MacMETH

A Fast Modula-2 Language System for Macintosh Computers

What Is MacMETH?   Availability   References  

What Is MacMETH?

MacMETH is a Modula-2 programing environment for Macintosh computers (Wirth et al. 1992 ). It consists of a compiler, dynamic linking-loader, linker, symbolic debugger, and editor. It is very fast and efficient.

The entire development environment used to fit on a single small floppy disk (800 KB), which it still would, would you be using floppies. These days the programmer can still enjoy this efficiency during development. Thanks to the small size of the compiler and the dynamic linking-loader, which normally omits any linking at all, edit, compile, execute cycles are extremely fast. Nevertheless, static linking is optionally available and double clickable applications can be statically linked any time.

Thanks to this linking-loader, it is also possible to launch the symbolic debugger anytime. The execution of the program can be resumed afterwards. Besides, the language system is so efficient, it could still be enjoyed on old floppy disk based Macintosh computers. On current hard disk based systems this means it is blazingly fast. In the spirit of Niklaus Wirth, this software is not among those that "become faster slower, than computers become faster!".

Anyone wishing to get a quick look at the programming language Modula-2 may enjoy An Introduction to Modula-2 by Carlyn Rogers.

Availability

MacMETH is freeware (courtesy ETH Zurich).

Download it from here or as part of the RAMSES package.

For the latest information not contained in the documentation included in the downloaded software, consult the MacMETH Read Me:   html   pdf .

The program examples from the manual are available in source code form (text files) within a downloadable zip-archive.

Cited References

Wirth, N. (1985). Programming in Modula-2. Springer, Berlin a.o. 3rd. corr. edition. 202 pp. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-96878-5

Wirth, N. (1988). Programming in Modula-2. Springer, Berlin a.o. 4th. edition. 182pp. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-83565-0

Wirth, N., Gutknecht, J., Heiz, W., Schär, H.R., Seiler, H., Vetterli, C. & Fischlin, A. (1992). MacMETH 3.2. A Fast Modula-2 Language System For the Apple Macintosh - User Manual. Departement Informatik ETH Zürich. 4th, completely revised edition, Release 3.2. 116 pp.

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