Think C (stylized as THINK C), originally known as LightSpeed C, is an extension of the C programming language for the

classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Mac (computer), Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and end ...

developed by THINK Technologies, released first in mid-1986. THINK was founded by Andrew Singer, Frank Sinton and Mel Conway. LightSpeed C was widely lauded when it was released, as it used the Macintosh user interface throughout and was extremely fast. It quickly became the ''de facto'' C environment on the Mac, and the related Think Pascal quickly did the same for

Object Pascal Object Pascal is an extension to the programming language Pascal (programming language), Pascal that provides object-oriented programming (OOP) features such as Class (computer programming), classes and Method (computer programming), methods. T ...

development. THINK Technologies was later bought by Symantec Corporation and the product continued to be developed by the original author, Michael Kahl. Versions 3 and later were essentially a subset of C++ and supported basic

object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of '' objects''. Objects can contain data (called fields, attributes or properties) and have actions they can perform (called procedures or methods and impl ...

(OOP) concepts such as single inheritance, and extensions to the C standard that conformed more closely to the needs of Mac OS programming. After version 6, the OOP facilities were expanded to a full C++

implementation Implementation is the realization of an application, execution of a plan, idea, scientific modelling, model, design, specification, Standardization, standard, algorithm, policy, or the Management, administration or management of a process or Goal ...

, and the product was rebranded Symantec C++ starting version 7, then under development by different authors. Version 8 brought support for compiling to

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

. Think's almost complete ownership of the Mac programming market was broken with the introduction of the

-based Macs in the early 1990s. Although Symantic released updates that ran on these platforms, these were not released until the machines had been on the market for almost a year. In the meantime, Metrowerks' product, CodeWarrior, took control of the market, being both faster and easier to use than Think's. Starting with version 4.0, Think included the Think Class Library (TCL), a class library and framework for Mac programming that ran under both Think C and Think Pascal. This largely replaced MacApp as the ''de facto'' class library for Mac programming. Like Think C, this remained a market leader until the release of Metrowerks' PowerPlant, which was generally regarded to be superior. During the early-1990s, Think and Apple collaborated on a cross platform library known as Bedrock, but this effort was abandoned in 1993, by which time PowerPlant was the clear market leader. Despite the decline in popularity of their IDE, Symantec was eventually chosen by Apple to provide next-generation C/C++

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primaril ...

s for MPW in the form of Sc/Scpp for 68K alongside MrC/MrCpp for PowerPC. These remained Apple's standard compilers until the arrival of Mac OS X replaced them with the

GNU Compiler Collection The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is a collection of compilers from the GNU Project that support various programming languages, Computer architecture, hardware architectures, and operating systems. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) distributes ...

(GCC). Symantec subsequently exited the developer tool business.

THINK Reference

THINK Reference is a proprietary documentation database and browser developed by Symantec for programmers on the

platform. It was included with the THINK C development environment sold by Symantec, and previously included with THINK Pascal. It contains a hypertext version of Apple Computer's Macintosh Toolbox API specifications, along with illustrative code samples. THINK Reference was discontinued in 1994.

Reception

Bruce F. Webster of ''

BYTE The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable un ...

'' named ''Lightspeed C'' product of the month for September 1986. While criticizing the documentation as its "single greatest weakness", Webster stated that Lightspeed C would be the choice if he had to select one compiler for the Macintosh. ''BYTE'' in 1989 listed Lightspeed C as among the "Distinction" winners of the Byte Awards, stating that it "wins our respect because of its powerful features and low price". ''THINK C 5.0'' obtained in 4 (out 5) rating in July 1992 issue of Macworld, praising a fast compilation and an outstanding development environment, despite an insufficient documentation. ''Symantec C++ 8.0'' obtained a 3 (out 5) rating in July 1995 issue of Macworld, comparing favourably the speed of its PowerPC compiled code with that of CodeWarrior at the time, but noting how delayed the product has been and its heavy requirement on resources.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Think C 1986 software Integrated development environments Macintosh-only software Classic Mac OS text editors Gen Digital software C (programming language) compilers C++ compilers Classic Mac OS programming tools