Terminal for Mac OS 9?

[WMH]

I finally got my iMac G3 to run OS 9.1. (Yay!)

I was hoping that it'd have Terminal built in like OS X, but it doesn't. Does anyone know where I can get one?

Thanks again for all your help, guys.

 

[deathshadow]

No such thing -- prior to OSX the OS on Macs was built without the notion of any such tool being necessary, much less desirable. It was in fact considered outdated, outmoded, and having 'no place' on a "modern" computer. It was only when they hopped on the "trip with Mr. Peabody back to 1969" by basing the new OS off of *nix that the terminal returned. Mostly due to the tools used to build the new OS not even being compatible with the design philosophy of classic MacOS.

 

[WMH]

Are there any emulators? The file system seems to be laid out pretty much the same, so I don't see why it couldn't be done...

Open Firmware lists dev/packages/terminal-emulator, what's up with that?

 

[commodorejohn]

terminal-emulator is for OpenFirmware's text output, not for Mac OS. I know there's serial terminal software for classic Macs, but I don't believe there's any such beast as a command-line shell (except the Unix shell built into MPW for build purposes.)

 

[WMH]

terminal-emulator is for OpenFirmware's text output, not for Mac OS. I know there's serial terminal software for classic Macs, but I don't believe there's any such beast as a command-line shell (except the Unix shell built into MPW for build purposes.)

What's MPW?

 

[commodorejohn]

Macintosh Programmer's Workshop is Apple's official classic Mac OS development platform, mostly consisting of a Unix-style compiler collection and shell. It's been released to the general public; Apple used to have it on their FTP site, not sure if they still do.

Just curious, what do you need the terminal for? I'm a command-line junkie myself, but OS9 really isn't designed to use one...

 

[WMH]

OK, I'll look in to MPW.

Just curious, what do you need the terminal for? I'm a command-line junkie myself, but OS9 really isn't designed to use one...

I'm a command line junkie, too. It's hard for me to use a system that totally lacks one.

 

[commodorejohn]

Well, I wouldn't recommend MPW as a shell replacement, as you have to start the whole thing to use it and I don't think it includes the full complement of commands. Junkie though you be, on classic Mac OS you just gotta play by the no-command-line rules...

 

[WMH]

Junkie though you be, on classic Mac OS you just gotta play by the no-command-line rules...

No!

I'll probably still get it so I can program. Just a quick question: I can copy Mac install files and programs over on a FAT32 USB drive, right? I was able to read from such a drive earlier...

 

[commodorejohn]

You can read files from a FAT32 drive, but copying executables and Mac-native data files is a messy business because of HFS's "forked" approach and filesystem-specific filetype information. The only reliable way to do it is to use Mac-compatible archive formats, StuffIt being the standard, or disk images. Luckily, OS9 comes with StuffIt Expander out of the box, and pretty much any classic Mac software is distributed either as a .SIT archive or as a .DMG disk image, so you're good on that front.

 

[WMH]

OK, thanks, that's good to hear.

 

[dukzcry]

This topic is the first result I've got for "Mac OS 9 Shell" query, and I've been registered here for a while, so writing my find there, probably this will help other too.

Besides obsoleted single-tasked Macintosh Programmer's Workshop with it's doubtful "worksheet" shell, there is a modern attempt called MacRelix http://www.macrelix.org/ Its briefly mentioned in MPW's wiki article, but that's easy to miss.
So MacRelix brings multitasking (!) environment - a POSIX compatibility layer and virtual filesystems; toolchest (surprisingly even with git and perl ; good terminal and an unique GUI toolkit inspired by Plan 9: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgivHy-oC2g
I'm not sure of the toolchain (compiler and friends) status though, but I'm sure the MR author may clear this.