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Old 12 July 2023, 14:19   #17
Olaf Barthel
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Germany
Posts: 532
Quote:
Originally Posted by Docent View Post
You didnt mention that
Anyway, it is available on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/cdromsof...miga+developer
Yes, the various Amiga Developer CD ISO images are available for download, but there is no convenient shortcut for downloading just the NDK 1.3 header files. You would have to download the ISO image first (I recommend the "Amiga Developer CD v2.1"), then extract the portions which cover the 'C' header files (in the "NDK/NDK_1.3/Includes1.3/include.h" directory) and hope for the best.

While this is certainly doable, the effort and overhead are considerable. Downloading some 220 MBytes of ISO image to extract a mere 470 KBytes of header files. Panning for gold in 1850's California would have been more productive

That said, the NDK 1.3, released by Commodore in fall 1988, might glitter, but it is not what we would call gold today. The 'C' header files were intended to be used with the commercial Amiga 'C' compilers of that time, these being Lattice 'C' 4.0 (from early 1987) and Manx Aztec 'C' 3.6a (from late 1987). Both would support K&R 'C' as per the 1978 "The 'C' programming language" book.

You could make use of these period-authentic header files on a modern 'C' compiler, but you'd be boxed in by the lack of certain amenities. For example, no official, complete and correct list of function declarations for the Amiga operating system existed in 1988. Aztec 'C' 3.6a shipped with a "functions.h" header file which mostly got things right, but it was compiled from what the authors found in the AutoDocs, which were wrong in many important places.

Beyond that, the Amiga 'C' header files still would contain typos which could derail compilation and the order in which you included the header files mattered greatly. Always start with "#include <exec/types.h>" or there will be surprises along the way. Be prepared for more compiler warnings than you might have seen in a whole year.
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