[MacPerl] BigMacPerl

[Lasse Hiller¿e Petersen <lassehp@imv.aau.dk>]

Hello!

I was planning on doing some programming (for my perl5.004 installation on
a Unix server) at home on a Quadra800 brought in for the purpose. At work I
use a PowerMac7300/200.

I wanted to change some of my GIF generating scripts. Of course I had
forgotten all about BigMacPerl since the last time I worked on a 68K Mac,
so I got an error trying to run something with the freshly installed
MacPerl 514r4. Then I was puzzled by the absence of a BigMacPerl. I
searched my archives and found two older releases of MacPerl, 513 and 510.
It turned out I had BigMacPerl for 510, but not for 513. Browsing my
MacPerl mail collection, I found that Matthias' wording stated that the
"rest of the distribution" would be available later this week. I now
realize this probably includes BigMacPerl.

Now, I have noticed a few times where people have been confused about GD
with MacPerl, and I suppose the existence and need for BigMacPerl could be
made more well-known.

Also, I wonder whether a BigMacPerl version of 513 ever existed, and if
yes, why it has been removed from all servers (CPAN only has 513, and no
BigMacPerl; err.ethz.ch has no old versions, and sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch
has version 4, the OSA version of 5.10 and the new 514 version) before
BigMacPerl 514 being available? Assuming, of course that these servers
actually _had_ BigMacPerl?

As I have had difficulties finding info on BigMacPerl, I can only rely on
the README.BIG from 510, which says that the need for a static linked "big"
version is due to lack of dynamic linking on 68K. Now I don't know much
about the inner workings of MacPerl, but with CFM finally working on 68K
Macs now, would a "normal" dynamically linked 68K MacPerl be a possibility?

A last remark: during my search, I discovered several things. The README
files on various servers are somewhat outdated.  The Mac_Perl.info file on
sunsite.cnlab-switch.ch (and CPAN, which seems to be a mirror from Swiss
sunsite) states that the current version is 5.0.7 (and the installer
archive on sunsite itself is a link into the src/mw_c directory, although I
doubt there is any C source code in the archive.) Last, but not least, both
the sunsite.auc.dk mirror of CPAN and the original CPAN archive at
ftp.funet.fi have in their Mac port directory only the files
Mac_Perl_appl.bin and Mac_Perl_appl.bin, both of which are actually
symlinks pointing out in the blue. Is the distribution of MacPerl to CPAN
broken?

-Lasse



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