
Glider, Mac Classic game, open-sourced - mmastrac
https://github.com/softdorothy
======
jason_slack
I loved playing this game.....and one of the games that made me lean towards a
career in programming.

Spending my nights and weekend (as a high school student in 1992-1996) in my
grandparents basement, other kids out playing, I learned pascal, c++, mpw on a
Mac SE30, then an LC III.

Fun Fact: I worked an entire Summer to save the $400 that was needed for
Metrowerks Codewarrior. To find out that I could have gotten it for $99
academic pricing. To bad I did not know it existed. Mac Mall magazine never
mentioned academic pricing! I still have this box set and can't bring myself
to throw it out.

~~~
matheweis
It was my birthday present when I was 11, after drooling over it in the
MacMall catalog for months and begging my parents every time I thought I could
risk it... CodeWarrior was like the Christmas Story kid's BB Gun for me. I
think they must have found the academic discount, there's no way they could
have afforded the $400.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into, I just knew I needed a good
"compiler" to make "programs". Apple's IDE (MPW?) was really horrendous by
comparison - I was unable to get anywhere with it.

I also literally learned how to write C in CodeWarrior. I wish I could find
the CodeWarrior people and tell them how influential it was.

~~~
jason_slack
I still talk with 2 members of the Codewarrior team periodically! Met them in
the 90's on the usegroups.

~~~
matheweis
Awesome! If you could pass this their way that'd be so neat. :)

------
networked
Excellent! If you are interested in this game you might enjoy reading an older
two-part interview with the developer, John Calhoun, here:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20060507111048/http://www.cruncha...](http://web.archive.org/web/20060507111048/http://www.crunchable.net/articles/?p=179).

My first exposure to the Glider series (and the most major one in terms of
hours spent on the game) was through the Windows 3.x port of Glider 4.0. It
made exemplary use of the operating system's standard 16-color palette — one
of the things that got me to appreciate the higher-resolution-but-limited-
palette-and-animation, "desktop computer-style" pixel graphics. What was a
major disappointment was that it came without the house editor that would
allow you to create your own levels.

I wonder if John Calhoun owns the rights to that version. I would love to see
the source code for it released. If it was compiled with Borland Pascal (or
rewritten in C — who knows?) it would likely be the better starting point for
porting Glider 4.0 to modern operating systems.

~~~
djur
That Windows port was one of the first games I remember playing. The graphics
were great -- crisp and iconic. I spent years looking for the game again and
only recently found out what it was called again.

And hey, it taught me the concept of a thermal upcurrent. So it's almost
educational software, right?

------
matheweis
If you can get a simulator up and running, Macintosh Garden has the originals
available (feeling this is ethically OK to link now that this is open):

[http://macintoshgarden.org/games/glider-312](http://macintoshgarden.org/games/glider-312)
(very early black and white version)
[http://macintoshgarden.org/games/glider-40](http://macintoshgarden.org/games/glider-40)
[http://macintoshgarden.org/games/glider-
pro](http://macintoshgarden.org/games/glider-pro)

~~~
tbrock
"You can’t open the application “Glider Pro.app” because PowerPC applications
are no longer supported." :(

~~~
pmarreck
Yeah, gotta use an emulator of some sort I guess.

I really wish Rosetta was kept around by Apple.

~~~
duskwuff
Rosetta depended on Apple maintaining PowerPC builds of all of their
frameworks. I have to imagine that was a huge drag for their developers;
there's no way they would have been happy about maintaining that.

~~~
wtallis
Just making sure that most of userspace still compiles for PPC is probably
worth the effort for Apple, to ensure the code remains portable. Maintaining
the platform-specific intricacies of the language runtime and kernel-space
stuff would be a drag, and it's probably difficult to maintain the hardware
necessary to test it all on, but that may not be required to keep Rosetta
working.

~~~
mrpippy
I would bet $$$ that they compile and run the whole OS on ARM, much easier
than PPC since so much is shared with iOS

~~~
duskwuff
I would be shocked if they didn't! They've already got an ARM Darwin kernel
(for iOS), and they already cross-compile a bunch of the iOS frameworks to x86
for the simulator. Cross-compiling OS X to ARM is a natural next step.

------
Kristine1975
The .binhex files contain the original Mac OS Classic resource files. On OS X
they can be decoded using the binhex command and opened with a resource
editor, e.g. Rezilla. Not sure about other platforms, since they don't support
the Mac OS Classic resource fork. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_fork#Compatibility_pr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_fork#Compatibility_problems)

------
lepht
Online flash version playable here:
[http://www.ridiculopathy.com/games.php?gamename=glider](http://www.ridiculopathy.com/games.php?gamename=glider)

------
pasbesoin
Certain things -- big and small -- have an extra bit of "magic" when we first
run across them. Glider was one of those, for me.

Not "big" and "dramatic", but slightly magical. Perhaps all the more for its
subdued presentation.

P.S. Plenty of monsters and whatnot, about. But a paper airplane? Smile.

I guess, in good part, it was the magic of a perfect whimsy.

~~~
mikecsh
The calm, fun music was a big part of it too I think!

------
msarnoff
I worked with John Calhoun (the author) for a few years some time ago. Great
guy. Glider was one of my favorite games as a kid, so I was a bit starstruck
the first time I met him.

He actually had the source code to Glider Pro printed and bound into a
hardcover book. That way, he said, even if all of his electronic media became
unreadable, the code would still live on.

~~~
peterburkimsher
Cool! Any chance you could ask him to open-source SoundJam MP as well? That
was my favourite C&G program, for copying music onto my old Rio 600.

~~~
setpatchaddress
C&G was primarily a publisher. SoundJam MP was written by other developers who
later sold it to Apple. It became iTunes.

~~~
js2
Interesting story about that -
[https://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/](https://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/)

------
subdane
Oh man, I never got into Glider, but if you're listening softdorothy - one
request upvote for Crystal Quest!

~~~
TomAnthony
Oh wow! That takes me back. One of the very first Mac games I played on my
Dad's Mac in his office.

I also loved Mission Starlight.

~~~
rubberbandage
God, Mission Starlight was so great. I also played that on my Dad’s office Mac
:-) He had a greyscale display for a long time, and I still remember the
amazement of getting a color monitor and discovering Mission Starlight was in
_color_ , too. What a time!

Do you know of a playable/emulatable binary of this anywhere?

------
stuart78
In my youth I was too impatient to make it far, but I remember this fondly.
And Spectre. Multiplayer Spectre was amazing.

~~~
pmarreck
I played multiplayer Spectre freshman year at college. It was probably one of
the earliest multiplayer experiences available to people, period. (NetTrek 3.0
predated it and arguably, Bolo outdid all of these from a fun-ness
perspective; all of these were Mac-only).

~~~
stuart78
It was definitely that for me. I was a few years younger, and my dad's office
(University campus) was the only place with networked computers I had access
to. So we'd get in there and fire it up on a couple of Macs. Initially, the
office just had B/W and Greyscale monitors, but the game looked great none the
less.

I do recall the network configuration to be a bit finicky, so its possible
that we spent about as much time setting it up as we did playing.

------
ctomaybe
[https://github.com/softdorothy/glider_pro/blob/master/Source...](https://github.com/softdorothy/glider_pro/blob/master/Sources/Main.c#L360)

"BitchAboutSM3();"

Love it.

~~~
6502nerdface
Tip of the iceberg :)
[https://github.com/softdorothy/glider_pro/search?utf8=%E2%9C...](https://github.com/softdorothy/glider_pro/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=bitch)

------
shiftpgdn
This was one of my first exposures to a "high quality" animation and realistic
representation of an environment as a kid. I actually unearthed the original
Powerbook 100 it ran on during a move a few weeks ago. Unfortunately the attic
wasn't stored in a climate controlled area and did not stand the test of time.

The read me files are quite enjoyable.

~~~
fzzzy
You can probably just replace the electrolytic capacitors in it, they probably
just dried out.

------
niccaluim
Dude. Glider AND Pararena _AND_ Glypha III? Is today Christmas?

~~~
matheweis
If only we can get Stuart Cheshire
([http://www.stuartcheshire.org](http://www.stuartcheshire.org)) to give up
Bolo! [http://www.bolo.net](http://www.bolo.net) and
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_(1987_video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolo_\(1987_video_game\))

~~~
pmarreck
BOLO WAS THE BEST NETWORK GAME EVER.

Seriously, to this day, I haven't had an experience that quite lives up to
Bolo between friends on an AppleTalk network. It is the 1 game that "Windows
people" I know who have played, wish existed on Windows.

~~~
i336_
What exactly about Bolo made it a good [network] game, in your
experience/opinion?

~~~
matheweis
It was arguably one of the first (the first?) multiplayer RTS's in existence,
so there's probably a significant nostalgia factor... but some of the points
being - in order of significance.

* In-game map changes. You could create your own walls, moats, mines, create rubble, etc. in game, so everything was very dynamic, especially once you had several players going.

* (mostly) limited resources. Trees were required to build walls and boats, but there wasn't an unlimited number of them. Even after they were all used up, more would grow ( although if you had some around they would grow more often). Bullets/mines were also limited; you had to go back to base to refill, and you could also use up the base's resources if you were too aggressive.

* Easy to learn/difficult to master. Bolo had just about the right balance for this.

* Headless network play. No server was required (a matchup server existed, but not required); any particular player rage quitting didn't end the game for the rest.

* Bug factor. Not quite sure how this phenomenon works, but like the bugs in the oddly popular Goat Simulator there were a few glitches in Bolo that you could take advantage of - without cheating - for a (slight) advantage.

Not aware of any games in the last 30 years that have a similar balance.

~~~
i336_
Thanks for the insight. I have a bit of a side project to find out what
forgotten bits of computer history "got it right," if you will, for various
contextually-defined definitions of "right," so I'll either be seeing if I can
get AlphaTalk going in BasiliskII/SheepShaver (ahahaha...), or I know what
I'll want to do if I ever come across a couple old Macs!

------
jakobegger
I remember playing Glider 4 on our Mac Plus and on the Colour Classic... it
was a fantastic game. Everyone in our family was addicted. I remember coming
home from school, and my dad would show me something new he found out, like a
hidden room or how to get past a particularly tricky passage. I'd compete with
my sisters and we tried to beat each others high scores. Sometimes I managed
the reach the top spot, but it was never for long, since my mom would always
play all night and beat everyones high score. She had developed tricks for
every room to get the highest time bonus -- watching her play the game was
fascinating.

My dad was the first to beat the game. It was such an incredible experience.
After mastering that tricky bit with the drop and the basketball, the rooms
got easier, the house slowly became empty, you saw the thunderstorm outside,
then the glider started to move in a rocking fashion, and then there was the
open window, and the ending animation with the glider, free at last, gliding
into the dark...

What a game. Thanks John Calhoun!

~~~
roryokane
SPOILERS! Do not read the parent comment if you have not beaten the game.

------
rememberlenny
How do you run it?

~~~
Kristine1975
Compile it:

1\. Get OS X running.

2\. Find a copy of Metrowerks Codewarrior for Mac OS (the .mcp files are
Metrowerks Codewarrior projects) or create a project yourself.

3\. Find the necessary header files for the Carbon API (Codewarrior should
have them, they're also included with XCode, Apple's IDE).

4\. Hope the code is conforming to a current version of the C Standard, so you
can compile it without errors. Otherwise fix the errors.

Then you should be able to run it on OS X.

~~~
fishanz
Wasn't carbon ditched like a decade ago?

~~~
yuhong
It is "depreciated" but still supported on 32-bit for compatibility.

------
elwell
[https://github.com/softdorothy/glider_pro/blob/master/Source...](https://github.com/softdorothy/glider_pro/blob/master/Sources/Events.c#L46)

------
i336_
Glider 4: "R 89.0%, OpenEdge ABL 11.0%"

Panarena 2: "R 78.4%, C 21.0%, C++ 0.6%"

Glypha III: "R 92.1%, C 7.9%"

Glider Pro: "R 92.6%, C 7.3%, Objective-C 0.1%"

GitHub, these are called _legacy Mac OS codebases_. Today you learn a new
thing!

~~~
duskwuff
The "R" code is actually resource data -- mostly hex dumps of images and
whatnot. Kind of messes up the line counts. :)

------
sandebert
Anyone have an idea how likely it would be for this to show up on Linux?

~~~
i336_
I can't even figure out what language it's in, and GitHub can't either, but
it's definitely nothing I've seen before.

I think that answers your question.

The code would necessarily be a full rewrite. All this would be good for would
maybe be official asset sources... but then I've seen other people mention
that they've reimplemented the game by just taking screenshots, so maybe not.

~~~
Kristine1975
_I can 't even figure out what language it's in_

Glider Pro is written in C (.c files), Glider 4 in Pascal (.p files). Github
gets confused by the resource files, which are data files in a specific format
used by Mac OS Classic:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_fork](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_fork)

------
dmschulman
Glider was one of my favorite classic Mac games, I remember when Glider PRO
came out replacing Glider 4.0.

More colors! More environments (you could glide outdoors)! With the ability to
create levels you could extend the game play even further. I remember some
excellent fan-made levels that provided hours of entertainment.

------
wyldfire
MIT licensed. glider_pro doesn't publish a license, but hopefully that's just
an oversight.

~~~
krock
glider_pro now has a licence file that simply contains the word "GPL".

------
digitalneal
Now if someone could get around to open-sourcing Apache Strike. My weekend
would be set.

~~~
pmarreck
Here, have a dose of nostalgia in the meantime

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWCb8ayXNC8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWCb8ayXNC8)

------
sirkneeland
How long until someone has gotten this working on a modern PC/Mac/iPad?

~~~
nerfhammer
The original developer already has it ported:
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/glider-
classic/id463484447?m...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/glider-
classic/id463484447?mt=8)

~~~
lubujackson
My man. I was just thinking this would make a great mobile app.

------
ec109685
It's nice seeing very straightforward C code. I miss that, and I too learned
to program on the Mac and CodeWarrior was my IDE of choice.

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devsquid
omg one of my favorite games as a kid!

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tambourine_man
This soundtrack is burnt in my brain.

Great memories

------
jakobloekke
Nice! I spent many hours with this game as a kid.

