Mac OS X Internals

These days I am reading the excellent book Mac OS X Internals and experimenting the examples from the book.
The examples are released under the GPL (General Public License).

A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems

You can download free-of-charge "A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems" which is an expanded version of Chapter 1. This is a very interesting document about the history of Mac OS X and how it relates to other operating systems such as the Xerox Alto, Mach, NextStep, BSD, ...
Download the PDF file

Small AppleScript program that will speak the operating system version

Using basic AppleScript features, the machine will speak the version of Mac OS X you are running.
Download speak_the_version.scpt

Replacing the default panic picture

You probably haven't seen it often since Mac OS X is a rock-solid operating system :), but when Mac OS X panics, it displays a default panic picture. This little C program will replace the default panic picture with a picture of your choice.
Download load_panic_image.c

Testing the panic user interface

Since Mac OS X almost never crashes, here's some tool that will simulate a panic. Therefore it will show you the Mac OS X panic screen. Just type:

sudo ./panic_test.bin

Download panic_test.c (source code)
Download panic_test.bin (universal binary)

Towers of Hanoi

The old and "déjà vu" exemple of the Hanoi Towers.
What is different here is that it is written in OpenFirmware
Download hanoi.of
Download hanoi-lib.of

Did you know that Mac OS X is the work of Evil ?

Links

(Apple) Mac OS X is based on Unix
(Apple) Mac OS X Command Line Primer
(Apple) Mac OS X Man Pages
(Apple) Apple Developer Connection: Open Source
(Apple) The source code of Darwin

Books

Learning Unix for Mac OS X
Dave Taylor
O'Reilly
If you're a Mac OS X user and you don't know much about Unix then this book is for you. You will start using the Terminal.App in Mac OS X and slowly discover the power of Unix.

Mac OS X for Unix Geeks
Brian Jepson, Ernest Rothman
O'Reilly
Welcome to the next level ! If you've read and understood the previous book, you can now jump to this one. You'll learn about Unix on Mac OS X. This book is recommended for anyone switching from Unix, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD or DragonFlyBSD to Mac OS X.

Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach
Amit Singh
Addison-Wesley Professional
This book will delve into Mac OS X. You will learn about Mac OS X and how it relates to other technologies such as Mach developed at Carnegie Mellon, BSD from Berkeley as well as NextStep, the operating system designed by Steve Jobs when he was forced to quit Apple in 1985 ...