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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?
http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2002-09 -10-008-26-NW-SW
straight off my little bar on the side there. Even today.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
We're happy to see Apple take this next step to drive adoption of Mac OS X,
And here I'd always that "adoption" was a matter of choice. Of course, if it's being driven, one can only guess.
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!
it's annoying for those who have thousansd in software that will only run in OS9, they get a bit of a cold shoulder from Apple is seems as of late.
this whole push towards OSX reminds me of one of those situations where everyone knows it has to be done, but no one is really dying to do it. Apple has a new OS that they're still trying to get the bugs worked out of, get it cleaned up and hopefully working to the point where it's a big enough incentive to move people over.
at the same time, OS9 users don't really want to move. they have a lot of time and money invested in both OS9 itself and their software. learning something different after you've gone 10+ years with the same thing isn't something most people look forward to. they also have a legitimate argument that a lot of smaller titles are making it over to OSX. i know in the research community that i work with there are key apps that haven't been ported because they were written by some researcher on their own time, for free years ago. that guy isn't going to take the time to learn how to port his program to OSX most likely. (and yes there is classic mode, but that rather ruins the point of OSX)
time will tell how this works out, but one way or another it had to happen. at least with 10.2 it's not a bad thing anymore.
Can they really do this?
Apple has required minimum versions of system software to boot a Macintosh computer since at least 7.0.1, when the Classic II, LC II, and Quadra series couldn't boot anything before 7.0.1. It lets Apple gradually get rid of legacy hardware in a computer, something the PC side can't seem to do for some reason.
Will I retire or break 10K?
So, where's mol for Mac OS X?
Help an uneducated brit here guys, what does "So, where's mol for Mac OS X? " mean? expression from across the pond or did I fall asleep in computer class again?... cheers ...
This isn't MOL for OS X, it's OS X on MOL. I assumed that pudge wanted to be able to run MOL under OSX, and then run OS 9 on there. But isn't that what Classic is for?
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.
Yea. The problem is that XPress 5 was so awful and late that whatever they come up with next will be even less exciting, I'm sure. I really fear for the future of my favorite program. I just went out and got a copy of InDesign to get the hang of it because I fear it's the future. Awful as that is.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Apple even watched it happen once before, when they switched from 68k architecture, to PowerPC. They ended up having to include an interperater/emulator for 68k apps in later versions of Mac0S.
This is completely untrue.. PowerPC machines emulated 68K code from the start, which is often lauded as one of the most graceful computer transition in the industry's short history. Completely transparent, totally useable.
Oh, and yeah, Steve Jobs will not personally go around to Mac users' homes, deleting all old copies of MacOS 10 so you can all relax ...
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
My fiance needs OS 9 still for Quark, Illustrator, Photoshop and all the other essentials tools that she needs, but can't afford to upgrade to just now. In fact, I don't even think Quark is available for OS X yet.
I'm telling you, every day another graphic designer necessity, like Photoshop, gets supported with the Crossover Plugin, Linux on the PC looks much better than OS X on the Mac.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Now we just need computers that will refuse to boot windows.
-S
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
I'm not so sure this is aimed at Mac users so much as developers. Antecdotal evidence suggests that Mac users have no problem migrating to OS X. It's companies like Quark and alot of the printer and scanner manufacturers that are dragging their feet in supporting OS X. It seems like its a way for Apple to say, 'Look, no one is going to be using OS 9 on any of our new machines, so if you want people to continue to purchase your products then you need to develop programs and drivers for OS X'. Seems reasonable enough to me.
You've got an easy breezy wind at your back...most of the time.
They ended up having to include an interperater/emulator for 68k apps in later versions of Mac0S.
Actually, support for 68K applications was in MacOS from day one of the PowerPC launch. In fact, device drivers had to be written in 68K, so the whole device system was run through the emulator. I was writing a lot of Mac device drivers in those days...
"Send an Instant Karma to me" - Yes
There should be continued support for older software for a reasonable period (No idea what this would be though), so I disagree on that, but It seems a better idea to just run native apps than kludge everything else to the detriment of the system as a whole.
As long as incompatibilities are well-documented, this can only improve the performance of the computer. It's like the difference between running generic binary files compared to optimised ones for your architecture (e.g. why Gentoo linux is much faster if you can get past the install). Those who this would prevent from running software simply don't upgrade. Admittedly this is a gross oversimplification but essentially this just means that everyone involved ha to support all their applications twice.
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
Apple *does* include the functionality to use OS7/8/9 apps in OSX, you just didn't bother to find that out. This article is about *ne hardware* not booting OS9 anymore - something that was bound to happen eventually, and not suprising if you know anything about the pairing of the Mac OS and Apple hardware. Essentially, Apple is just choosing not to continue to update OS9 for new hardware - which they've always had to do previously whenever new hardware was launched. Why should they update an OS they've long-since put on EOL, and which they already provide a solution for? Regardless, OS9 will still continune to boot within OSX, as it always has been able to, in the form of "Classic" - which will provide the exact capabilities you are attacking them for not providing.
Get your facts straight. You have a right not to like Apple - but at least know what you're talking about.
See my post above, but let me ask again: isn't Classic that interpreter/emulator for OS 9? If it is still going to work under OS X on these new machines, then there isn't a problem. I've even heard some people say that classic has recieved some speed increases under 10.2 (I haven't tried this myself... I'm a "switcher" and have no software that needs to run under OS 9).
Do yourself a favor and dump Quark for InDesign. At the very least you should grab the tryout of InDesign 2.0 and do a couple small projects with it. InDesign is a dream to work with and once you use it you won't want to go back to Quark.
If Apple does not include functionality to use OS7/8/9 apps in OSX, then it will hurt them.
This doesn't sound like the usual troll, so I'm assuming you just really don't know what you are talking about. Apple's Classic environment (mentioned in the article) is provides exactly the functionality you seem to think is lacking in Mac OS X. It gives you the ability to run almost all OS 7/8/9 apps.
The reason Apple is dropping Mac OS 9 is no different from what Microsoft and other OS makers have done for years. Try installing Windows 3.1 on your latest snazzy desktop. Probably not going to find native drivers for that Gf4 Ti, or that DVD burner, etc... Apple doesn't care to write drivers to support their new hardware in an old operating system.
This isn't new, this isn't suprising, and this isn't going to hurt Apple.
Spyky
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).
OS X DOEs include the ability to run the older apps via Classic which is basically a virtual machine that runs OS 9. There are many apps from the 7.x era that won't run in this environment but 7.x has been deprecated for over four years. I've seen cheesy educational titles from the early nineties that didn't like 8.x or 9.x much but I don't think that will hurt much.
Other apps made with Apple's Carbon API will execute natively under either OS 9 or OS X. AppleWorks is one such and it looks the same in either OS.
Apple IS thinking of their longstanding user base and have decent answers to the issues you mention.
Microsoft tried this, (By trying to leverage NT4 for the desktop) and watched it backfire horribly.
:)
You only *think* it backfired horribly. Actually, it worked quite well. If it weren't for the handful of annyoing Linux users (annoying to MS, that is -- and Apple doesn't count here because Apple and Microsoft are "buddies" and there *is* Office for Mac), there would literally be a computer on every desk and in every home running Microsoft software. Windows XP is the one OS for everyone.(*)
(*) except Macintosh users and those annoying Linux geeks. BSD? We, the Great Microsoft, have already stolen all we want from you twerps.
My journal has hot
Apple is not explicitly doing anything to the hardware to prevent OS 9 booting that could otherwise occur. They are simply not bothering to update OS 9 to boot on the new hardware, since it is legacy code.
there are lots of people here saying things like "what about quark?" or some other app. "we won't be able to run quark! Mac's will become less usefull." the reasoning seems to go. but the whole point of Apple droping System 9 is to encourage (okay, strongly encourage) the software vendors to get their act together, and start producing software for the modern system - or at least that works under Classic. by getting the software makers to stop dragging their feet, Apple is making OS X much more useful (and usable), and doing a service to their users.
of course, there's the seperate problem of support for old peripherials like scanner drivers, but that's a different issue.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
Who said that the hardware wouldn't run Mac OS 9
in native mode? My impression was that Apple was
simply declining to *install* Mac OS 9 as a native
boot option. Am I wrong?
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
Apple really wants to ditch OS 9. They have made this abundantly clear and they have dead-ended it. Right now Apple has to get people off Mac OS 9 so that developers will start targeting OS X. So which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
Apple is in a position now where most of their major third party application providers (Photoshop, et al) are running on X. But these companies still support OS 9 and this is what has to be stopped. How do you stop it? Force users to jump to OS X. Now there's no reason to develop for OS 9 and Apple can declare it truly dead.
But as another poster pointed out, forcing people to ditch their current OS doesn't make you many friends. So would Apple intentionally cripple their hardware to make sure it won't boot OS 9? I doubt it. But if you read between the lines on this one it may be implying something bigger - I'm thinking a processor change here.
OS X affords Apple the opportunity to run on many platforms and ditching PPC is not an option if you have to support OS 9. So you have to ditch 9 to move forward.
We all know that OS 9 runs emulated under OS X and Apple will keep this support. This most likely doesn't require platform support. I don't know for sure, but Apple is most likely emulating for OS 9 - and if it's not it will in future releases when they ditch Motorola.
All the signs are pointing this way. Motorola's PPC development has stagnated. Apple needs more horsepower to make OS X shine. Apple needs to find a new processor and OS 9 simply doesn't fit into the picture. I'm willing to bet that this move is being made to clear the way for a new chip, maybe even to introduce it at Mac World 2003.
I think saying that they are dropping the ability to boot into Mac OS [9] seems a bit misleading. It kind-of-if-you-look-at-it-differently implies that Apple is removing the feature from the firmware, however no mention of that is made in the announcement. All that they'll be doing (in my view, if I'm not missing something here) is removing OS 9 as a stand-alone OS from their new machines. It'll still live as part of OS X; Classic still needs OS 9 in order to run OS 9 apps. That said, there's no need for something like MOL, since Classic does the the same thing.
So what's the big fuss about, anyway?
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
Classic runs much better (and boots way faster) under Jaguar anyway, reducing the need for OS 9 booting. If Apple makes more improvments before they ship new hw (a given), there will be even fewer reasons to need to boot into OS 9.
Press Release
The quote: "all new Mac® models will only boot into Mac® OS X as the start-up operating system"
uh, MS - and every other OS vendor, and every other systems vendor - does do this, and it's entirely reasonable. when was the last time you think Dell sold a system with Win95 pre-installed? or Sun sold a Solaris 2 system? when a new version comes out, there's a transition period, and then you stop supporting the old stuff. standard fare.
unless you're Caldera/SCO, in which case you've got a half dozen OSs to keep selling...
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
I think that people are missing some of this. Yes they are removing the ability from Mac OS X to boot into 9.
When a PC user buys an upgrade to their OS they now only have the ability to boot into that OS.
So this isn't anything really new in the computer world. A PC user circumvents this by installing a desired older OS on a seperate partition.
Apple's approach is just one of foward thinking. Why go back? Not really a bad or terrible thing to do. In all honesty Microsoft is guilty of the same thinking.
You could argue that even most linux distro's do the same as you are encouraged to upgrade your kernal after a new release.
To strive, to seek, but not to yield
Correct. The problem being that Apple is going to turn off the ability to boot OS 9. The question becomes, are they disabling OS 9 booting altogether (which means your installation CD will NOT work), or are they simply removing the option to select which system folder boots. If the latter, then we're OK. If the former, then we're out of luck.
The strange thing is that in the Apple releases, they keep talking about the bundled Classic environment. I hardly call it bundled if you have to install the underlying OS 9 to make it work.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
Hell yeah! I could never give up having every file I download get its name truncated to a mere 31 characters, assuming I can get to it before my web browser leaks memory and crashes the machine. And who needs 'nix compatibility? That just makes it easy and profitable for people to port or develop their software for an additional 3-4% of the market.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Apple did the same thing when it created Mac. Where was support for Apple II software?
Amazing magic tricks
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
it would be like dell producing computers that will not run 95/98 or older linux kernels..
No, it would be like Dell making machines and not testing them with win 95. Which, dell probably doesn't.
People aren't flipping out cause there's no reason to flip out. you get OS X free with the new box you're buying, so by definition you can run the latest software.
There's no possible reason you could wnat to run the old software, unless you're a crufty crumudgen you just wants to run obsolete software for the hell of it.
OS X runs really ancient apps in classic mode. So why keep support for an obsolete operating system?
Sheesh.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
It's time to move on and forget about OS 9. OS X is the future. There's not time to waste.
:)
Of course, I also want to point out the fact that if MS did something similar, people would be going crazy. Hell, people went crazy when MS decided to stop supporting NT4 so imagine if they did something like that
Looks like you are wrong. OS 9 will not boot at all on future Macs.
I've found several apps that I've needed that won't work under Classic. Anything that needs low level access to the hardware won't work. This kills all my pro audio applications.
The killer for me was the inability to use Outlook on OSX. **IF** its the only thing running or you don't background it or any of a dozen other things don't happen, its a stable application. Want to pull up a browser while waiting for your 300 mostly spams messages to pull up and Outlook dies taking out OS9 with it. I could deal with the ProAudio stuff not working because I realized I needed to boot into 9 when I want to use this anyways, BUT not being able to get to Outlook was a killer. Nope, Entourage is NOT an option...apparently the next version will have Exchange connecton capibilities, but this version if worthless for it...
Classic is not the answer...
clif
hey ended up having to include an interperater/emulator for 68k apps in later versions of Mac0S.
Sheesh, I am ever amazed at the ignorance of people who post on slashdot. T he 68k emulator was there from the beginning with the powerPC switch. Hell, the excellence of that switch shows just how Apple is one of the few companies in the world that can move technolgoy forward... meanwhile the entirety of the x86 hasn't given up backwards compatibility (and the performance sluggishness that comes with it) all the way back to the 4004 in the early 70s!
If Apple does not include functionality to use OS7/8/9 apps in OSX, then it will hurt them.
Again, they already did. Hell, I've run System 6 apps and even much much older. Its already in there.
And what possible reason could anyone have for running an old os on their shiny new top of the line computer? Next thing you know they'll be complaining that the old os doesn't completely support the new featuers of the hardware. Sheesh.
You wanna run the old os, well you've got an old machine to run it on.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Keep in mind that not all apps are MacOS X compliant... even thru the Classic layer (i.e. Quark). And small businesses do not necesarily have the cash to make a jump like this right away. Chances are this initiative will have this small business not buying new Macs, but doing a lot more shopping on eBay for used Macs in the year 2003.
So does this have anything to do with Apple's uber-secret (except when it's posted on /.) project that has OS X simultaneously running on Intel boxes?
By forcing the migration away from OS 9, Apple moves closer to a processor-independent world where they could drop Motorola in 2-3 years.
The only thing that I have a worry with not being able to reboot into OS 9 are the older games - Myth, Myth II, Rune (granted, not a *good* game, but still...).
If they had good 3D accelleration[sic] support under classic, this wouldn't be a worry at all.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Actually, the 6888x FPU was never emulated, except by third party extensions, SoftFPU among them. I seem to remember that the 6888x series used 80 bit floating point numbers, but the PowerPC 60x and 750 chips use 64 bit floating point numbers.
SoftFPU began as a 68000 floating point emulators.
They always put misleading titles on Slashdot. Looks like once again I was misleaded :)
Of course, at MacWorld SF in January 2003, Jobs will announce that Apple was just kidding; that the real date OS 9 will be discontinued is January 2004. Right? Right? Guys? He's kidding, right? (runs out to buy a new Mac).
In all seriousness, I can understand why Apple is making this apparently "stupid" move:
Apple wants to force the abandonment of OS 9. The entire Macintosh user base combined is already not large enough to entice a lot of software/hardware developers to support Macs. The challenge Apple currently faces is that if it fragments its user base further, it may lose some of the developers who do support Macs but can't afford to spend the time/money coding for both OS X and OS 9.
That would lead to fewer programs available for the Mac, which would lead to fewer incentives for the masses to use Macs, which would shrink the already-tiny user base (by Microsoft standards, it's tiny) further, which gives developers less incentive to support Macs, etc. It kicks off a vicious cycle that would ultimately kill the Macintosh. As Macintosh users, you and I bear the weight of this decision in the short term, but in the long term it ensures that the Macintosh will still be alive and kicking five years from now.
If Apple does not include functionality to use OS7/8/9 apps in OSX, then it will hurt them.
You're obviously not intelligent enough to bash Apple.
Classic mode alows you to run OS 9 apps under OS X. Get it through your thick skull. Anything that 9 can run, 10 can run, with the Classic emulator running. Anyone who NEEDS to have something that runs earlier versions of MacOS won't be buying a new Apple after this year, or now, so they don't care in the first place.
We Mac users do not want change. We fear it. We would like to run one program at a time, like God intended.
This is an affront to Mom, Patriots everywhere, and just think of the children! This cannot be allowed to continue. OS 9 is what this country was founded on, and frankly, if you think otherwise, I think you may be aiding the terrorists. For it would take a terrorist's evil black heart to come up with such a hellish fate for Mac users. Deny our children the God Given Right to use OS 9!?
No! We will fight tooth and nail! From hill to dale! You will need to pry my OS 9 CD from my cold dead hands! There will never be Freedom until OS 9 is freed from it's oppressors! Join me now! We must win this battle FOR THE CHILDREN!
How can a machine that's cheaper be too expensive?
If you were going Linux it would be one thing, but since you're paying for windows, you're really paying a lot more and getting a lot less.
You should go out and buy a mac. You won't regret it.
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
MoL lets you run Mac on Linux. MoL for OS X lets you run OS 9 on OS X. That's Classic.
Kevin Fox
yup. that was the real reason why apple is where it is. But technicly apple could'nt develop appleII compatibility into the mac. The reason ,afaik, was that there was simply enough memory in the hardware to do it.
It should have come in advanced versions of the mac os, but didn't.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Sheesh. They should have dropped Mac OS in 1997.
They bought NeXT in 1996. They were ready to go with Rhapsody in 1997, but developers were unwilling to make the switch wholesale... so we've spent the last 5 years with Apple creating carbon, supporting both OSes, updating classic Mac OS, creating the classic environment, and doing everything they could to support the legacy Macintosh market.
Its been 5 frigging years. Its about time we moved over to Unix and dropped total support for the legacy software.
Its not like nobody had warning, and its not like classic won't still run fine.
I think they've been more than generous enough. Remember copeland was supposed to ship in 1997... they had reason to ship next as the new OS in 1997, as it would have moved them to a modern platform way back then.
They have spent, essentially, the entirety of the last 5 years software wise supporting legacy Macintosh.
Anyone still using OS 9 day to day is free to keep doing so, but don't expect new hardware to be hobbled to maintain that support.
You want a modern machine, use the modern OS.
Excuse me while I say "Sheesh!"
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
Don't quote me but with something like 3.5% of the desktop market I don't feel that Apple had their user base in mind when making this decision. Maybe Steve is losing touch with who his user base really is.
For the most part Mac users are neither programmers nor systems people. They are an almost eccentric group of artistic and talented individuals who long ago chose to use a Macintosh because of it's simplicity, rock solid hardware design, and it's sophisticated array of available software designed to accomodate their creativity. Musicians, artists, authors, designers, engineers, etc..
Software was available on both the PC platform as well as the Apple platform from day one. But I submit to you that IMHO it is within all likelyhood a fact that the software written for the Apple platforms was signifigantly more user-centric than was any DOS or Windows implementation of the same package. I.E. You wouldn't, and in in many instances still won't, find a keyboard player using a PC running Windows as his midi platform of choice. Nor would you have found an independent recording artist using a freekin soundblaster to record his gig.
I'm not wandering off course here, I'm pointing out the fact that the typical Mac user is not a geek and has become accustomed to his or her pre OSX box and could really care less about OSX. Who has time to spend learning it and who has time to wait for software/hardware vendors to catch up? How many shareware and free apps are being used which will never be ported over? Thousands I would guess.
My point is that Apple has made an error here by forcing one to boot into OSX. I don't want to do that. Why should I have to do that? Why will I have to change my bootloader and dump OSX off my machine? Why don't I have a choice if I am technically challanged? Shades of Microsoft.....
Oh yeah. 1995-2000 were such REALLY HORRIBLE times for Microsoft, weren't they?
just pathetic numbers, huh?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I have a friend who specified: "data to be delivered in MS access '97 format", assuming that a Windows-98 CD and Access'97 CD would be bootable when the data is due (in 3 years from now). He'd be in trouble if MS decided to pull a trick like this on him.
I maintain a machine (Linux) which by contract has to run until at least 2008. If my OS vendor would pull something like this on me I'd be pissed.
Roger.
I would use only OS X if I could, but here are some things that don't work in Classic that work fine in OS 9.2 (I'm sure there are more, but these are the ones that keep me in OS 9 most of the time):
1. Microsoft Word 98. It does everything I want. Why do I have to spend $500 to upgrade to Office X? In OS 9, it's peachy. Under Classic, it crashes when Document->Format is chosen. Great. Can't change the format of a document in Classic.
2. Endnote 4. Also does everything I want. Why pay $200 for an upgrade? Does not work with Word 98 under Classic.
3. USB writer for RCA Lyra2 MP3 player. So, I gotta buy an iPod now for $400? RAM card doesn't appear on desktop.
4. LaCie DD3 tape drive. Doesn't work under X with the Grappler 906F PCI SCSI card. I guess I'm supposed to buy the Firewire version ($800)?
5. LaCie 4x4x16 CD-RW. Same as (4) above.
It seems to me that eliminating booting into OS 9 is Apple's way of ending compatibility with a lot of legacy software and hardware. I don't necessarily think that's a terrible thing, but to imply you can do everything in Classic that you can do under OS 9 is just flat wrong.
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.
IIRC, there's about 2MB of OS9 in ROM on the Macs. Don't include the ROM on new machines
This isn't about gaining marketshare, this is about putting the screws to major developers who are dragging their feet (like Quark).
Apple's done this before with success. Remember USB? It came to the PC world first, but nobody moved on it because the PC manufacturers weren't getting rid of legacy ports, so peripheral manufacturers stayed on the "Most Compatible" route of PS/2 and Serial. It took Apple introducing USB-only iMacs to jump-start the USB peripheral market.
I mean, good grief, how long did it take the PC industry to drop 5 1/4" floppy drives? The 3.5" came out with the first Mac in 1984, and 10 years later PC's still had both drives. And the 3.5" drive is definitely a technology that has overstayed its welcome; but the fact that it continues to hang on means that suitable replacements took much longer to come to market.
It's good that Apple is driving their market, not just trying to make everything backwards-compatible until we have this overbloated OS running on overbloated hardware. Apple's got the balls to do what most of the PC world won't do. Believe it or not, the market will adapt; Apple has proven this.
Wanna run legacy DOS games? Drop a new hard drive in that old Pentium 233 you have laying around. Or buy VirtualPC for Windows. You've got options. But don't suggest that an entire sector of the tech market should slow progress because you want to play a "golden oldie".
Not so fast... Apple did indeed include a pure software 68LC040 emulator in their operating systems. They even documented it in the usual place:
http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/mac/PPCSoftwar e/PPCSoftware-13.html#MARKER-9-29
It was a very good emulator, though not without some omissions.
It's not like Macs running OS 9 are going to stop booting on January 1, 2003. The headline should be changed to reflect the fact Apple is simply (smartly!) dropping support for it.
- 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?"
If they're going to kill the ability to boot into OS 9, they better find a way to:
(1) Give Mac OS X the ability to upgrade firmware, whether it be the computer itself or hardware components. Currently you can only flash firmware or ROM updates from Mac OS 9
(2) Get bootable Mac OS X rescue disks for things like Norton Utilities or Diskwarrior, because sometimes fsck -y doesn't solve everything
(3) Update all Mac OS X software components so that they are as complete as the OS 9 equivalents. For example, Apple System Profiler. So far the Jaguar version still doesn't tell you everything like the OS 9 one does, like the Uni-North CPU version, which tells you if an older Mac can accept a dual-cpu upgrade.
The great thing about having OS 9 bootable is that you could use it for troubleshooting.
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
To be fair, OS X has been arround for quite some time now. Apple wants to move to X faster than it took to go from 68k to PPC. Espesialy with some places dragging their feet with OS X support, Apple is telling them to get a move on. And it's not like all their current computers will magicaly stop booting into OS 9, just the new ones that they buy.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
The thing I just can't believe is how Apple will be coming to your house January 1st and getting rid of the machine she is using now to play those games.
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
Here's the important part: Apps that don't currently work under Classic are very unlikely to ever work under MOL for OS X. If it doesn't work under Classic it's probably trying to talk directly to the hardware, so an emulation layer within OS X will still not afford this access.
isn't Classic that interpreter/emulator for OS 9?
No.
Don't think of Classic as an emulator, like Virtual PC. Think of it instead as just a program. Mac OS 9 was a shared-memory, cooperative multitasking system. Classic implements that entire system as a UNIX process. Within the process's address space, you have the entire Mac OS 9 operating system and all your apps. But the apps aren't running under emulation. They're executing native PowerPC binary code. In some cases, apps run faster under Classic than they did under OS 9.
Of course, some stuff had to change. Since Classic isn't really an OS, but just a process running under UNIX, it can't talk directly to the hardware. Some software-- not much, but some-- can't work under Classic because of this.
But it's not an emulator. It's more like vmware than it is like an emulator.
Ha!
1) When she can afford to upgrade she will. Its not like any of these programs just stop working today because Apple announced the death of OS 9. She can still use these programs until she can upgrade. And all of those work perfectly in classic mode anyways.
2) Trust me when I say this. As a serious graphic designer, Linux is not an option yet. Two words: Colour Management. This is something that Apple is vastly superior. Maybe one day Linux will be better, but it doesn't look like it'll be any time soon.
Really, this seems more like flamebait than anything else. She can afford to purchase a PC version of Photoshop for Windows to use with the crossover plugin but she can't afford to update it for the Mac.
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
Really? Why?
What if Apple is doing this to boost sales of Macs in the 4th Quarter/Christmas Season ("Quick, buy as many TiBooks as we can NOW, because starting next week they won't boot MacOS 9!"). It would be one way to increase the bottom line and make the company appear more profitable without having to resort to Enron type accounting illegalities.
Not saying I think this is true, but you have to wonder.
i know this sounds stupid, but you checked to see if the startup disk is locked? that little lock icon will be shut in the lower corner. that would do exactly what you described. unlock it then try to boot into OS9
Microsoft already did this. They forced Win9x codebase users to upgrade to the NT-based WinXP.
And it wasn't the end of the world. At least, not that I recall...
Well, that's because MS dropped NT/2000, a really good OS, in favor of XP... primarily so that they could ram Passport down everyone's throats and start shifting to their .NET business model ("Oh, you don't OWN that copy of Office, you simply rent it from us. Now, start paying by the minute.")
Apple, on the other hand, dropped the ability to boot into an obsolete OS, but included an emulator in the system to run older apps. Tell me, can your P4 run Win 3.1? or Win 95 even? And do you have drivers for your DVD burner and graphics cards available?
This is no different.
-T
Apple doesn't make the Gf4 Titanium, nor does it make its Superdrive, etc... They just put them in their box on their motherboard (using someone else's processor).
-Spyky
Not so anecdotal evidence would suggest that users are not taking up OS X in droves. How anyone could use OS 9 at all is beyond me but that's the reality. Apple has already told developers to only do OS X development. The sad fact is that for the market share apple has, doing (what in the case of the drivers at least) is a total re-write is not a super high priority for alot of companies.
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
But why would you want to? Do you install windows 95 on your new PC becasue you can't get program XWZ to run under XP or 2k? No, you either run it on your old machine (Which many mac users keep their old machines) or you find a replacement.
This is perfectly reasonable. Apple wants to move forward, you can't move forward if you are anchored in the past. It's the same thing as M$ killing native DOS support. It just had to be done.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Case in point on taking a while to phase out old hardware amd such in the PC market, how many people do you know who still have ISA slots in their computer. Would you all scream bloody murder if M$ killed ISA support or would you realize that the horse is dead, it's time to move on?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I totally agree with the file moving/deleting/using problem. Apple needs to include some sort of "sudo" or "su" - like functionality option in the finder for powerusers like me.
And while I'm at it, they should reconcile some key differences between the finder and darwin, namely: slashes vs. colons to indicate directories; hard links, symbolic links, and finder alias intercompatibility and flexibility (ideally, a configurable super alias that incorporates the functionality of all three for both finder and darwin); file type/creator management and file exchange; integration of bundle/.app functionality into darwin; preconfiguring the shell config files for new users such that "rm" moves files to the trash rather than deleting them permanently or something along those lines (maybe just a "trash"/"emptytrash" command); running command line apps from the finder (and manipulating their outputs between them - graphical interface?); running X windows apps from the finder (built in X windows functionality) despite the difference in gui principles; etc.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
I bought a Power Macintosh 8600/250 in 1997...
...AND IT WOULDN'T EVEN BOOT INTO System 4!!!!!!
WTF. How is anyone supposed to get anything done? I can't even play StuntCopter or Cairo Shootout in the right resolution/screen depth! MacPaint becomes garbled and unstable under the "Finder", really just the damn MultiFinder in disguise! What a marketing ploy! Thanks ALOT, Apple!!!!!
</FUNNY>
<INSIGHTFUL LIKELY="maybe">
Seriously, if tons of people are worried about paying thousands to replace old shareware programs on the Mac with new commercial software, why not just write to your favorate Mac OS X shareware developer and request they create a replacement product? Be sure to elaborate on exactly what it would replace, and why such a thing would be popular with whoever needs that particular product. Panic and Ambrosia are probably two good places to start, and I'm sure there are hundreds more.
Trust me, the Mac shareware scene WANTS your feedback.
</INSIGHTFUL>
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
It would be easy to make new machines non-9 bootable if they wanted to. While obviously new machines don't yet exist to know what they will or won't do, all versions of Mac OS since 7.1check hardware doing bootup to see if they're supposed to load on that machine, and if they're not, they put up a message that says "get a newer version of the OS". If a newer version hadn't yet been released, the OS the system came with had a "System Enabler " file which permitted booting on that machine, but a vanilla version of the same system (which didn't have the enabler) would not. Often this enabler would contain important patches to support hardware on that machine.
Their latest machines evidently identify themselves to vanilla OS 9.2.2 as supported hardware, so it loads ok. Their future machines may not work so well. Or, as you say, they may simply not have OS 9 installed on them, but a 9.2.2 CD (if you already have one, since they're nearly unavailable as a new product even now) *might* install on them.
But I doubt it. By ditching 9 support, they free themselves to make whatever architectural changes they like to the hardware without having to support it in both operating systems. It may be possible for someone to hack 9 to boot on new hardware, and they probably will. But if there are major changes on the board, it may not do much good.
By abandoning 9, they also are preparing people for a possible transition to another CPU at some point, which 9 certainly won't support (but Classic might be able to, if they add an instruction set emulator).
One final comment: while superficially similar to what Apple has always done when they introduce new hardware, it is worth considering that X is a completely different operating system than 9, and that has never happened before. Even with all of its changes, System 7 was still an evolution of System 6, and most software still ran on it -- probably
ALL software that followed the rules. Not so here. In my experience, MOST things work in Classic, but some things simply do not. Astarte CD-Copy (which is out of production anyway, since Apple bought Astarte and rolled the technology into their iApps) is a great utility, but it touches hardware, so it can't work in Classic, and there's no equivalent. As many noted, many games simply don't perform well in Classic.
I'm not saying Apple shouldn't do this, while I'm suprised they're doing it this quickly, but it was obvious that it was coming some day. But I'm also just saying it's not a case of "They've always done this." I don't think there's been a case where they've introduced new hardware that is incompatible with the percentage of software that will not work correctly in Classic.
Many major engineering apps, like AutoCAD, were never ported to PPC. I had a number of expensive Mac engineering applications, including board design packages and a dynamics simulator. None were ported to PPC by their vendors. Supporting two sizes of floats was too much trouble for the tiny Mac market.
Apple even watched it happen once before, when they switched from 68k architecture, to PowerPC. They ended up having to include an interperater/emulator for 68k apps in later versions of Mac0S.
To which scout.finch wrote:This is completely untrue.. PowerPC machines emulated 68K code from the start, which is often lauded as one of the most graceful computer transition in the industry's short history. Completely transparent, totally useable.
Completely untrue is your implication that PowerPCs emulate 68K code. Apple wrote an emulator - a GOOD one - and included it in System 7 (7.5, I believe). By 7.5.3 they basically had it working perfectly, and quickly. So yes, they DID have to write an emulator. Fortunately, they were migrating between two well-designed architectures, and they did a good job. The emulator persists in some form today in 9.2.2. As a result they lost essentially no users or applications in the 68k Mac -> PowerMac transition. The forced-OSX transition (for new hardware) is not quite comparable, since there are a number of applications which have no equivalents which will run in OSX or acceptably under Classic [but I will leave that discussion to someone else].
I'm not a smorgasbord.
Undoubtedly. Fortunately, there are no plans to do this. You don't have to boot into OS9 to use OS7/8/9 apps in OSX. As when Apple switched to PowerPC, they included a backwards compatibility mode right from the outset. I have plenty of legacy applications. Fortunately, they all run fine under Classic mode in OSX.
This seems less of a problem than when Apple dropped the serial and Desktop bus ports. I expect that there are quite a few people holding onto an older Mac because they have peripherals or software dongles that require these ports. And I'm sure that there will be rare applications that don't work under Classic mode--probably about as many as failed when Apple went from System 6 to 7, or 8 to 9. Fortunately, keeping your old Mac is a perfectly adequate solution--those old Macs works as well as ever, and they can share data with the newer systems via the network.
No one is forcing you to buy a new mac, and if your machine is good enough for you to do what you are doing now (which I assume to be digital music based on the amount of audio stuff you put in your post) then why should that change. Assuming you are making music, then what is wrong with your system now that you can't keep using it the same way you have been until everything you need is there for OS X and you feel like buying a new machine?
Remember...all Apple is doing here is updating their hardware and not updating their legacy software to support it. Should they have to? Should Microsoft have to update Win95 to run on the latest hardware (which is meant for WinXP)? IMHO, no.
So, my advice to you is to stick with what is working perfectly for you right now, let Apple build their future, and when everything you need is in place, you can join them in that future (or stay where you are, or switch to a different platform)...see? You have a lot of choices. ;-)
Cheers. :-)
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Everyone is complaing about their old legacy shareware MIDI program or MS Word 98 not working under Classic and how this upgrade will devistate them, but no one has actually posted yet (until the parent) on the physical limitations of not having OS 9. It will actually cripple the OS, and the parent poster makes very good points.
IANAM (I Am Not A Moderator, obviously)
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Most of the games, provided they do not need to directly access the hardware, will run quite nicely. And again, nothing is going to stop your current Mac (which I assume you bought those games for, I hope you didn't go by a bunch of classic games in preperation to by a new mac) will still run and boot the same as always in 2003. No magical spy chip is going to deactivate your old mac.
We're abusive because we often have to correct people that don't use common sense. It's like trying to explain to your boss why it's not a good idea to open "clickme.exe" from babylovesya@sexmail.com After correcting and explaining 4 or 5 times (The parent poste could have found all his information in the posts above) it gets annoying and repetative.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
OS X sucks
Prove it.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Apple wrote an emulator - a GOOD one - and included it in System 7 (7.5, I believe). By 7.5.3 they basically had it working perfectly, and quickly.
I find it interesting to compare this with Windows. Apple took the more aggressive approach of deprecating old systems and facilitated the transitions with emulators. Conversely, Windows hasn't deprecated much and has gobs of legacy support built in.
Now, which company, Microsoft or Apple, offers the more stable and simpler operating environment? Anyone guessing Microsoft fails this test.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
(-1 Troll)
X as in 10 times slower
10.1 ran nicely on my 300Mhz blueberry iBook. Not as fast as OS 9, but certainly not 10 times slower. Haven't toyed with Jaguar yet since my HDD died on me (Long story involving water, beer and electricity) but if the reports of it's speed improvements are anything to consider, it sure as hell isn't 10 times slower.
10 times less apps
I have never been at a loss for aplications. Perhaps you could elighten me as to which apps you can not get (or replace) under X.
10 times the number of hacks apple has gone through to make a unix like OS to run mac things
As opposed to how many hacks the linux community has instituted to get Windows things to run under linux?
you people think that anything commercial that takes unix serioulsy must be god sent
Usualy it is. Commecrial support for *NIX is a good thing. It provides a sense of seriousness that give *NIX the immage it needs to be taken seriously in other places.
you run your silly linux dist and talk to a bunch of other losers who run their stupid linux shit
Now I know that Linux is challenging to get up and running, but it's not nice to call names just because other people are smarter than you and have had more success. Go back to running your Windows 95 box and finish your homework. Recess is starting soon.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
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...
No they can use their current machines, they can get replacement software, or Quark can get off theri ass and start developing. OS X in a usable (not perfect but usable fo rdevelopment purposes) has been arround for a long time, there is no excuse for Quark not to have a working version by now.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
It will be very easy to enforce; future Macs will have new hardware and Apple just won't write OS 9 drivers for that hardware. Or maybe they'll do something else; I don't know. My point is that Apple's reason for not supporting OS 9 isn't arbitrary: writing drivers costs money.
People sticking with OS 9 need to stop their foot dragging and join the rest of us in the 21st Century with Mac OS X. If you have critical software that needs 9, run it on an older Mac until it is ported. If the company is being slow, either petition them to make an OS X version, or switch to a competitor who is clueful enough to have ported to OS X by now.
After a few months of using Mac OS X, you will never want to go back to OS 9 (Jaguar fixes all but a few speed complaints) again. I am still on 10.1.5 till I get my new Dual 1.25 GHZ box but once (no point upgrading my 5 year old Beige to 10.2) yet even with 10.1.5, I still find it more productive than 9 even though 9 runs 10 times faster in a single app on this old box. On a new box, the speed difference will be negligable. However what keeps me on X is the pre-emptive multitasking and power of UNIX underneath it all. I can do stuff in OS X I only dreamed about with OS 9. So those who have not yet, make the switch either now or with a new machine when you get it. Don't keep the rest of us back by being stubborn and demanding Apple waste resources helping you to use an outdated OS.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Everything but Quark is out for OS X, and Quark 5 runs fine in classic (Quark 4 gets a little quirky however). Quark 6 will be OS X native, and that should be out early next year. Word has it that Apple is helping Quark out with it.
I know because I use these same apps to make a living. :)
If she can't afford to upgrade to new apps, she can't afford a new Mac anyway, so what's the problem? Steve Jobs is not going to come to her house and take her OS 9 running Mac away...
And sorry, but Photoshop, et al, still run better on Macs. Photoshop 7 runs great in OS X, why would someone want to bother trying to run it in Linux?
Macs aren't going anywhere for graphics.
-- if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic - Lewis Carrol
definitionally, which is what Classic is. It happens to run some servers to make its integration with the host operating system very nice to use (shared clipboards, etc.). Incidentally, that's what the VM in VMWare stands for.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I installed Jaguar on a freshly formatted Powerbook. I didn't install OS9. I have a 9.2 Classic environment.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Bonker's point (other than being a troll) was that Apple had to write an interpreter/emulator for 68k apps. This is true. They did. It was not provided by IBM/Motorola.
I'm not a smorgasbord.
Even though DOS 6.0 was released like 10 years ago, it will still boot and run on the Pentium 4 computer I bought last month.
Wouldn't it be interesting if the hardware makers changed the specs such that new machines only ran Windows XP, and Microsoft simply claimed that they weren't doing this purposefully... they were just not going to update DOS and Windows 95 to boot on the new hardware because it is legacy code.
I must say Mac people have their head stuck in the sand far more deeply than any other advocacy group.
I don't care about the output format. I can always get things to someone in some form that they can read, I care about the tools.
I've been using QuarkXPress for more than eight years. I know it like the back of my hand. I find it comfortable and powerful and can produce lots of work very, very quickly in XPress. I don't want to have to learn new software (InDesign) that I find to be different enough to be annoying. I can do it, I just don't want to. I probably will, though, and it's annoying.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
The ROM hasn't been in new machines for at least two or three years now. The so-called "New World" architecture only has OpenBoot in ROM. The ROM image that MacOS 9 uses is in a file in the System Folder.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
This is somewhat similar to when Macintoshes went to a USB-only configuration. Causing a lot of rumblings early-on, but it came out stronger later-on.
I was selling the original iMacs from the online Apple Store when they first came out. A few months earlier Apple stopped the sale of their All-In-One models (which were sold exclusively to education customers).
So anyone wanting a computer & monitor combined had to get the iMac. Fine. The problem was that there were zero USB printers for the Mac. We were selling HP serial printers. And we were told to tell the customer that an adapter to allow those printers should be available "in about a month".
Oh my, what fun calls we had trying to (a) sell a computer that had no available printer capabilites, (b) answer complaints from people who thought or were told the printers would work with the USB ports (the adapter did come out many months later from a third-party), and (c) not rip our ears off after hearing "I've been a loyal Apple customer for over a year/decade/eon and this is how you treat us?!"
At least this time around they've given people forewarning about the change before we reach the no-turning-back point.
With a very few exceptions, these problems are due to a locked file on a HFS(+) volume. The simplest way of correcting this is to "get info" in the finder and uncheck the locked box. There is also a way of doing this from the command line, but if you really need that you can find that yourself.
In this case it is almost definately a misunderstood feature.
Sun is a bad example you can run Solaris 8 on a sparc 5 if you need to, thats some really old equipment. Not sure if Solaris 9 will run on one but I wouldn't be suprised if it did.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
What exactly is your point here? If a company is currently using OS 9, no one is making them switch to OS X. You say they don't have the "cash to make the jump" -- what jump? To OS X? They don't have to switch. Either they have money for new Macs or they don't. If they are buying used Macs just to keep using old software... well that's not very smart, is it?
Every company I ever worked for, no matter how small, had to get the latest versions of everything, so when a customer sends a Quark 5 file, you aren't stuck sitting there with a 5 year old copy of Quark 3.1 that wont open the file.
If they don't have the cash for new machines, what are they worrying about anyway? They already have Macs that work for them. If in that time they want new machines, well they have to get upgrades to their software, and since all the latest versions, except for Quark, run in OS X, they might already have those, unless they are one of those companies that is still using Photoshop 3 and Illustrator 88. In that case they doomed them selves!
This is just a knee jerk reaction. If this same company was still using System 7.5 when G3s came out they had the same problem. Or try running System 6 on a Powermac 6100.
Also Quark 5 works fine in Classic. I use it every day.
-- if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic - Lewis Carrol
You CLEARLY have not used InDesign. InDesign 2.0 does EVERYTHING Quark Xpress does and then some. To boot, it has EXCELLENT integration between other Adobe apps allowing for things like native Photoshop and Illustrator images to be dropped into InDesign, no need for TIFFs, and you can still maintain your masks, transfer modes and opacity settings.
Now, if you had said InDesign 1.0 or 1.5 I might have agreed with you.
I just noticed that this thread has the /. logo, the "post comment" bar, the "preview comment" bar, and the "post comment" bar in the same style as Mac OS X aqua, except in the /. green. Is there a way to get the rest of the /. stories to appear this way?
Depends on loyalty. If the company is mac specific to begin with, maybe they might continue with mac support. Apple is betting that such companies, after having already invested so much money in macs, would rather change software or run on the old machines temporarily than invest in entirely new computers and software. If companies did that, Quak would be very much inclined to get off theri ass and start programing.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Sun is a bad example you can run Solaris 8 on a sparc 5 if you need to, thats some really old equipment. Not sure if Solaris 9 will run on one but I wouldn't be suprised if it did.
That's a bad analogy since they make it a point for Solaris to be very backward compatible with older versions of software and hardware. However, you can't run Solaris 7 or earlier on a Netra X1 or a Sun Blade 100 for instance simply because the hardware wasn't supported in that version. It's similar to the new Macs in 2003 situation. They probably plan on adding things that they'd rather not backport support for into OS 9 since it is dead. As far as hardware, in the Mac world, you can run MacOS X 10.2 on an Apple B&W PowerMac G3 tower. Other than being slow as hell it works fine. You just won't be able to boot into older OS 9 if you have a brand new Mac next year. There is NOTHING new with this. Windows 2000 for instance boots fine on my old machine, it just doesn't support some of the peripherals like my parallel port scanner. Maybe MacOS 9 won't support the video card in the newer Macs?
My PowerMac 7100 seems to boot into OS 8 just fine. And I expect it'll be able to do so even after 2003... Not that I'd want it to though. :)
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
... it turns out that Macs aren't year-2003 compliant.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
The 68k emulator was included with system 7.1.2, which shipped with the opriginal power Macintosh computers - the first Macs to have PowerPC processors. This emulator was software-based, loaded at boot time and emulated a 68020+MMU, but no FPU.
The DRE (Dynamic Recompilation Emulator) was included with System 7.5.2, the OS shipped with the 9500/8500/7200 Power Macintosh computers. these models were the first Power Macintosh computers to include the PCI bus for expansion.
The DRE was faster than the original emulator and was reengineered to take advantage of the PowerPC 603 and 604 processors, which made their debuts in the fall of 1995.
Apple has traditionally cared too much for backwards compatibility and suffered real consequences because of this. Mac users in general tend to whine too much and think that Apple owes them something in exchange for the faith shown in the act of buying a Macintosh. Because of Apple's tenuous marketshare, they've never seen fit to grow the balls necessary to cut off legacy customers.
That's changing now. Anyone who complains that OS X is too slow, too fancy-looking, or just not to their taste needs to adjust their expectations and attitude. 10.2 is an extremely usable OS, and the alternative is the not-traditionally-easy-to-use-for-Mac-users LinuxPPC, or the crapshoot which is Windows.
Bravo to Apple for taking this bold and wise step. OS X has a lot of headroom - now if we can just get some higher clock frequencies out of Chum-a-rola, we'll be in great shape.
Ghutchis already answer your question as well as I could, but I have just one thing to add. The virtual memory system under OS X is far superior to what we used under OS 9. So if you're running an application that likes to have lots of RAM, like Photoshop, if RAM is constrained it'll be more responsive under OS X than it could have been under OS 9.
The best way I found to run Photoshop (in the pre-7.0 days) was to set the Classic memory allocation to a gigabyte or so and just let OS X's VM system handle the rest. Worked like a charm, and Photoshop felt much faster on my system as a result.
a locked file on a HFS(+) volume.
Forgive my ignorance, but is that feature similar to 'chattr +i' on an ext2 filesystem?
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
I don't about the rest of this stuff but I've been helping my wife with Endnote.
First off two editorial comments:
1) Important data should not be stored in proprietary formats. If you were using something like LyX and BibTeX (both free BTW since cost seems to be an issue for you) instead of Word and Procite you wouldn't be locked into to these products and could use anything you wanted on any platform.
2) ISI research soft is quite possibly the least competent major software vendor I have ever seen. They make Microsoft look like a bastion of reliability and stability. Only very limited combinations of their products work. Have these guys ever heard of a relational database, I can't believe some of the limitations on this product in terms of number of fields, ways of organizing bibliography lists, size limitations of fields....
In any case Endnote 6 works perfectly from Carbon with OSX 10.0-10.1.5; and works perfectly from Classic with OSX 10.2. The upgrade for academic use (and who else uses this product) is something like $99 and includes Endnote 5 for free. Its really not a bad deal assuming you want to use the aweful product.
Bugger, I hope this doesn't mean I won't be able to boot 64bit OpenBSD on some nice new 64bit Mac hardware!?
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
first off go to the command prompt.
1) go to the directory right above the file.
2) Do an "ls -l" and find out who owns the directory
3) type "mount" amd make sure the file system is writable
There is no such thing as a magic file and everything is deletable.
Not any more ...
The post I was replying to seemed to imply that Classic would work if you had a previous install of 9.2
Now, where'd I say that??? Geez ...
Alison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
Well, it comes down to the fact that Quark is really good at what it does. The interface is fast and simple (particularly in 4.0). Most importantly, it's familiar.
Sure, I know Photoshop well. And sure, InDesign is similar to Photoshop. But that's not the point. Pressing cmd-H makes sense to hide the text boxes, but I'm used to pressing F7. It's rather like someone trying to transition you to tcsh from bash. They have largely the same commands and you're familiar with C, so the transition shouldn't be very difficult, right?
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Just so you know, Apple is offering InDesign free with the purchase of a PowerMac. It opens Quark and PageMaker files, and for page design offers many features that are unavailable in any other app. I've made the switch from Quark to InDesign, and I couldn't be happier.
Link HERE: http://www.apple.com/promo/designfreely
I'd have to disagree. The built in network-collaboration features of InDesign really do rock out.
Jaguar gave me the most hassle dealing with Macs. Though it is fast and has addressed shortcomings of its predecessors, it has a few stability problems, namely waking from sleep and freaking out making airport connections, battery life oddities, lack of proper ISO CD burning capabilities. Add to that a few unexplained kernel panics to spice up the experience. To be fair, 10.1.3 (or was it .4?) also dorked up things worse than they fixed other problems.
I attribute this to the fact that lots of the OS was re-engineered for 10.2, and I hope most of these oddities get fixed in the upcoming 10.2.1 release.
In regards to performance vs. Windows, MS might be a monopoly, and they might even write crappy software, but they did get Win2k right. I find Win2k and OS X to be very stable, and I have run both for weeks and months on end without problems. OS X has been running for 10 months for me with a total of 4 kernel panics. Win2k managed 6 months before it finally greeted me with my first BSOD. The only machines in my household with greater uptimes/reliability is my NeXT box that managed 6 months, and the RedHat Linux box (mail and web server) installed in 1999 which rarely gets rebooted and has never had a kernel panic.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit