One of the things I’ve been working on in Tigerbrew is backporting modern Apple build tools. The latest official versions, bundled with Xcode 2.5, are simply too old to be able to build some software. (For example, the latest GCC version available is 4.0.)

In the process, I’ve found some pretty fascinating bits of history littered through the code and makefiles for Apple’s build tools. Here are some findings from Apple’s cctools¹ package:

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# MacOS X (the default)
#  RC_OS is set to macos (the top level makefile does this)
#  RC_CFLAGS needs -D\__KODIAK__ when RC_RELEASE is Kodiak (Public Beta),
#      to get the Public Beta directory layout.
#  RC_CFLAGS needs -D\__GONZO_BUNSEN_BEAKER__ when RC_RELEASE is Gonzo, 
#      Bunsen or Beaker to get the old directory layout. 
#  The code is #ifdef'ed with \__Mach30__ is picked up from <mach/mach.h> 
# Rhapsody 
#  RC_OS is set to teflon 
#  RC_CFLAGS needs the additional flag -D__HERA__ 
# Openstep
#  RC_OS is set to nextstep 
#  RC_CFLAGS needs the additional flag -D__OPENSTEP__ 

This comment from near the top of cctools’s Makefile lists some of the valid build targets, which includes:

• Kodiak, which was the Mac OS X public beta from September, 2000
• Gonzo (Developer Preview 4), Bunsen (Developer Preview 3), and Beaker (PR2)
• Rhapsody (internal name for the OS X project as a whole), Hera (Mac OS X Server 1.0, released 1999), and teflon (unknown to me)
• OPENSTEP, NeXT’s implementation of their own OpenStep API

From further down in the same Makefile:

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ifeq "macos" "$(RC_OS)"
  TRIE := $(shell if [ "$(RC_MAJOR_RELEASE_TRAIN)" = "Tiger" ] || \
             [ "$(RC_MAJOR_RELEASE_TRAIN)" = "Leopard" ] || \
             [ "$(RC_RELEASE)" = "Puma"      ]  || \
             [ "$(RC_RELEASE)" = "Jaguar"    ]  || \
             [ "$(RC_RELEASE)" = "Panther"   ]  || \
             [ "$(RC_RELEASE)" = "MuonPrime" ]  || \
             [ "$(RC_RELEASE)" = "MuonSeed"  ]  || \
             [ "$(RC_RELEASE)" = "SUPanWheat" ] || \
             [ "$(RC_RELEASE)" = "Tiger" ]      || \
             [ "$(RC_RELEASE)" = "SUTiSoho" ]   || \
             [ "$(RC_RELEASE)" = "Leopard" ]    || \
             [ "$(RC_RELEASE)" = "Vail" ]       || \
             [ "$(RC_RELEASE)" = "SugarBowl" ]  || \
             [ "$(RC_RELEASE)" = "BigBear" ]    || \
             [ "$(RC_RELEASE)" = "Homewood" ]   || \
             [ "$(RC_RELEASE)" = "Kirkwood" ]   || \
             [ "$(RC_RELEASE)" = "Northstar" ]; then \
                echo "" ; \ 

A lot of familiar cats here, along with a couple of early iOS versions (SugarBowl, BigBear) and a lot of names I’m not familiar with. (Please leave a comment if you have any insight!) As far as I know “Vail” was the Mac LC III from 1993 with no NeXT connection, but I’m sure it must be referring to something else.

From elsewhere in the tree, there’s code to support various CPU architectures. Aside from the usual suspects (PPC, i386), there are some other interesting finds:

• HP/PA, aka PA-RISC, a CPU family from HP; some versions of NeXTSTEP were shipped for this
• i860, an Intel CPU used in the NeXTdimension graphics board for NeXT’s computers
• M680000, the classic Motorola CPU family, used in the original NeXT computers
• M880000, a Motorola CPU family; NeXT considered using this in their original hardware but never shipped a product using it
• SPARC, a CPU family from Sun; some versions of NeXTSTEP were shipped for this

I find it fascinating that, even now, cctools still carries the (presumably unmaintained) code for all of these architectures Apple no longer uses.