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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.
First of all, this will accomplish something... namely it gets the message across to developers that when you're developing for Mac, you're developing for OS X, get on the ball.
Why is this bad? OS 9 development has stopped. New computers won't be able to boot into 9. If you are currently running OS 9 on your computer, who is taking that away from you? This isn't a retroactive declaration that Apple is coming in and removing OS 9 from your computers.
If you are running OS 9 and like it, then you're all set. If you want to run some OS 9 apps still, classic mode isn't going anywhere. And if your favorite software can't run in classic mode and doesn't have an OS X version, then this action might be just the nudge needed to get your OS X version.
mark
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
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
Poeple don't like to change their habits, so Apple helps them do it. Remember all the slack that Apple got for removing the Floppy Drive? Getting rid of legacy serial ports and going with USB only? People grumbled for a little while and realized, hey, Apple made the right move for me. In the end most people will be glad that they switch to OS X , or should I say, that Apple made them switch. You can always buy an older Mac on E-bay and run OS 1.0 - 9.0 until the end of time as you know it. I love change bring it on......
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)
This article has it bass akwards.
For the non-expert mac users, let me explain.
MacOS only boots motherbords it was designed to support. Mac Mobos aren't like PCs, they change (sometimes significantly) with each model. Virtually everytime a new mac comes out, Apple has to tweek the OS to run on it correctly. That's why new macs always ship with the brandspankingest new version of MacOS: because that's the only thing that will boot on it.
All this really means is that Apple isn't going to continue tweeking MacOS 9 for new hardware.
That's no surprise, they said they were stopping development on it months ago.
Since every Mac knows in it's ROMs what the lowest version of MacOS it can boot is, these new macs will refuse to boot MacOS 9. Just like how you can't run System 7.5.5 on a classic iMac, but you can run OS X.
I was so angry when my new dual G4 wouldn't boot under my OS of choice, System 4.1. Grudgingly, I upgraded to 6.0.8 (ugh, I just hate the inefficiency of MultiFinder!). If Apple tries to force me to use even later operating systems, I'm through with them. I'll just get a Pentium 4 and a copy of Windows 3.11.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
First off this story's premise flat out WRONG. Apple is not going tweak the hardware to prevent OS 9 from running. Apple doesn't work that way-- hell they went out of their way to make OS X work on machines that aren't officially supported (like my 9500) by providing drivers for hardware they haven't shipped yet.
OS 9-- and OS's 8 all the way back to the original Macintosh contain hardware specific code. Whenever Apple released a new version of the hardware, they'd release an extention to the OS to support it. So, it was very common to have hardware that couldn't run some versions of the OS without extensions.
All apple is doing is that going forward, they are not going to constrain their hardware by the design assumptions of OS 9. OS 9 is 1984 technology and assumes its in control of the hardware. Under OS X the hardware is far more abstracted.
So, Apple is going to design its hardware to run OS X and not *worry* about OS 9. Given the way Apple migrates its computers, if there's some controller chip for which 9 is not compatible, it will still take a year before the whole line is refreshed and os 9 will likely run on those new machines that don't yet have the controller chip, while it doesn't run on other new machines with the newer controller chip-- even though none of them are "officially supported"
The reason windows 95 runs on current hardware is that there has been no innovation in PC hardware. Clock rates have gone up, but nothing new has been done.
Finally this article is full of errors large and small (the coffin was not rolled onto stage-- why include a detail like that to make us think you were there and not making it up, and then get it WRONG?)
That a newspaper publisher in florida is stuck on 9 is NOT news. Check out "Crazy Apple Rumors Site" for a great parody of this kind of reporting.
It will take time for all the applications to migrate, but OS X is clearly moving in the right direction.
To characterize this as apple "tweaking" teh software so it won't run on hardware is to flat out lie about what's going on, and is unfair as well.
This is the kind of bullshit reporting that mac users have to deal with-- if its not claiming that apple is bankrupt when they have $5 billion in the bank, its claiming that apple or steve jobs go out of their way to annoy people, when in fact there's a much more plausible business decision behind it. This is a great example of the idiots at eWeek not understanging anything about how OS 9 works and how hardware is designed and integrated with the OS.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
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
Could the real reason be that booting up in OS X necessitates password entry and systel level protection of files under BSD whereas booting up in System 9 allows any user to trash ANY part of the hard drive without any permissions checking at all?
Currently, dual boot OS X and 9 systems can be trashed by booting up in 9. Single boot OS X systems can be "rooted" instead by booting up with a CD that boots up on System 9 with the right key sequence at powerup. I don't deny that not having to support older software on newer hardware may play a role, but the security issue may also be a big part for Admins who want to lock down publicly accesible systems.
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
... Remember all the slack that Apple got for removing the Floppy Drive? ... People grumbled for a little while and realized, hey, Apple made the right move for me ...
Not quite. The flack Apple received was not really over the floppy itslef, it was over the complete lack of writable removable media in the early iMacs. People did not eventually agree with Apple, Apple reversed itself and eventually equipped some iMacs with removable writable media, CD-R, and later CD-RW. The original Apple line that all people need is ethernet was a cover story for the fact that rev A iMacs with CD-R would have been too expensive.
This article is just plane wrong.
Yes, you can do things with cocoa that you can't with carbon. Carbon has sufficient aaccess to the machine to do all the important things you want to do-- but cocoa is a whole different way of working, and it is much superior to carbon.
Yes, Cocoa applications are MORE NATIVE than carbon. Cocoa is the development environemtn Next made...
Use Cocoa. They are not equivilent. Carbon is great if you need to move a lot of old mac os code over, but otherwise, you should use cocoa. In the areas where you need to call carbon apis (because apple moved the stuff over rather than rewriting it, like quicktime) you can... no problemo. But cocoa is a lot better.
And more native.
And provides things you cannot do in carbon, no way, no how. (Like delegation, protocols, nibs, and categories are glorious.)
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
That article is the opinion of one carbon developer.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."