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MacWorld Expo Report, Part II
Yesterday, I reported on the Jobs keynote and his ability to expand his reality field to encompass and entire ballroom. Today, do people still feel energized by his talk? Some were still pumped just to a part of the show, gasping and oo'ing and enjoying the melodrama of it all, but the next day there was a collective vibe of "well, was that it?". This is not to say that they were disappointed by it, but they perhaps wanted something more. The rumors had been flying for months about a flat screen iMac, and since that was what Apple brought forward, it was going to been seen as an evolutional, and thus anti-climactic, step, even if it was daringly packaged.
Many noted that they were expecting a speed bump for the G4 towers, but with Seybold coming up in February, many expect Apple to announce their tower update then to a more professional audience.
At the Tuesday keynote "The Power of X", Phil Shiller and Avie Tevanian talked about OS X and what it means to apple and to the future of the Macintosh platform. Apple is stressing how stable and crash proof OS X is and what this can means to the "Apple Faithful". They discussed the kernel, the media layers, security and the user interface and how it all works together. What they've done with their BSD derived core is really impressive. As part of the keynote, Tweak Films showed off an OS X based deep ocean wave visualization app that they assert they ported from Unix in weeks, with significant functionality gains.
The show floor itself was bouncy fun. For me it was a nice change from the austerity of a Linux exposition and it's focus on sheer functionality, capability and commerce. Large exhibitors included Alias|WaveFront, Adobe (not having anyone at this conference arrested, I noted), FileMaker pro, Microsoft and a number of other software development houses. As I walked the floor, I made a mental note of applications that were available for both Windows and the Macintosh. The reality is that there isn't much that is specifically for the Mac intosh, with the obvious exception of the hardware from apple, with all the vendors one ends up asking, what is unique here?
What Apple has that is unique, and sadly Windows and Linux both lack, is cohesion. Everyone with devices and software for the Mac seem to work so well with each other and the OS. We should strive to emulate that cohesion whenever practical for open source software. Before, the apple story was cohesion without stability or power. Now, with BSD at it's core, you can bet that Apple will be able to attack Windows, SUN and Linux on the power front. A year from now it will be interesting to see how many people are running apache to serve pages from their Apple machines, and I will be unsurprised if someone is giving an apache serving presentation at the next Apple WWDC.
Please note that I have posted some pictures of my trip to MacWorld, with some pictures of the new iMac and of the keynote.
A colleague of mine just traded his win2k/linux laptop for a 12" white iBook with MacOSX.
Though reluctant at first I have to say I was impressed.
In short, this is quite faster than what I expected after reading many comments, it is also cheap, has 5 hour battery life, an included DVD/CDRW drive, MSIE (like it or not, it is quite more functional as most other browsers and its only cons are : -1- it's Microsoft -2- it may still have backdoors)...
Now with Virtual PC or OfficeX it becomes an obvious choice for the hardcore multi-environment worker.
Mass-Porting Geek know they may quickly get some of their predilection Free Software up and running on this machine.
My personal favourite is Interface Builder which I have known for years...
So, this is both sexy looking and a seriously tempting alternative to other worl.
But no, it has nothing to do with a community but rather with a unique feeling/identity. The community is the consequence.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Being Mac faithful has been a hard thing. It's so hard to justify a company locking down it's software to just use its hardware. It's so difficult to watch Apple make silly little choices like the dock and know that it will latch on to that choice until the next complete revision of the OS.
But, hey, it does cool stuff. I mean, just putting my machine to sleep is cool -- the power button pulsates in a white glow to let me know that it's on but down. It looks alive ... like it is breathing.
And since I've been running 10.1, I haven't crashed. I've had to restart about four times in four months -- three times for system upgrades and once because I shut the computer down because I was going to be out of the house for a week -- and every time I realize that I've left my startup preferences all wrong, that I haven't been keeping up with my changes in my work flow. I'm still learning how I use it.
OS X is so rediculously stable (compared to all of my previous Mac/Win9X experiences). And it is so easy to use (compaired to my previous Linux/BeOS/BSD eperiences). Sure, there are imperfections -- the dock sucks when compaired to the ease-of-use of the Apple menu, etc, but it's not as confusing as any random X Windows client nor as difficult as and version of Microsoft's ... thing.
I'm a satisfied customer, and everything that I've seen so far has just made me want to be more of a customer. And that can't be all bad, can it?
--Mike
Why? Because if all goes well At MacWorld Tokyo the product I've been waiting for for a year is supposed to be demoed and released. It's Microcode Solutions' hardware-assisted PowerPC emulation for x86 PCs. http://www.microcode-solutions.com/home.htm
;-)
Some people are very happy with the new iMac announcement. Some are waiting for the G4 Tower speed bump that should be announced at the next expo. But all of us MacOS lovers who defected to the Dark Side over the years for one reason or another might be made happy by the little PCI card and software package that should be released soon.
Currently we x86 users are limited to running OS 8.x on 68k Mac emulators, the best of which is the GPL'ed Basilisk II. This works great for playing older Mac games (there are a lot of great ones never ported to Windows or Linux) and using any 68k-compatible Mac apps for a great level of interoperability, or just the cool factor of running so many OSes off one machine. It runs blazing fast with 68k code--but the obvious problem is that anything remotely recent is PPC-only, and OS 9 and OS X are far out of reach.
But the PPC emulator to be introduced at Macworld Tokyo will change all that. To MacOS, it will be indistinguishable from a real iMac. A cheap software-only version will be made available, but it won't run all the newest stuff; the jewel in the crown will be the hardware-assisted version, which will have a real, fast G3 processor and RAM on a PCI card. It should run anything an iMac will run and at native speeds or better (depending on processor).
Any OS 9.x operating system will run full-speed on it and it's very likely that OS X will be made to run on it too, although by all reports OS X on an older model iMac is no speed demon.
Since the Mac's VirtualPC has run all the latest Windows OSes for some time, it's only fair that PC users should finally be able to run the latest Mac OSes, OS X in particular. And with this G3 and RAM card, running the MacOS on an equipped x86 box will be a lot smoother than the Mac's current all-software VPC emulation of x86.
Before dismissing it as vaporous, the Microcode Solutions website may be Spartan, but the man behind it coded the first fully functional 68k Mac emulator for x86, Fusion, and has already released a rudimentary PPC Mac emulator for old Amigas equipped with PPC cards, through Blittersoft.
To some this won't mean much. But personally, I've always loved the MacOS, ever since I used System 7 many a year ago. But I didn't want to be locked into expensive proprietary hardware, or not be able to run Windows games. But if all goes well at Macworld Tokyo, a properly equipped PC may now be able to run Linux, Windows, and even OS X if the G3/RAM card and emulator are purchased. If there's demand, maybe the emulator software part of the package could be ported to x86 Linux.
It will be interesting indeed to see if Microcode Solutions comes through at Macworld Tokyo, and it'll be even more interesting to gauge the reaction of Macworld attendees if they see OS X running well on a PC. And that is very likely, since Jim Drew has been talking about his new product and answering questions about it on all the Mac-related emulation sites and forums, and even gave out pricing information--$349.95 for the fully-functional package with the PPC card, or $49.95 for the cheapo software-only emulator that will be far more limited in its abilities. $349.95 (plus OS purchase price, because you're not a pirate) to run OS X at native iMac speeds on a commodity "Wintel" box, with all its advantages, sounds pretty damn good.
And before any zealots start modding this down, it's valid news about an upcoming Mac expo, which definitely seems to be related to this thread. I may have defected to the Dark Side, but I still want all that creamy Mac goodnes. Having your cake and eating it too might be possible in a month and a half.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
Erm... Apple Computer OWNS NeXT Computer, all of NeXTs assets and staff at the time of purchase moved to Apple.
That was classic intercourse!
Yeah, top left is quicker to access with the mouse. The OS 9 apple menu is also easier to hit, since it's in the corner and effectively infinitely large in two directions because there is no margin to the left or top; you can't 'overshoot' the icon (I'm sitting on OS X now and can't double-check that there's no margin to the left [there is one on OS X--shame on Apple], but I believe there are none).
There's all sorts of margin around the Start menu, and it's easy to overshoot it unless you move your mouse more slowly. Fitt's Law, dontcha know. Quoth Bruce Tognazzini:
It's the same principle, though: a user-editable menu holding a variety of system-wide functions (launching apps, settings, etc.).
This history of the Mac OS is both incomplete and incorrect. Isn't there a (-1,Wrong) mod? I know some of the people involved during this time so this corrects the errors in the above
///. Apple probably licensed the source code as well. For those of you too young to remember, UCSD Pascal was the Java of it's day. I first used it iin '76 on a DEC LSI 11-based desktop machine whose name I now forget.
Apple *bought* the UCSD Pascal system
IIRC, SoftTech owned the commerical rights to UCSD Pascal (from U.C. San Diego, where it was developed) and licensed it to Apple for the ][ and
Apple took UCSD Pascal and ported it to the Lisa then Mac
Apple actually bought a compiler from a 3rd party that generated 68000 code from UCSD Pascal source. This included the wonderful segment manager from UCSD Pascal that all Mac programmers love to hate. UCSD Pascal was never ported to either system AFAIK.
and further developed the UI using ideas copied from Xerox PARC and SUN Windows
Jef Raskin was the original proponent of the Lisa and Mac at Apple and it was he who convinced Jobs to start development on these projects. His PHD thesis was called "A Quick Draw Engine" and laid out the basis for the UI that was later developed at Xerox Parc. So in reality, Xerox Parc took the ideas from his thesis and he later took them back. See this search at google for more details.
> Ok, first off. Darwin !=OS X
;-)
Dude, I'm not a moron. It's a lower layer of a multi-layered system, between the Mach microkernel and the upper layers of the OS and its APIs and its Quartz engine.
This is why I said "let's say Apple decides to add things into the upper layers in the near future that only work on G4's..."--because I recognize that they could, though I find it unlikely.
> Secondly, its sounds like hella vapor.
I explained in my first post the several reasons why it *most likely* isn't. First, the man behind it is a respected programmer who wrote the first complete and functional 68k Mac emulator for the PC, Fusion. Second, the company already released its software to run Mac OS on Amigas with PPC cards over a year ago, and licensed it to Blittersoft, and has been working on this ever since with the Amiga code as starting point. Third, the man behind it is going around to all the Mac emulation and convergence forums dropping droll hints about the product and drumming up expectations in the community for a Macworld Tokyo release. So either a respected individual has morphed into the Bitboys or he's going to release a big product he's excited about at Macworld Tokyo.
> (also what the hell does iMac-based emulation mean?)
It means that his emulator will be based around emulating an iMac.
> The problem with iMacs (at least the older CRT ones) is that the Boot ROM is on the Processor card.
Yes, which makes little difference since the boot ROM no longer actually does much. Unlike in the old 68k days, it's pretty much "Hi OS, I am a boot ROM. Bye." And that's that. And OS X doesn't even need a boot ROM--remember, Darwin.
> Therefore to act like an iMac, they're going to have to have some form of the Boot ROM on this card.
Not at all. They could devise their own original code that tells the OS it's a boot ROM, when it isn't. At least one existing Mac emulator already does this, mimicking the ROM's functions while not actually using any of Apple's proprietary code. But as I said, thanks to Darwin a boot ROM wouldn't be necessary to run OS X.
Also, there are some commercial 68k Mac emulators that have been sold for a long while which come with simple utilities for dumping a ROM image from a real live Mac. The pretense is that if you have an old Mac you no longer use, you have the right to use an image of the ROM for other purposes. Fair Use. Of course, few people actually use those included ROM extraction utilities on Macs they don't intend to use--instead they just download ROM images off USENET or the Web. But the company making the software can't be held responsible, because they provided a perfectly legal way for you to use your own Mac ROM.
Since this product doesn't target Mac users--it targets a certain enthusiast segment of the PC crowd--anyone likely to buy it already knows where to download an iMac ROM. They're out there as we speak, and have been ever since a few months after iMacs were released.
In addition, Apple has released updates on its website that actually have Open Firmware updates embedded in them.
> I find it hard to believe that Apple would let this company just put anything like that near a Wintel PC
Again, they have zero legal recourse as long as the company either bypasses the ROM by using their own original code, or includes an original utility for dumping your own legal copy of your own legal ROM from your own iMac. The company that makes a product can't be held responsible if some users pirate iMac ROMs, since they will have provided a legitimate means for users to obtain legal ROMs from their own hardware. As I said, existing products have successfully taken both approaches, althout I must say that no existing product is as good as the GPL'd Basilisk II.
And either way, OS X could be made to boot on it without a ROM at all thanks to the Darwin layer.
But since I know the product will support the older MacOS's, and can't be sure yet whether it'll support OS X right off the bat, I rather suspect the programmer has just bypassed the necessity for the ROM through creative coding, since at leat one emulator already does so.
> (not to mention the fact that they're a product 2 months from a pretty major hardware release and nobody's seen it in action yet).
That's usually how giddy master programmers are about their major products they've spent years developing. Mr. Drew probably isnt giving deatails because he's having fun building up expectation. He probably wants to play Steve Jobs for a Day and surprise everyone with his new baby. At least, this is what I would gather from what I've been reading him say in the emulation forums. He's always coy and cryptic in a playful sort of way, rather than the "oh no my product sucks" sort of way.
We'll know at Macworld Tokyo whether his product lives up to the expectations he's helped fuel. If it runs OS X at any decent speed--not even full speed of a real iMac--those who'd think about buying such a card/emulator combo would be impressed enough. If it runs OS X at about the full speed of an iMac, we'll be very, very impressed and happy with it. If it only runs OS 9, we'll be disappointed but hopeful that OS X can still be made to work with it with a little Darwin-hacking.
We'll know soon enough
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
Much of the interface is still bitmapped images to speed up rendering. Jpegs and non-vector images are handled just like the bitmapped interface images..
Isn't OSX's dispay engine vector based? Very cool but isn't that a fairly big disadvantage when it comes to display photographic images like jpg's etc? Do they have a way around it or am I wrong in general?
;-)
You're generally wrong.
Quartz being vector-based doesn't mean it can't do bitmaps. Compare Display PostScript, or PostScript printers.
Oh, come on Zico! You are assuming that Mac users cluster together for TECHNICAL support, like Windows users do.
It's just amazing to see how much freezes and crashes and almost-working peripherals Windows people are willing to endure. Eventually, you learn how to avoid specific problems. You don't burn CD's after you've used the printer, for example. This is the kind of experience of Windows people typically will have. They also know how to reinstall drivers, and sometimes even WHAT to reinstall.
Windows can fsck itself up in an incredible number of ways, and "some" Windows experience will not get you anywhere. Any of your friends is just likely to spend several hours sweating over the computer and then announce the problem impossible to solve and requiring a reinstall of Windows. As if that would solve anything permanently.
Mac users meet for MORAL support. When 95% of the world looks wryly at you because you've got the wrong brand of shoes... errr, a friendly and working computer, you need someone to say: hey, you made a smart choice.
--Bud
I'm sitting on an 8200/132 running OS 9.1 and alas, there is a margin to the left. Some third party menus can place themselves to the left of the Apple menu although most are on the right. But even without there is a 10 pixel or so dead space on the far left of the menu bar.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
same post, about a month ago
-Jon
this is my sig.
"Also, if the previous directory window has been closed, it is now impossible to navigate backwards. Other systems (Windows included) have found solutions to this problem - why hasn't the Mac?" You raise a lot of valid points, but this one is plain WRONG - to instantly access your folder tree in MacOS, you need only CMD-Click on your window's title and you'll get a pop-out tree hierarchy. You can combine the CMD modifier with the OPTION modifier and gracefully surf back as many levels as you like without spawning any new windows. The ability to COMBINE click modifier keys is another strength of the MacOS approach over Windows' multi-button mouse system. MacOSX also includes a "BACK" command accessible as a kbd shortcut or in the windows' title bar.
That was classic intercourse!
Of course, you can tear off the application menu and have one-click switching. And in OS X, you can configure your panel to autohide, and/or configure it with small icons that magnify fully as the cursor passes over them.
All interfaces are learned. MacOS 7.x-9.x is easier to learn, and more consistent, than most other OS interfaces.
Command click the title of the window, and you will get a pop-down of the full path to the current folder. I certainly prefer that to having a button bar with a web-like interface.
Then get a two-button mouse and plug it in. My father knows not of context menus. I use them extensively. He has the original mouse, while I use a Logitech optical mouse. I have no interest in teaching him the difference between right and left clicking, and he has no interest in learning, since he can do everything he needs to do with one button.
I don't see this as a major weakness. Context menus are important to Windows and Linux users (and I use both) because the UI is so poorly designed that they actually help. On Mac, the context menus are a minor assistance at best - in fact I mainly use them to quickly eject disks.
Or you could buy a tablet, or one of the many input devices designed for the disabled, and supported by the Mac, or just install one of several shareware or freeware programs which add full keyboard navigation to the Mac.
While adding their own far more crippling problems and inefficiencies.
I find it quite easy to use, though not as easy or seamless as the classic interface. The multicolumn directory browser is growing on me. At first, it annoyed me, but it is actually turning out to provide a faster move through directories in depth. Plus, being a long-time UNIX type, I like having the underlying BSD layer with a standard UNIX command line - it means that I will be able to consolidate my mix of Linux and Mac boxes into all OS X boxes, which will save me time administering my home net. If you like, you can always just run FFree86 and Gnome on OS X and work that way.
No truer thing was ever said.-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
"Apple has created a "Vibe" about their product. Created a myth that their products are the only thing that can do certain things.
"
A myth? The state of color correction on Windows is vastly inferior to the Mac. Colorsync is system wide. You don't have to _think_ about it. Any user can take a picture from their camera, and print it out. On a Mac, it will look exactly like what is on the screen. On Windows, you're lucky if the colors look similar.
There's a back command in Classic. The keyboard navigation is fully documented in the on-line help, under "Shortcuts". It contains:
Cursor arrows -- move currently selected icons
Begin typing -- select the icon which starts with... (Note, this means "can" selects "canada", as opposed to "ccc" when "canada" is the 3rd item starting with "c". I don't know how people can stand that style, what you have to type to select something _changes_ as items are added/removed from the list!)
Command-Down -- Open selected icon
Command-Up -- Open parent folder
Command-Left -- Open twist-arrow
Command-Right -- Close twist-arrow
Command-DEL -- Move item to trash
RETURN -- toggle rename mode
Hold Option while opening to close previous window; works with mouse and keyboard. Opt-Cmd-Up closes window and opens parent.
There's lots more, but that's just off the top of my head--because that's the stuff I use the most.
All of that is retained in OS X, plus the "go back" button in the Finder window toolbar. The major difference is Command-N opens a new window now (like a web browser), and you need Command-Shift-N for new folder.
In OS X, hide the dock to get your screen space back-- either right click the seperator and select "Turn Hiding On" (yes, believe it or not, Mac OS supports two button mice)-- cmd-tab or cmd-shift-tab will cycle you through the apps, or just mouse the dock. Right clicking the app's dock icon will get you a list of open windows to bring to the front as well as contextual choices, opt-click will enable you to force quit.
Yes, holding option while opening directories in OS 9 will close the directory behind them. In OS X this is not the case. You can chose to open the next window within the present window by setting a simple Finder pref. Apparently, you are criticizing without any real objective experience in the OS. Views can be directory specific or window specific as you chose. Both systems allow you to command click the title bar to easily travel up the heirarchy, OS X gives you several more options with the column view or a back button in the tool bar.
You say the option of a two button mouse may confuse beginners, but that advanced users lose out. I say why confuse new users when an advanced user would want more choice in input devices anyhow. Make the default simple and don't force any particular input device on the advanced user, let them customize at will. I prefer a Kensington trackball, don't charge me more for a two or three button mouse I'll never use.
Again, your lack of experience with the OS shows. In OS X go to the Keyboard System Preference and turn on "Full Keyboard Access" all fields, buttons, checkboxes, menues, dock items, etc will be at the command of your keyboard, but then why argue for a fancy mouse?
Go to column view in OS X, you will get your universal viewer, been NextStep technology before it was anyone elses.
When you finally wake up and pull your head out of the sand, be sure to let us know, ok?
From what I've read about X (I still use 9.2 because I have an older machine, but may upgrade shortly) it solves this problem quite nicely. But most "members of the Mac community" remember the crashes, not fondly, but well.
sulli
RTFJ.
Raskin had a completely different model for a user interface. He didn't want a mouse or a GUI. His concept was the ultimate keyboard-driven word processor. The result was not the Mac, but the Canon Cat, which lasted six months on the market before being discontinued.
The menubar style of Windows apps is from X. The Mac menubar cannot be done in a point-to-type environment, also it was more of an X design to not have a particular app be "active" but to have them all be equal. Turning open windows into an icon with 1:1 mapping between each icon and each window is from X (this is how Windows worked before '95). Keyboard navigation was exactly copied from the CDE/Motif environment, including the Alt+Tab (MicroSoft improved this by making Alt+Tab go to iconized windows, CDE required the mouse to open an iconized window), and the meaning of ctrl and shift on navigating lists of items.
In fact I see a lot more of X in MicroSoft's interface than Macintosh. The main thing taken from Mac is desktop icons (ie icons that do not correspond to windows). Also the keyboard bindings could claim to be copied from Mac, though at the time almost all X applications were copying the Mac bindings as well (one big difference is that the X applications, and most MSDOS ones, used the "Alt" key, MicroSoft's insistance on using "Ctrl" resulted in a huge mess and is mostly responsible for the claims that X appliations are inconsistent).
Last year's PC Expo is summarized here.
The next one will be held June 25-27 2002 at the Javits Convention Center in New York.
I play Nerd-Folk!