Blunt 2 status
Here’s a quick update on Blunt 2. I’ve moved the code to Github and started to track issues there as well. My development environment is TextMate, and I use MPW just for compiling. The simple serial line based logging works reasonably well, and I’ve not really missed using Hammer as a debugger (Hammer is still essential for reverse engineering by executing code, for simple code analysis, I use my online database of the NewtonOS ROM).
Most problems in Blunt 2 are not in the actual Bluetooth stack, but around interfacing with the Bluetooth hardware: PC Cards are using a simple 16450 UART, and sending and receiving data is not trivial due to the lack of documentation for the serial chip interface on the Newton. I’ve switched to simple non-interrupt based sending of data, which means some performance penalty but should get around problems I’ve seen with sending bulk data. The other problematic interface is between the Bluetooth stack and the CommTool, which in turn manages the interface to the NewtonScript world. CommTools are even less documented unfortunately, so I am still lacking asynchronous sending functionality and means to accept connections instead of initiating them.
Progress is expectedly slow, on the other hand, it is nice to work with the probably best notebook Apple ever made, my trusty old Pismo :)