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Apple To Prevent Booting Into Mac OS 9?
A user writes that eWeek reports "A tweak to new models in its Macintosh line of desktop and portable computers will prevent booting into Mac OS 9, sources said, leaving the Unix-based Mac OS X as the sole operating system." That's a great idea, if they want to prevent people from upgrading their hardware, and to future versions of Mac OS X. I hope it's merely a rumor; there's apparently no technical reason for it, so if true, I imagine it is just to force more people to adopt the Mac OS X.
Every new version of Mac hardware has traditionally shipped with a bumped version of MacOS, that includes device drivers specific to the new hardware.
They have EOLed MacOS 9, and are focusing development on X. They're not breaking compatibility deliberately. They're just not devoting resources to make a dead operating system run on the new hardware.
You'll still be able to use OS 9 from Classic mode. They're just not providing device drivers to boot it.
Chill.
though I'm not sure that I agree with it. First, MacOS X adoption is essential for Apple. The adoption rate directly influences what software gets ported to MacOS X. Look at Microsoft's recent comments ahout OfficeX. From their point of view their lack of sales is attributable to poor adoption of MacOS X. This is probably false, more likely its due to Office X not being worth the money, but facts don't matter.
Second, it will in the long run cut down on their support costs. "Officially" supporting two operating systems is more expensive than supporting one. In the short term they will have to do this, but at some point they'll be able to cut back on MacOS Classic support.
Third, it may allow them more freedom in hardware design. MacOS Classic has often required enabler extensions to run on new hardware. MacOS X obviously needs some level of tweaking as well. If they can relegate Classic to running in a stable virtual Mac running under MacOS X its a win for Apple. They can concentrate on making MacOS X, their actual breadwinner, run better and halt development on MacOS Classic.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
Mac OS 9 is no longer being actively developed by Apple, therefore there will be no drivers for new hardware, therefore it will not boot.
Just like Mac OS 7/8 will not boot on current Mac hardware. I know, I've tried. I use a much older Mac (Quadra 700) to play some really old games (Pax Imperia) that no longer work properly in Mac OS 9.
So, what's the big deal?
Gabriel Ricard
mark
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
They all have to be modified. In order to be fully OS X native, they need to be re-written.
You're overstating the situation. The Carbon API is a subset of the ancient (in computer terms) Mac OS Toolbox APIs. You don't have to "re-write" applications, but you may need to modify them if you were using Toolbox APIs that are not included in Carbon.
There have been many cases of Classic applications being Carbonized without changing any code at all. Granted, those were some fairly small applications, but the point holds just the same.
Apple has always done this. I have a beige G3 300 at home. It is from 1998. I tried to install System 7 on it for kicks, and it reported that my computer can't run that OS. Get a newer Mac and try to install OS 8 and it won't let you. If a computer is shipped with a certain OS, you cannot install the generation below it. Recent computers are shipped with both OS 9 and X.
This is not news. It is how it has always been.
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
Please give an example of something that the Cocoa APIs can do that the Carbon APIs cannot. According to this article, Cocoa and Carbon are functionally equivalent. Cocoa is the Objective C API. Carbon is the C/C++ API.
Is Cocoa Better than Carbon?
The short answer is no. The Cocoa and Carbon APIs both call functions in the Application Services and Core Services layers of Mac OS X. Contrary to what some people think, Carbon APIs do not call Cocoa APIs. There is no more overhead in calling Carbon APIs than there is in calling Cocoa APIs. The long answer is that if you were going to start writing a new application in a language such as C or Java, and you were only concerned with your application running on Mac OS X, you might choose to learn the Cocoa APIs because they are a higher level API than Carbon. Most Mac developers want to utilize the large base of code they have written over the years as well as their knowledge of C or C++ so they are likely to stick with Carbon rather than learn Objective-C and rewrite their code using the Cocoa APIs.
Can applications that use Cocoa do more things than applications that use Carbon?
The short answer is no. The Cocoa and Carbon APIs both call into the same parts of Mac OS X. However, there is a small set of functions that Apple has not yet made available to Carbon simply because they weren't needed for Mac applications to be made native on Mac OS X. The reverse is also true. There is a small set of functions that Carbon applications can access on Mac OS X that Cocoa-based applications can't simply because Cocoa applications didn't need them because they weren't used to having those functions anyway. Apple is working to reduce these differences to zero.
Are Cocoa-based applications "more native" than Carbon-based applications?
No. Both Cocoa and Carbon call into the same parts of Mac OS X. Cocoa applications are no more or less native than Carbon applications. The Carbon APIs are newer to Mac OS X than the Cocoa APIs and as a result there may be more problems with them in the short term than there are with Cocoa but that is a problem that Apple will solve.
cpeterso
Some of the newer things like the services menu and the font panel, goodies like that.
I haven't done any Cocoa programming, but it sounds like writing a Cocoa app is way easier with Objective-C (or can be done in Java as well) and the tools provided than Carbon apps.
Of course the Real Basic page doesn't mention the Cocoa programming advantages because they claim their own product that they want to sell you is the easiest.
Not Earth-shattering stuff, but I feel like Cocoa is the best place to end up for any program at some point down the road.
mark
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
I work at a newspaper where all of the layout and printing is done from systems running OS 9. It's not because we don't want to run OS X, but because a lot of our software just isn't available for it. If we buy a new system without OS 9 support we'll suddenly lose the ability to natively run QuarkXPress with its numerous 3rd-party XTensions, all of our custom Associated Press applications break, we can no longer connect to our all-important Tandem server (not to mention the Exchange system too), and there's no telling what havoc will be wrought upon our OPI, RIPs, and imagesetters with the new OS X printing services...those things aren't exactly free to replace!
"Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho
No, you're missing the point --- Apple is no longer updating Mac OS 9 as a bootable OS on new systems. You can run Mac OS 9 in the Classic Compatibility mode, where any low level calls are passed up to Mac OS X which then talks to the hardware (eventually). This doesn't affect any of the PPC Linux distros.
I believe Bungie released the source to the marathon trilogy, and there is an effort to port it to OpenGL...
Aleph One
So, you can run that on almost any modern OS, as long as you have the original marathon data files
http://source.bungie.org/
(OSX version is available!)
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