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Apple Drops Mac OS 9
Eugenia Loli writes "MacCentral has the up-to-the-minute updates on the Apple WorldWide Developer Conference. The first big news is that Apple drops Mac OS 9. 'It's time to drop OS 9,' Steve Jobs said. 'We can do things in X that we just can't do in 9... a hundred percent of what we're doing is X only. [...] Mac OS 9 isn't dead for our customers, but it is for developers. Today we say goodbye to Mac OS 9 for all future development,' said Jobs." We all expected this to happen sooner or later, more sooner than later. There's been no new Apple development for Mac OS 9 in some time; only maintenance updates. But I won't stop Mac OS 9 development. You can't stop me! Muahahahaha! Update: 05/06 18:31 GMT by P : More news from WWDC continues to roll in.
Eugenia Loli writes "Probably the really big news is with Jaguar, the codename for Mac OS X 10.2. There is handwriting recognition technology that will be recognized by any application that uses text. Apple also introduced Quartz Extreme, which takes the compositing engine in Quartz, and accelerates it in graphics cards, and combines 2D, 3D and video in one hardware pipeline via OpenGL. 'Everything on the screen is being drawn in hardware by OpenGL.' It requires AGP 2x and 32MB of video RAM. It is not possible on older graphics cards like RAGE 128 cards, said Jobs -- that means it'll work on newer iMacs and eMacs, but not on older machines, he emphasized. Jobs said this puts Apple two years ahead of 'the other guys.'"
Update: 05/06 18:46 GMT by P : An anonymous user writes: "Apple is releasing Mac OS X Rackmount Servers. Also releasing AIM-compatible messaging called iChat; you can create buddy lists of anyone on the local network, and you can use your mac.com username to log in to it."
Rendezvous. Dynamic IP discovery. Lets computers "dynamically discover each other and share them." Proposing as a new industry standard. Jobs cited example of multiple Macs working at home sharing MP3 files with iTunes between multiple computers. Demonstrated example of MP3 files streaming over AirPort. Works with any IP-ready device; built into Jaguar and will also be offered as an open industry standard that can be built into specific devices.
--
Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things.
This makes huge sense for Apple: their future is Mac OS X and the company has been saying this for some time. I'm glad they are making the cut now, still relatively early in the new OS's life cycle. This will help push developers onto the new platform; in turn this is good for end users because the applications they need to run are more likely to appear on Mac OS X.
And again it shows that Apple are able to make gutsey decisions and lead the market rather than follow it. Whatever you think of the relative merits of X vs. 9, this is the kind of bleeding-edge decision making that Apple needs if it is to differentiate itself from the Windows platform.
Sailing over the event horizon
Then there are programs I used everyday, MUSIC programs, like Finale and Digital Performer, that don't work (Performer) in OS X or are buggy (Finale).
I mean, it's great that they want to move to OS X. It's a great OS. I love running it. I just can't get all the things I need to work on it yet. And, if memory serves me, didn't Apple support System 7.X for a long time after System 8 came out? And when they switched to Power PC Chips from Motorola 680XX chips. We had FAT (68K/PPC) programs for like years.
What is the big rush Steve?
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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...ah, the unprotected memory. The cooperative multitasking. The first one taught me to never make off-by-one errors in CodeWarrior (it also, by proxy, taught me all about MacsBug). The second taught me never to FTP things while typing in a telnet window.
Yeah, I'll sure miss Pre-X MacOS...
Some Apple users may feel abandoned by this news, but it is obviously not unexpected. I suggest a little grief-counseling for the truly bereaved, but I'd bet that there are a lot of people out there who would actually consider buying a Mac now that wouldn't have dreamed it a year or so ago.
OS X brings Apple into a larger community and out of isolation. It may take some time for all of this to become apparent, but I think it is pretty obvious that everyone involved (Apple evangelists, *nix evangelists) will be better off with this move.
Guac-foo.
Lots of petrified grits
You might want to rethink that new Mac OS 9 category, then, huh?
:)
-Waldo Jaquith
Down inside, the original MacOS was a lot like DOS - single-application, single thread, and no memory protection. Over the years, multiple applications were retrofitted to the thing, resulting in a horrible mess. CPU dispatching was the worst part. "Cooperative multitasking" wasn't enough. But instead of putting a real scheduler, all sorts of "tasks" (timer tasks, vertical blanking interval tasks, system tasks, deferred tasks, multiprocessor tasks, Open Transport tasks, etc.) were added over time. Each of these had a different set of restrictions on what it could do. It would have been far simpler to put in a real CPU dispatcher early on.
Better late than never, I suppose.
I knew a lot of Windows users who said the same thing when Win95 came out. I knew a few who held onto Win 3.11 like some sort of retarded obsessive high-school crush until it simply no longer worked anymore. They whined, they complained, but, eventually, they were forced to run Win9x. And, guess what? They found out what everyone else did: Win 3.11 sucked. Win95 was better. Win98 was even better.
MacOS 9 sucked. MacOS X is better. The next release should suck even less. That's how these things work. You can whine about it all you want, but whining never turned the tides of progress (if it did, slashdot would be trend-setting.)
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
O.K. Moderators have your fun with me, but I can't help but comment on the new OS 9 icon where the only story under the topic is the end of OS9. Wouldn't this be better placed under Apple:)
"as plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee" - Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. (One man's humorous is another mans flamebait)
Apple seems to be taunting them on purpose, consider their "Rip. Mix. Burn." ads. Gateway payed Apple the sincerest form of flattery with their later ad campaign, but still Apple was the first to stick their neck out.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
The IETF zeroconf working group, led by Apple's Stuart Cheshire, has been working on this for a while.
For good minute-by-minute coverage of the keynote, commit HTTP to Apple Confidential. The latest news (as I post this) is iChat a new Apple IM client built into the 10.2 release of Mac OS X. I know the lead engineer on that project and I expect it will be pretty sweet.
Sailing over the event horizon
With it go some of the things that Mac users have come to love about their quirky boxes...high quality (but expensive) parts, Easter Eggs, strange homebrew interfaces (ADB, anyone?), tiny screens, humorous error messages that convey no information...everything that at one point made Apple Apple.
Well, I don't like it. You can have your protected memory. And while you're at it, you can remember to take your preemptive multitasking, too. We Mac users have always maintained that that kind of stuff just isn't needed for the home user, and I stand by it, even if Steve Jobs won't.
Call me crazy, but I appreciate an intuitive interface; yeah, that's right: intuitive. Since when does it make sense for "Shut Down" to be classified under a little picture of an Apple? How is your average Joe or Jane going to find it there, when it clearly should be labelled "Special". There was a time when the Apple icon was reserved for "Chooser" and "Calculator", but that time has come to pass.
Not to mention the new "brushed metal" appearance of the Apple CD player. Once upon a time, a user could choose (yes, remember choice?) from an extensive handful of horrid, non-standard color schemes for the late, great Apple CD Audio Player.
So let's raise our glasses in honor of Mac OS 1-9, the interface we hated to love for so many years. And let us launch off our Holiday Rockets in honor of Steven Jobs, our own great Lincoln, liberating the slaves of the antebellum command line. And raise too our voices, for tonight we give thanks where none thanks have dared yet go.
Thank you, Macintosh, for everything. The Last Mac Purist,
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
A. Next time, wait till the keynote is over, dont just post the first thing that happens and then have to go back and keep updating the article. There is always lots of interesting stuff said in the keynotes, no point jumping the gun.
B. Thanks for getting the maccentral.com link hammered halfway through the keynote. I always enjoy having my keynote newspage refreshing session destroyed by a few million of the unwashed slashdot masses, half of whom are probably just trying to read the article to find trolling material. This ties back to A. in that if you had waited to post this till after the keynote, those of us that *really* care would have been able to finish getting updates about the keynote before the link was trampled.
Mod me down, I don't care. I'm frustrated.
Time for some tasty Shiner Bock!
Dropping OS 9 has big implications on developers.
For our Mac version of the product, we had just decided (last week!) to drop support for Mac OS 8.6. Carbon on 8.6 was a major pain.
By going 9-up only, it'll spare us about 4 weeks testing.
Now that Apple itself is dropping support for Mac OS 9, it'll be easier on us to talk about dropping 8.6 support.
We'll continue supporting Mac OS 9 for this release, but for the next release, we'll have ample munitions to entirely drop classic Mac OSes. That ought to trim the application code by about 10%, and accelerate the runtime because of all the IF X switches in the code.
Might not sound like that big of a deal, but when your networking stack checks, at runtime, which layer you're using (Mac TCP for 8.6, OpenTransport for 8.6 up to X, and BSD for X), this really adds up. Let alone all the Classic vs AQUA UI tweaks.
Out of curiosity, I just grepped our sources for this specific runtime switch. There are 87 occurences of it!
WTF is that?!? The iBook, a machine they are selling RIGHT NOW does not meet those specs. So basically their current 'entry level' model is never going to have accelerated video? This is ridiculous.
I had one, it was so slow that I sold it. This video driver issue is probably the reason why.
Macs last longer than PCs, huh? How long is an iBook with no video acceleration going to be able to keep up with OS X? Apparently by "two years ahead", Steve means "you'll need the machine we'll be selling two years from now to keep up with the OS we're selling today".
iChat: AIM-compatible messaging built in to Jaguar. Can create buddy list of anyone on the local network, as well. You can use your Mac.com name and don't need AOL account. Sorting. "First time AOL has let anyone under the tent," said Jobs (although others have reversed-engineered AIM compatible chat apps).
I think this is a huge announcement from Apple. With AOL taking Netscape/Mozilla and using it as its Web App replacing IE, we saw the first shot across the Microsoft bow by Case. Now Jobs and Case are teaming up to make AOL IM a bundled part of Mac OS X. Taking Microsoft's game and shoving it right back them. I assume this is why MSN has finally started supporting Mac OS with their service. They are reading the writing on the wall.
We have been seeing Apple getting more aggressive in dealing with Microsoft. Jobs balked at the Microsoft/DOJ "Give the Kiddies Windows" settlement, Apple's website now shows you that Mac OS X kicks XP's butt, the famous Photoshop "bakeoffs" and now the AOL IM in Jaguar. What next?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
"I wonder if anyone is masochistic enough to attempt run an old 68xxx application in emulation mode in OS9 while running that under classic mode in OSX :"
I just couldn't let this one pass by unchallenged. My first Mac was a Quadra 700 and the software I used then was WriteNow (68K Assembly ), FoxBase+ (68K) and I added
Cyberdog as a browser with OS 8 on my PM6500. All run flawlessly under OS X 10.1 on my G3 400 PowerBook. In fact they a much more stable and I don't notice any
difference in speed. My hat off to Apple Enginerring. An incredible feat of backwards compatability.
If you install the dev tools, the
- /Developer/Applications/Quartz\ Debug
application can be used to disable double-buffering. You'll see how different the system feels when using the "Autoflush drawing" switch.Now, in terms of actual speec, getting a task done un X means not stopping other tasks, unlike in Classic. One striking example is those Photoshop bake-off Apple likes to do against Intel.
This really doesn't prove anything, because while Mac OS 9 -based Photoshop creams Intel-based Photoshop in throughput, the Windows version actually still lets you run stuff in the background, where as Mac OS 9 would technically suck the entire processor to itself, making background processes grind to a halt.
It'll be interesting how Photoshop back-offs will do, now that Adobe finally released it.
Apart from the UI perceived sluggishness, there are area where Mac OS X is clearly faster. We've noticed this from out (heavily) network-based application. Download speeds are much more efficient using BSD sockets than OpenTransport. On the plus side, the machine is not rendered useless when downloading data.
Couldn't you just do the test once and set some function pointers which all subsequent code would use?
DNA just wants to be free...
(IANAMU - I am not a mac user)
The only thing I have to say about this is that Microsoft is doing the exact same thing with their next windows release - dubbed "Longhorn". The gui is going to be accelerated by your graphics card using the 3d features of your card. This will (no doubt) use Direct3d instead of OpenGL but it serves the same purpose.
So your argument is invalidated because both sides are doing the same thing - Apple just happened to beat them to the punch, and I , for one, applaud them for it.
Derek
Wow. Ping the broadcast address :)
--"Karma is justice without the satisfaction"
however this is going to force some people to either buy new hardware or just never upgrade... If I'm worng... please set me straight.
;-)
You're worng.
Think of OpenGL: if your graphics card can do OpenGL stuff, then the libgl on your computer will hand off the OpenGL processing straight to the graphics hardware. If it can't, your libgl will do the OpenGL stuff in software.
(At least, that's how it's supposed to work. Seems like in PC-land it doesn't much of the time.)
If your Mac has support for Quartz Extreme, it'll use it. If it doesn't, it'll continue to use software-based Quartz rendering.
Steve never said you had to have hardware accelerated graphics to run Jaguar, or anything that would imply that.
This isn't going to "force" anybody to do anything. I am typing this from my 4-year-old Mac running OS X. It's slower to respond than OS 9, but I like the OS so much better that I put up with it. (The developer tools alone are simply wonderful, and worth the switch.) There's nothing I have to "go without" in using my old computer, I just have to wait longer for it to happen. Same deal here. Don't want to upgrade? Then deal with it -- it won't suddenly get worse than it was, just because of Apple's decision.
they are dead last in Legacy Support
I can't agree with this. Yes, there have been many times when Apple said, "We've decided to ditch this old technology, and move to something far superior". Every time it happens, people whine and moan. But they always have plenty of time to upgrade (years, usually), and backwards compatilibily has always been excellent (68k to PPC, for example).
Your computer doesn't become less productive when Apple decides to put in a new feature. This is ridiculous. I can understand some frustration when your 1337 new computer isn't the hottest thing on the market anymore... but it really is silly. Apple says, "Buy a new iBook tomorrow and you'll get [feature]!!" And everyone who bought an iBook last month complains that Apple isn't selling the same product for 5 years. Look at the big picture, people.
The streets shall flow with the blood of the Guberminky.
Because in real life, it turned out to suck. AGP is now mainly used to quickly transfer stuff to on-card memory. Hell, most 'power' cards these days are shipping with 64 or 128 megs. And I remember being all chuffed up that my Mach64 card had a whopping 2 megs of VRAM...
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Now [A]pple rips off the name of an old Atari product, Jaguar.
First of all, this is just a code-name. But, on that subject, did you ever hear the story of Carl Sagan's lawsuit against Apple? The Power Mac 7100 was developed under the code name "Carl Sagan," and when that worthy found out, he sent his lawyers a-calling. The Apple engineering team obligingly changed the code-name... to "butt-head astronomer."
Sorry I was being a smart a$$.
--"Karma is justice without the satisfaction"
I don't know if a Radeon would be sufficient, or if you'd have to get a GeForce. Considering the late-model G4 Titaniums have either the Radeon M6 or the Radeon 7500 Mobility in 'em, I'd guess a Radeon will suffice.
Is your display VGA or ADC? The latter will be decidedly more expensive to replace your video card on - you'd have to get the DVIator or a similar device, since third-party Mac video boards don't have ADC ports. However, the actual video-card replacement is pretty easy:
- Open case. (i.e., pull tab on side, swing side panel down.)
- Remove retainer screw from video board.
- Remove old video board from slot.
- Insert new video board into slot.
- Put retainer screw back in its former place.
- Close case.
- Plug everything in and turn system on.
It's really not that hard. Video RAM is on the video board, and may not be upgradeable at all. The first Rage128 RE PCI boards had header connectors for RAM daughtercards, but the newer boards quite possibly won't.
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
First off, you need a LOT of video ram to make this work fast. I guess 32mb is a lot, but still, if you run out the card starts swapping between video ram and main ram, which is slow. I don't know how much space all those Aqua graphics take up with animations, but I'd be surprised if it's a lot less than 32mb.
Secondly, OpenGL just wasn't designed for 2D graphics! It has virtually NO support for 2D drawing, if you wish to display something it must either be sent directly to the card as pixel data (slow) or uploaded to video RAM and displayed as a texture on a polygon. This seems like a rather strange way to go about things.
Take the lack of support for text in the API. When writing the VGL, which is the OpenGL widget set for my game (btw I'd be the first to admit I'm not a hotshot coder) I had to create my own text/font system. It was fast certainly, but required you to upload the font to video ram again, which placed restrictions on how you managed font textures.
I can't figure out why anyone would want to use 3D acceleration for making 2D stuff go faster. As far as I know, 2D and 3D acceleration are different things - am I wrong?
APIPA is yet another acronym for link-local IPv4 addressing.
What Apple is calling "Rendezvous" begins with link-local IPv4 addressing and adds "multicast DNS" (which Microsoft wants to call "link-local multicast name resolution," i.e. LLMNR... sigh).
Here's what Rendezvous *actually* is: it's the last little bit of what Appletalk had going for it, finally "ported over" to work on the Internet protocol. Not only is Mac OS 9 in the terminal patient's ward-- so is the Appletalk network protocol. Happy happy day.
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jhw
If you want to talk backwards, compatible, I have DESK ACCCESSORIES from 1985 that run without a problem on my iBook and iMac today.
Try that, Windows boys
Actually I've run Windows 1.0 in a window on top of windows 2000. The applets, write.exe, calc.exe, and paint.exe - all work fine. No overlapping windows though - damn that Apple lawsuit...
-josh
Except when loading up 10,000 Mozilla/OmniWeb/IE windows, OSX works very fast for me. I don't think there will be that much difference with Jaguar if most of the emphasis is on increasing graphics speed.
When I load up loads of windows, for some reason the menus get sluggish. I think this may be about the memory the web browsers are using as much as anything else, but it's odd considering that I have 1.5gb RAM.
The new 1ghz system is only about 30% faster than the dual 450. So I wouldn't worry about getting rid of the dual 450 just yet.
Hope that helps.
D
What really got me excited today was the news about Inkwell, the handwriting recognition engine for 10.2.
I'm excited because it's so useless. There is no way that Jobs would put his people through the effort of bringing handwriting recognition to OS X unless it was a precursor to the iPad. My guess is October, January at the latest.
Soooooo happy.
Kevin Fox
According to Apple's Mac OS X new version page (http://www.apple.com/macosx/newversion/), Quartz Extreme's supported video cards are:
nVidia: GeForce2MX, GeForce3, GeForce4 Ti, GeForce4 or GeForce4MX. ATI: any AGP Radeon card. 32MB VRAM recommended for optimum performance.
RECOMMENDED, NOT REQUIRED
Check the info before you start the next flame war.
Open GL does not directly support 2d manipulations. but there is a way of doing it, pioneered by the guys at Raycer Graphics Corp. Look up their patents on large matrix and 2d manipulations.
Here is a quiz for you:
1. which company bought. Raycer Graphics?
2 Who was the Head of 3d engineering at Apple
(Answers: Apple, ex-CTO of Raycer)