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Inside Macintosh is vital for classic Mac programming. Get a copy of the the 1995 Inside Macintosh CD-ROM -- it's much easier to work with than the PDF scans you've found at Vintage Apple. With an online index (like ObiWan), jumping to documentation for a Toolbox function is trivial.

https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/inside-macintosh-cd-rom

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Great tip, thanks! Macintosh C Programming by Example suggested the shareware "Inside Mac Desk Accessory," but I'm not sure if that's available anymore; this seems like a good alternative.

I've also noticed that the original documentation for OS 8 and 9 is still available on the web—http://mirror.informatimago.com/next/developer.apple.com/doc.... Do you know if there was there ever a web-based version of the earlier Inside Macintosh?

Nope. Early editions of Inside Macintosh were pre-Internet. The CD edition was 1995, for instance -- web publishing was still in its infancy at that point.

The PDFs on Apple's old developer site (mirrored at informatimago, among other places) are a decent substitute for the Inside Macintosh CD, although they are a bit scattered around the site.

If you can find a physical copy of Vol I-III on eBay or elsewhere, I highly recommend it. It's much easier to flip through (even though it's a big tome) than searching through PDFs in my experience.

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