had much time to hang out here recently due to my very busy schedule, but I thought I'd share something I made as a quick hack in a couple evenings recently, which fits nicely the #MARCHintosh theme. I always wanted to make my own minesweeper clone, so I finally took a tiny bit of my (very limited) time and quickly implemented it as Desk Accessory in THINK Pascal.

I put the whole project, including source code (in AppleDouble format), final binary (as Binhexed self-extracting archive) and a README with a bit more detailed description of what I did on GitHub here:

https://github.com/tolaave/minesweeper-da

I hope you'll have as much fun with the game as I did making it! (Do note that System 6 compatibility is still a bit iffy, and I didn't have time to debug it through...but System 7 and later should work fine)

(Ps. I will again someday get back to working on MACE, life's just very busy here right now so extra hobbies are sadly mostly on hold for near future...maybe in summer I'll have time to work on it!)

Posted by: adespoton on 2025-03-25 15:47:05

I was going to ask... does the DA run in MACE? 😉

Maybe I'll just have to try it for myself!

[edit] If I get the time, I'll try it under older System versions in MAME as well, to see if the issues are mVm or System related.

Posted by: finkmac on 2025-03-25 15:49:09

What’s #MARCHintosh? What does MARCH stand for? Are you supposed to yell it? Do you have to pronounce the hashtag?

Posted by: adespoton on 2025-03-25 15:52:41

What’s #MARCHintosh? What does MARCH stand for? Are you supposed to yell it? Do you have to pronounce the hashtag?

#YES!

Posted by: volvo242gt on 2025-03-25 20:19:06

What’s #MARCHintosh? What does MARCH stand for? Are you supposed to yell it? Do you have to pronounce the hashtag?

Stands for this month. ;-P

There's a whole thread on TD about this year's projects.

MARCHintosh 2025 Projects

It's (almost) that time again for #MARCHintosh! People have already begun publishing some projects and I want to use this thread to capture and share them! If you see something or are working on something just reply below as well. If your project is bigger please feel free to make your own...

tinkerdifferent.com

Posted by: finkmac on 2025-03-25 20:41:54

why not MAYcintosh? or MacTOBER?

Posted by: Snial on 2025-03-26 01:06:57

<snip> make my own minesweeper <snip> Desk Accessory in THINK Pascal <snip> I will again someday get back to working on MACE <snip>

For those of us not particularly familiar with M.A.C.E, it stands for "M*c Application Compatibility Environment" and you can find it here: https://mace.home.blog/

It's essentially a classic System 1-7 / Mac OS ToolBox API + 68K Emulator. By installing it via HomeBrew, you can run 68K-based pre-Mac OS X applications without needing a Mac ROM.

From the screenshot for this version of Minesweeper, you can see it also supports Color QuickDraw and within the website you can see how much API support there is.

I don't really know much about how well the ToolBox (/Classic System) is supported, but what most interests me is whether it interfaces via e.g. SDL, because if that's the case, you could provide genuine ToolBox ROM replacements for an emulator. For example, I guess you could compile the 128K ToolBox ROM subset of MACE for 68K and run it with miniVMac, without needing a copy of the Mac Plus Rom. Or, you could compile it for ARM Cortex and then create a Mac emulator that emulates 68K apps but with native acceleration for ToolBox APIs, or even take a classic Mac application, compile natively (e.g. for ARM or Intel) and then run directly on top of MACE.

It's what I've been calling the Macintosh CoolBox™.

However, it seems like the goals for MACE are oriented around being able to run applications of interest, rather than replicating the ToolBox per-se. Nevertheless, it's comprehensive enough for THINK Pascal 4.0.1 and ResEdit 2.1.3 to run directly on MACE, which is how this game was developed.

So, it is very interesting.

Posted by: uliwitness on 2025-03-26 07:07:14

I always wanted to make my own minesweeper clone, so I finally took a tiny bit of my (very limited) time and quickly implemented it as Desk Accessory in THINK Pascal.

Love how it looks both very System 7 but also like the Win311 Mine Sweeper we all know and love 😀

Posted by: uliwitness on 2025-03-26 07:08:21

why not MAYcintosh? or MacTOBER?

I think a bunch of other months were already taken? Maybe May? Of course I only remember DOScember, but I think October was also taken.

Posted by: finkmac on 2025-03-26 07:19:05

who took the months??? why don't they give them back...

Posted by: Snial on 2025-03-26 07:39:23

I think a bunch of other months were already taken? Maybe May? Of course I only remember DOScember, but I think October was also taken.

It's more than fair if we get 3 months and they get 1 😀 !

Posted by: superjer2000 on 2025-03-28 18:26:22

why not MAYcintosh? or MacTOBER?

Maycintosh would have been way better!!

Posted by: CC_333 on 2025-04-13 18:16:23

Of course I only remember DOScember

What about DECember?

Or SPARCtember?

c