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Macs Won't Boot Into Mac OS in 2003
Magnus Olsson writes "Apple announced at Apple Expo in Paris, that they are dropping the ability to boot into Mac OS after January 2003. It will still be possible to access Mac OS via the Classic environment under Mac OS X." Apparently, eWeek was right, and the final nail is being driven. So, where's mol for Mac OS X?
I use OSX for most of the time - it's my OS of choice - but what about some games? Some games run pants within classic and some are ok - like Unreal Tournament - it runs way more smoothly in native 9. Is Apple gonna release patches for OS9 games? I don't see a problem goin full OS X except for playing my old games.
Fight Crime - Shoot Back!
Unlike WinOS/2 in the OS/2 world, OS X does not include an installation of the bits of OS 9 necessary for Classic mode.
You MUST install OS 9 before installing OS X, otherwise you have no Classic mode.
If they disable booting OS 9 (which is exactly how one starts an OS 9 install), I'm not sure how one would go about installing OS 9 before installing OS X.
I suppose it's possible that Apple could follow IBM's lead and include the necessary parts of OS 9 as part of the OS X install. That would most likely be the simplest solution.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
You *can* install OS9 afterwards (for Classic access).
Did a fresh install of Jaguar on my TiBook. Didn't even think of OS9 since all my apps are OS X approved. Wait, except for that damned Toast CD which is only OS9 (for the install). Popped out my OS9 CD that came with OS X 10.1.2, 'c' during startup, and installed a fresh copy of OS9.
Reboot back into Jaguar and launched Classic mode. It did its upgrade thang, and all was well.
(after installing Toast Titanium I was then able to apply the patch to make it an OS X app).
From the press release:
:^)
All new Macs sold since January 2002 have had Mac OS X factory-set as the default operating system. Over 75 percent of customers using these Macs have elected to keep Mac OS X as their default operating system...
Is nobody at Apple paying attention to this number? When Jobs acted like this was a good thing at the last MacWorld Expo in NY, my jaw hit the floor. In spite of the fact that Mac OS X is the default boot OS on new Macs, Mac users were going out of their way to switch to OS 9 as their boot-up OS.
This means a lot, if you think about it.
* Obviously one-fourth of new Mac users are not using any OS X specific applications. There's no "Futuristic box" in OS 9 to parallel Classic in OS X.
* This quarter of new Mac buyers aren't happy with the "Classic from within X" compromise, for whatever reason.
* This number doesn't count the people who simply don't know how to switch to OS 9 as their default boot disk. That might sound crazy, but in one usability test for our software, we had a user insert the CD upside-down, and not by accident but by ignorance. You can, unfortunately, never underestimate your spectrum of users. Think of how many new Mac users, if they knew of OS 9, might prefer it.
* This also means that the number of OS 9-only users is still pretty solid. Take the users of all the Macs out there now that are still running that won't run OS X -- even if all the people buying new Macs are old Mac users you're only reducing their numbers by 75% the number of new Macs sold. That's pretty slow. Heaven forbid some of that nearly 25% are new Mac users are choosing to boot into OS 9 from the start! It's a hard sale for Apple. The most users in the Mac market, believe it or not, are still on OS 9 or below.
Regardless, and in a complete Jekell/Hyde move, I think Apple's doing the right thing, at least from the point of view of Apple's continued financial success. People must be forced to move to the new OS for a couple of reasons. First, if the users move, the pushers (software developers) will follow. Second, if Apple wants to move to x86, they aren't going to be bringing Classic along with them.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
It's certainly not a savior of the world, as some would have you believe.
:)
:))
That said, from a purely commercial point of view, this makes perfect sense. Apple wants ShinyFooApp on OS X, not on OS 9. Force users to use OS X, and ShinyFooCorp either develops on OS X or dies.
Commercial operating systems die because no one can/wants to spend the time writing drivers for new hardware on 'obsolete' systems.
As opposed to Linux, where everyone seems to want to take the time writing drivers for obsolete hardware.
Which is better? For the end user, I'd probably say the former. End users might like to not have to download/install drivers all the time. But do end users want to, say, recompile a kernel to leave out three gajillion drivers they'll never use, and at least a few bazillion they've never even heard of?
Oh, and about old software compatability. Ever try running a Windows 3.1 (Or sometimes even a Win 95 or 98) program/game on modern hardware?
Ever wonder how you can become 'The One' so you can keep up with the speed of your little guy moving across the screen while he's "walking"?
Software compatability problems happen more from the raw speed of new processors/etc. than from plain old incompatability. Blame not the hardware or operating system vendors - blame the lazy ass programmers who don't think ahead and allow for adjustments to run speeds and other things like suddenly having more memory than you can shake a stick at.
(Hehehe. I still like seeing old programs insist I have -238 mb of ram.
Many mac zealots say "windows is really dos + a loader which is really cpm" etc, as they foam at the mouth.
But Mac os9 still has LARGE CHUNKS of the original Mac OS running in it, as 68K emulated code.
I find it interesting that on MacOS 7.5 the critical core OS code (the input event dispatch loop) was still 68K and was emulated on PowerPC! The API and the code probably did not change since the airing of the Big Brother commercial...
I found it hard way - the attached handler did not bother to save 68K base register (we are running on PowerPC only, right?) and random crashes ensued...
recently I've been learning to use MacOS 7.5.3 in a Basilisk II emulator assuming that would help acclimate me to an OS X Quartz environment. (I'm coming from a very stong DOS/Windows background and fairly strong bash/Linux/X11 background.)Am I wrong?
Yes. That MacOS 7.5.3 knowledge won't do you much good with MacOS X. It's like learning to use Windows 3.1 before moving to Windows XP.
That said, people who say they need to boot in MacOS 9 to do maintenance on MacOS X are smokin' something. Most MacOS X maintenance can be done from the GUI, and there's always Terminal for the heavy-duty stuff.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
(1) There have already been comments from Apple about upgrading firmware from OS X. Apple is aware of this and is working on it.
(2) Diskwarrior for OS X was on display at Macworld NY. Saw it w/ my own eyes. It should be shipping shortly, they had to wait until Jaguar was released, and then allow time for final testing. If you use Norton Utils to repair your disks, you deserve the corruption that will ensue.
(3) BFD. For the machines that you need that for, they'll still run OS 9. And I'm sure that Apple will continue to update System Profiler as it's been updated for every major update of OS X. Though the Jag command line version launches the GUI version now (unlike 10.1.5).