Obsolete Mac instructions from Virtual AGC Download Page

This page contains some instructions for installing and/or building Virtual AGC on Mac OS X. I no longer recommend using these instructions, but they work reasonably well ... up to a certain point. I am archiving them here just in case somebody who built Virtual AGC using them wants to refer to them.

Installing the Mac OS X Binaries

Disclaimer: I really really don't know how to package programs for installation on Mac OS X. The binaries may not work on your system. The installation procedures may not work on your system, and are complex compared to what you're used to (but easier than building from source). I know that it worked on the 10.2 machine I used to build it, and I have feedback (from Fabrizio Bernardini) that the binary package works fine on 10.3. On the other hand, I personally tried to install it on a friend's 10.3 machine, and the installation failed at step #3, so I never got to find out if the Virtual AGC program ran or not. Hopefully it'll work for you; if not, you may still need to end up building Virtual AGC yourself, as described below. If the binary installation works for you, or if you understand how to improve the process, let me know. (Hint: giving me a link to a 10-page howto is not the level of help I'm looking for.) I apologize for the complexity relative to what you're used to, but at my level of Mac OS (non-)skill you're lucky to get anything at all. :-)

Another disclaimer: I should warn you, I suppose, that it takes so long to install the prerequisites you need to run Virtual AGC, that you get very little advantage from installing the Virtual AGC binary package rather than simply building Virtual AGC from source. But enough negativity! Let's get installing!

Installation:

Install the X-window system (XFree86). For Panther, this is apparently an optional install from your Apple-supplied Mac OS X CDs. For Jaguar, you can download from the XonX project.
Install fink, which is a program that is used to install other programs. Make sure that you choose the version of fink that works with your version of Mac OS X, and follow the instructions on the fink webpage.
Use fink to install gtk+ version 2. This is done from the command-line with "sudo fink install gtk+2".
Now download the current Mac OS X binary package of Virtual AGC (yaAGC-macosx-RevisionCode.tar.bz2). On my computer, stuffit automatically unpacked this when I downloaded it. If not, you'll have to manually unpack it from the command line, as follows:

cd Desktop
bunzip2 yaAGC-macosx-RevisionCode.tar.bz2

Install, with this command:

sudo tar --directory=/ -xf yaAGC-macosx-RevisionCode.tar

You'll probably still want the source-code tarball, since it contains a lot of stuff (like source code for the Luminary and Colossus programs) that aren't in the binary tarball. So download yaAGC-dev-RevisionCode.tar.bz2 and unpack it, thus creating a directory called "yaAGC" containing the stuff listed at the top of the page:

tar --bzip2 -xf yaAGC-dev-RevisionCode.tar.bz2

If you want to run Stephan Hotto's LM_Simulator program (and I bet you do!), you'll need to install Tcl/Tk. Do this either by following the instructions at the Tcl/Tk website, or else use "sudo fink install tcltk". (I did the latter, myself, so I can't really vouch for the former.)
Running the program is a little more complex than you're used to:

Run the X-window system. This will (as a side effect) probably cause several command-line windows to open up.
In one of the command-line windows that opened up, type the following:

set path = ($path /usr/local/yaAGC/bin)
SimLuminary131

In some cases, the simulated DSKY won't immediately display on the screen. Instead, the cursor will simply change shape, indicating that it wants you to position the DSKY on the screen. Click on the screen, and the simulated DSKY will appear where you click.

You can stop the program simply by stopping the X-window system. If you don't want to do that (say, because you have other X programs running also), then stopping the program is also a little complex:

Use the mouse to focus the command-line window you used to start the program.
Hit ctrl-C on the keyboard to stop the CPU emulation.
Type the command "killall yaDSKY" to stop the DSKY emulation.

Enjoy, if you're still capable of it after all that!

Uninstallation: Just remove the /usr/local/yaAGC directory containing the binaries, and the Desktop/yaAGC directory containing the sources.

Building Virtual AGC in Mac OS X

I had significant help in getting Virtual AGC working on Mac OS X. Matteo Giani was the first to get Virtual AGC working, on Mac OS X Panther (10.3); in Virtual AGC version 20040828 and later I've incorporated the changes he needed to make to get it to work. Here's a screenshot Matteo has given me. After some additional advice from Greg Dunn, and the appearance of a document from Apple called "Configuring and Running X11 Applications on Mac OS X", I've managed to get Virtual AGC working in Mac OS X Jaguar (10.2) as well. Presumably it will work in all other versions of Mac OS X, but I can hardly guarantee it. In fact, I have had reports that it failed to build even on some 10.3 machines, so apparently it's not entirely consistent.

While none of the steps below is difficult, building the software nevertheless requires a lot more command-line work than the typical Mac OS X user finds congenial. A binary installer would be much better for the typical user. Sadly, I don't know how to package the executables to allow them to be installed directly on a Mac without all of this nonsense, because I'm not a Mac software developer at heart and haven't the energy to learn. Step-by-step instructions for creating an installer (perhaps in the form of mods to the makefiles) from anybody who does know would be very welcome.

The following instructions have been tested on a pristine installation of Jaguar (10.2.8). (In other words, I completely wiped my Mac and reinstalled Mac OS X, just to make sure these instructions would work.) To begin with, you'll need to install a substantial amount of stuff on your Mac. It will use up a lot of disk space and take a long time to do so.

Install Apple's "developer tools", either from the CD that Apple supplies with the Mac OS X installation CDs, or as a download from Apple.
Install the X-window system (XFree86). For Panther, this is apparently an optional install from your Apple-supplied Mac OS X CDs. For Jaguar, you can download from the XonX project.
(Optional.) Install the Allegro cross-platform GUI kit. This is only needed to build yaACA, which is presently only in the early development stage. If you skip this step, the build-process (below) will display warnings and fail to build yaACA, but will work normally otherwise. However, yaACA gives you the ability to use the rotational hand controller (RHC) in the LM, and that substantially adds to the fun-factor of using the simulation. (Sadly, when I try installing Allegro on my iMac, it fails to do so, so I really don't have the option.)
Install fink, which is a program that is used to install other programs. Make sure that you choose the version of fink that works with your version of Mac OS X, and follow the instructions on the fink webpage.
Use fink to install gtk+ version 2. This is done from the command-line with "sudo fink install gtk+2".
Use fink to install automake ("sudo fink install automake"). These are already present on your computer, but the Apple-supplied version didn't work for me. Fortunately, this new version won't conflict with your Apple-supplied ones, which will remain on your computer.
If you want to run Stephan Hotto's LM_Simulator program (and I bet you do!), you'll need to install Tcl/Tk. Do this either by following the instructions at the Tcl/Tk website, or else use "sudo fink install tcltk". (I've done only the latter, so I don't know how well the former works.)
Now download the current development snapshot of Virtual AGC (yaAGC-dev-XXXXXXXX.tar.bz2). On my computer, stuffit automatically unpacked this when I downloaded it. If not, you'll have to manually unpack it from the command line, as follows:

cd Desktop
bunzip2 yaAGC-dev-RevisionCode.tar.bz2
tar -xf yaAGC-dev-RevisionCode.tar

Now that all of the tools you need are installed, you build Virtual AGC basically by just following the same (command-line) instructions as do the Linux folk:

cd Desktop
cd yaAGC
./configure --prefix=/sw
make
sudo make install

Having built and installed Virtual AGC, you run it like this:

The installation of the X-window system will have provided some way to start the X-window system. (On Jaguar, there is an XDarwin icon on the desktop.) Go ahead and start X-windows.
Starting X-windows will (hopefully) will call up one or more 'xterm' command-line windows. Within one of these windows, simply use the SimColossus249 or SimLuminary131 command, et voila!
Proceed over to quick start on the home page to see some things you can do with it.

(Note: The following advice presently doesn't work very well, and is present for future purposes.) It may be that you just can't build the software, no matter how hard you try. In almost all cases, the reason for this will be a problem in installation or configuration of gtk+ (with which I'll probably be unable to help), and that all of the programs will build fine except for yaDSKY and yaDEDA. In this case, as a last resort, you can do the following:

Instead of "./configure --prefix=/sw", do "make NOGUI=yes PREFIX=/sw autogen".
Instead of "make", do "make NOGUI=yes".
Instead of "sudo make install", do "sudo make NOGUI=yes install".
Instead of running "SimLuminary131" or "SimColossus249", run "SimLuminary131_lite" or "SimColossus249_lite".

What these steps will do for you is to bypass the problematic steps such as building yaDSKY and yaDEDA, and to use instead the "DSKY Lite" module of the LM_Simulator program (which doesn't need to be compiled, and so doesn't normally cause you a problem ... or at least, causes different problems).

Last modified by Ronald Burkey on 2009-08-17.