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Happy Birthday Mac OS X
phillyclaude writes "Thanks to Wikipedia's Anniversaries page, I just realized Mac OS X turns three today! How could I forget such an important birthday?" Mac OS X 10.0 was released on March 24, 2001.
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OS X is the first OS that came with a computer I bought in the last 20 years that has actually stayed on the machine rather than either with BSD or Linux. OK, I confess I have a Windows XP/Linux dual boot machine, but I use XP only for games and some casual web browsing with Firefox, no e-mail, no work. That machine defaults to Fedora 1 but my Mac defaults to OS X and that is fine by me. Terrific. Panther is a vast improvement over the previous versions, and they were hugely better than Windows XP.
It will be interesting to see where we stand with OS X 10.6 when Longhorn finally releases. Most interesting is the fact that MS makes a big song and dance about OSS destroying the software industry whereas Apple has built a very nice symbiotic relationship with OSS. Proves the lie. In reality what threatens MS is serious competition that can't just be bought out.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
Here's to hoping that when they do, apple has created something even better...
I basically used Macs (mostly my good old LC II) untill about the time the Pentium came out and that's about when I got my first PC (a 386 clone) and I've been a PC person every since.
Now I had USED Macs during that time, I just didn't own one. I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Macs (their design elegance, I though the interface was quite nice, etc) but I wouldn't have bought one (except as a second/spare/extra/toy comptuer) because of the OS. OS 8/9 wasn't BAD, but it wasn't as modern as Windows 9x or what I could do on Linux. I wouldn't have wanted to use it for a main computer. Add to that the speed difference that started to appear and that I played lots of games and that I liked to build computers and a Mac just wasn't an option.
But the OS (my biggest problem) because OS X which I have to admit I drool over. If I could buy it to put on my PCs (even if it cost $350 or so) I'd do it. It's got the Unix core (which thanks to Linux I've come to LOVE) but the great modern no fuss desktop. I don't play that many computer games any more (and those that I do then to be things that will get ported to the Mac anyways, even if I have to wait 6 months). I have moved to using a laptop almost exclusively (so building is out of the question, not to mention that I just don't have too much time to do that with my main computer, only "extra" computers). And now with computers getting so much faster than what I need most of the time (a G4 would be more than enough for me most of the time, but I drool over that G5). I've basically made up my mind that my next computer will be a Mac (probably laptop. I can't wait for iBook G5s. I'm not hurting so I can survive).
In summary I didn't "hate" Macs, but I wouldn't have bought one. They were outdated and dying for me compared to the "Wintel" side of things. But now Macs are back (with a VENGENCE). OS X fixed my biggest problem with Macs (the rest I could have survived). And not only did it FIX the problem, it added a Unix core that I envy. And while most things on Windows "Just Work" pretty well, these days when I don't have much free time to screw around with computer issues the "it nearly ALWAYS Just Works" of a Mac is majorly appealing too. Fixing my own computer problems (you know, the oddities of Windows and installing hardware/etc) is no longer challenging or entertaining in ANY way, it's just an annoyance. Years ago there was often something I would LEARN by going through all that stuff (even if I shouldn't have had to), but now it's just a pain.
Hold on little iBook G5... I'll be comming for you!
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Before my first experiance with OS X, I was a winblows user. I heard all these rumors that macs suck and aren't compatable with anything, which made me shy away from them. When I went to college I was forced into getting an iBook for my Graphic Design major. I found that the rumors might have been true for OS 9, but with OS X I had no problems at all. Ever since, my iBook has been my primary system.
I never knew that one could fall in love with an OS till OS X came along.
I think the 3ghz models will have PCI Express support. Steve loves to be first with the wiz bang gizmos and he wont use AGP if he can avoid it. That unit will be my next purchase from Apple to go with my 1.8 Dual. :D
I use to despise Macs (rightly so.) I didn't even give them much thought when OS X came out.
But after upgrading to XP I started looking more and more at apple.com, and when XP went belly up on me last November I bought an iBook.
Never looked back.
I picked up a Dual 1.42ghz mac last year, and the thing is fast. I normally run a few shells in iterm, and mozilla/imap, and fink for my unix applications, and some media players. It's a great box to use as a desktop. I also like the look of the older G4 cases.
But if the 1.42ghz system is fast and smooth, a 3ghz must compile applications under fink in seconds. I bought a few games for mac to test it out, Ghost Recon, RTCW, plays smoothly. The system is stable, and I hardly ever get the little beachball busy cursor.
While I dont care for the mac way of user input and keyboard commands, I have found work arounds. I just wish I could use the more standard methods of GUI usage. I found some apps to make it more like other OS's. And I'm happy my Intellimouse and MS natural keyboard works on it, and drivers are downloadable from microsoft's site, if you want the extended features.
Also, while its mostly BSD underneath, and if you are a BSD user, you can figure most stuff out, HFS/HFS+ and the GUI takes a little getting used too. Getting proper termcap files are a little bit of a hassle, and a decent VGA fixed width type font (mac's are not fixed font oriented), but all in all, its a great OS.
I couldn't switch full time to OSX, because I play CS. But as a normal desktop, I use it all the time. Most of my applications run under screen on a linux box, so I just need a good term program.
I was a Windows loather who used mainly SGI and Linux, but when I decided to get into video in a big way in 1998, I decided to get a Mac because I was told the experience would be seamless.
It was, by 1998 standards, anyway, and I really liked the overall design of the system. But I still used the Unix machine for emacs and programming.
When the public beta came out, I put it on my dual processor G4 and switched almost entirely to the Mac immediately. I've been really happy with it ever since, so now I have a G5 at home, a G4 tower at work and a G4 PowerBook for the road.
Great systems, all of them. I couldn't be happier.
D
Always wanted a NeXT. Couldn't afford them, then they disappeared into Apple. I started shopping for a Mac on March 24, 2001 and ordered my iBook the day the white iBooks came out.
I've been with Apple for a while now. My first Apple computer was an Apple IIgs when I was in high school. My second Apple computer was a PowerBook 520c. My third and current Apple computer is a Power Macintosh G3 (Blue & White), originally had a Motorola 400MHz G3, but upgraded to an IBM 500MHz G3 thanks to Other World Computing and the good folks at IBM. The one thing I've liked about Apple is that it consistently produces good products. Looking at the commercialization of the Windows Desktop (Icons, Icons EVERYWHERE), I admire Apple simplicity and elegance in design. Everything about Apple about coupling simplicity, elegance, and functionality. Their computers, in my experience, are also very reliable. All of my Apple computers still work. Mac OS X is quite impressive, and fast, and for my current web surfing, document writing, CD copying (for my car) and CD ripping (for my car), the 500MHz G3 is plenty fast for my needs, though I REALLY want a Dual 2.0 GHz PowerMac G5. My G3 is now 5 years old, still runs Apple's latest and greatest operating system, and it gets FASTER with every release. The Borg cannot make those claims.
I've always felt exactly the same way about System 7 through OS 9. I had used it a fair amount in college, and never really disliked it. Nice interface, but not nearly enough power to get at the internals for me to use it as my main machine. I was a Linux person (and later FreeBSD) and you could pry that from my cold, dead fingers.
Still, I bought a PowerMac 7600 running 7.5 back in 1996. It served one specific purpose (and still does today, running OS 8.6) as the centerpiece of my home recording studio, running Digital Performer. It was always my music machine and nothing else. Everything else was done on my Unix PC. Actually starting in 2000, I began dabbling in movie editing, using this little program from Apple called iMovie. So then the Mac had exactly two functions.
I had been lusting after OS X since I first starting reading about it, with the Developer Previews. Of course, my little Mac wasn't going to run it well enough to bother, but I wanted it. Finally in 2002, we decided that we wanted to make a video of our upcoming wedding, but we wanted to do it cheap. Of course this was the perfect opportunity to sneak in my desire to try OS X, especially since I'd already become proficient with iMovie. So we got a new Power Mac G4 and a DV camera (the wedding DVD turned out great).
Now the G4 is my primary machine. Terminal is still my most used app, but the rest of it is so much nicer than anything else. The FreeBSD PC sits headless in the corner as the household firewall/router/server. It's setup nicely and I don't want to tinker with it anymore for day to day stuff (that was fun in college, but not so much anymore). We bought an iBook for the wife about a year and a half ago, and we'll never go back. Interestingly, I still keep the 7600 around for music stuff. I had planned to upgrade my Digital Performer for OS X and move all the music stuff to the G4, but the 7600 works so well that I never bothered. It worked great for writing some music for the wedding, and I actually mixed the sound for the wedding video on it because iMovie doesn't give as much control. Perfect!
And then there's work. It's a Windows world. Everyone has a PC, and Mac/Apple are practically dirty words. We use Unix workstations in my group, mostly Sun and SGI. But those are getting to be pretty overpriced in the workstation market for the performance you get. We needed some Unix laptops that could still run Microsoft Office, so I managed to justify a couple of PowerBooks. Then we needed a file server with a couple terabytes that could serve our Unix machines and PCs. Hmm, Power Mac G5 + Xserve RAID. Management wanted to know why we weren't going with a Windows server. Aside from the lower cost vs. comparable Dell or IBM solutions, I think the lack of viruses was a big selling point. Serves NFS automounts, SMB, integrates with NIS, printers, web server, runs our scientific codes faster than any big iron workstation we have. I'd like to see a Windows machine do all of that as well!
So uh, happy birthday, Mac OS X. I know my computing life is much easier and enjoyable because of it. Though now it's kind of frustrating to use anything else. :) With OS X I get to have my cake (gui interface, expose) and eat it too (command line)!
Say hello to zMac.
Surprisingly,
I don't mind upgrading the Mac OS X operating system every year, simply because they really do add features that are worthwhile to the new build, not just adding a new look and feel (a la windows). When was the last time that you actually upgraded to a new windows version and it was actually faster? (Generally to upgrade to a new windows system, you really needed to buy a new computer).
You are looking at $AU 455 for an upgrade to the Windows professional, and even then you don't get everything that you do on a Mac (webserver, database, development tools). So $US 129 is cheap.
The first Mac I bought had 10.2 (in my mind previous Mac OS's were fantastic looking, but behind the times in terms of functionality - think memory management for one) and I love it! It is the only time that I have even considered the Mac OS as a serious purchaser. Not a problem spending on the upgrade - I cannot live without expose!
I use windows at work, and there are some things which it does do better, but I am happier with the Mac at home.
This is NOT the best sig in the world, but this IS a tribute to the best sig in the world.
Ah yes, the "grammar is a straitjacket" argument.
Assuming you manage to graduate despite the onus of that half-literate gibberish you're spewing, you're going to make a fantastic impression on your clients some day. Poor spelling and grammar is simply a sign of laziness, particularly at the university level.
Correct spelling and grammar is an important part of "experessing" yourself well. Don't assume you're so brilliant that the rest of us have any interest in slogging through the steaming mess you've written just to glean the dubious benefits of your self-proclaimed eloquence.
Spelling and grammar are part and parcel of the content of a post. Consequently, it is reasonable to take someone to task for a failing which should have been corrected around age ten. It is also reasonable to suspect that an intellect lacking in the comparatively simple skills of spelling and grammar may prove equally lacking in the ability to produce useful or interesting insights -- let alone the ability to relate those insights to others saddled with the considerable disadvantage of such grossly incompetent communication skills.
Rather than fly into some sort of barely-comprehensible rage, consider what I've written, read and learn from it, and please do not return until you can spell at least as well as a young child.
It's a shame, too. I did find your original post interesting. I considered responding to it. But it was such a disgusting example of near-illiteracy, I decided I preferred to avoid engaging you in conversation. In a way, I was embarassed on your behalf.
Good luck with whatever you end up doing. You're going to need it.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
I just want to put my 2c out and say I've been working on macs since... maybe 1989 -- that was when I was in high school and first learned pascal and c programming on an ancient ( at the time even ) Mac Classic, with about 492 (?) k of ram.
I remember writing a Tron game with friends in my highschool cs class where, since the mac didn't have the CPU to do collision detection via line-to-line intersections in real time and not enough memory to make a bitfield for testing, we ended up using the screen memory itself for collision detection. The game rocked, actually.
Since I'm a professional graphic designer by day, I've *always* been on mac, except for a short detour from 2001 to 2003 when my boss insisted I work on a PC... Thank god I got out of that one.
I have to say, nonetheless, that while the migration to OS X was painful, ultimately, it's been good.
Happy birthday! And many more beleaguered years!
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
If you recall - office depot (or was it staples?) accidentally put Mac OS X 10.0 on the shelves the day it arrived in their stores - about 3 days before hand IIRC. This was the hot news on the Mac OS X websites the day this all happened.. i think smog levels went up around all the Office Depots the second the news hit.
Man...it HAS been a long time - i forget all the details - except for the one where my wife asked "Wait, did you just buy it twice? I thought you had ordered it from Apple thru your friend there?"
me: "But dude, i got it NOW!!!! Long before everyone else!!!"
Ah... i miss those days.... no sleep prior to a major OS release to be first in line at Frys....
man, i'm old now. i don't do fun things like that any more.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
I actually just recently switched to a PowerBook after posting a question about them on Ask Slashdot. The slashdotters responses helped convince me it was worth the investment, and it absolutely has been. While the pure performance of the machine hasn't been what I would hope for in a $3000 notebook, it has been far from bad, and everything ELSE about the machine (size, look and feel, and the best OS I've seen, ever...) had made it MORE than worth it.
While I try not to get caught up in all the "PowerBook G5 next week!" rumors, they certainly have to be released sometime this year, and I will definitely be first in line when they are announced.
While your low slashdot user id# impresses me oh-so-much, Oh Great One, I'm neither young nor inexperienced, and if you'd been using X11 since before Linux, KDE, and Gnome existed, like me, you'd know that "the whole world" doesn't do things the same. The former Windows users creating GUIs for former Windows users for the Intel boxes they bought with Windows on them rip off Windows to make their new GUIs more familiar. Traditional X11 window managers had less in common with Windows than the Mac does.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
I am an Apple user since 1983, and even through the dark days (20 mac types in one year; corroded Copland, rushed Rapsody, ...) i kept the faith that one day Apple was going to make the a new statement telling the world it is again a player on the OS market.
And that day was when MacOS X was released.
Praise all people involved! From the iCEO to the employer that wraps the box.
I Switched when I walked into the Apple Store @ Valley Fair Mall Last Fall. The New AI Powerbooks had just came out. "WHOA!" is all I could say. So I walked out with my first laptop, my first Mac, and my new Love The Powerbook G4 15" Firewire 800 with a combo drive running OS X.2 at the time. The date was Nov. 2nd of 2003. Not long after I bought her an X.3 upgrade on launch night. Although we have had our differances (White Spots, and Fadding Back Light), I still love my Powerbook. I wouldnt traid her for any Wintel box ever. So let me take time to wish a very happy belated birthday to OS X, and say thank you for making my Powerbook ROCK!
OS X 10.0 may have been released on that date, but I wouldn't call that the "real" OS X... most people, including myself, considered that version more of a beta than a final release, even though Apple had already released an official "beta" some months before that. IMO, OS X didn't become a "real" OS until version 10.1.