Retro-programming: Android 1.0 development environment.
Step-by-step tutorial to retro-programming
This tutorial is a step by step to setup a vintage Android 1.0–1.5 development environment. If you don’t feel like following all the steps, you can get a VirtualBox image with a donation of your choice.
I wrote about Android retro-programming before, here and there.
Virtual machine
Download and install VirtualBox
Debian Etch
You can download the Debian ISO image on archive.org, you only need the CD image for Android.
Create a Virtual Machine for Debian
Menu “Machine” then select “New…”
Select the Debian ISO image, make sure it says Debian 32-bit.
You can leave the default setting for Hardware and Hard Disk
Install Debian on VirtualBox
Start your virtual machine and follow the installation wizard. You can leave everything to default.
Download the Android packages
Once the box reboots on the Gnome desktop, download the following packages.
You can use either the browser shipped with the distro or you can leverage the “Shared folders” of VirtualBox in the Settings (you will need to reboot).
Java 1.6
Download and install JDK 6 for debian from Oracle or any other mirror.
Run the bin file to install Java locally.
Eclipse Ganymede
With your OS and Java ready, you can download Eclipse Ganymede 32-bits from Eclipse website.
Unarchive the file, Eclipse will be ready to run.
ADT
Download ADT from archive.org, there are a few versions available. Launch Eclipse and open the Help menu and select “Install New Software…”
Click Add, in the top-right corner.
In the Add Site dialog, click Archive.
Browse and select version 0.8.x from the downloaded zip file.
Enter a name for the local update site (e.g., “Android Plugin”) in the “Name” field.
Click OK.
Android SDK
Download the Android SDK 1.0r2 and 1.5r3 from developer.android.com.
Add the SDK to the plugin.
In Eclipse, open the Window menu > Android SDK and AVD Manager
Or Window menu > Preferences > Android > set the SDK Location
Some additional recommendations
While the SDK 1.0 and older ADT 0.7.x works, I would recommend going for SDK 1.5 (Cupcake) which introduces ASyncTasks and ADT 0.9.x. which has a slightly improved developer experience.
Happy coding!
