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.

Comments

Shouldn't that be .3 today

[BoomerSooner]

Since it is 10.3?

Birthday Present

[k_killmore]

Now all Apple needs to do is deliver those 3 ghz G5s today and it will really be a day to remember. ;)

Re:Birthday Present

[Tumbleweed]

You'll be seeing 2.5gHz G5s first (perhaps next week, according to the rumour sites). The 3gHz machines aren't expected until end of summer, or thereabouts.

I'd be _very_ interested in playing with a generic PPC970FX board (www.970eval.com) with Linux, though, if it became affordable.

I'm _really_ hoping the new machines at end of summer come with PCI-E, so we can all get on with the task of migration at the same time as major processor upgrades.

Re:Birthday Present

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, there were some things in your comment that made me wonder if you have any idea what you're talking about. No offense.

I just wish I could use the more standard methods of GUI usage.

What? Seeing how the Mac has been around longer than any other presently extant user interface, I'd say the Mac way is the standard way!

a decent VGA fixed width type font (mac's are not fixed font oriented)

Courier, Monaco, and Andale Mono are all installed on your machine by default. There's absolutely nothing wrong with them. In fact, Courier 14 with antialiasing is far easier to read on-screen than any other font. (VGA? What?)

thanks for helping with the math.

[dotgod]

Mac OS X 10.0 was released on March 24, 2001.

Thanks, Pudge...I wasn't sure if 2004 - 3 was the proper operation for determining the original year based on an anniversary.

Expose

[tblease]

Ah, the birthday of OS X. Here's to wishing that Windows had something similar to OS X Panther's Expose!

Re:Expose

[thirteenVA]

Here's to hoping that when they do, apple has created something even better...

:)

Happy OS X user

[GreatDrok]

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.

Re:Happy OS X user

[mrgeometry]

I would think by then it would get bumped to XI.


There's been a lot of talk to the effect that Apple is not likely to abandon the catchy-sounding "OS X" name. ("O S X I" doesn't sound as cool as "O S X"....) So will they call it "OS X Eleven" or "OS X Two point Oh" or what? Who knows?! As much as the OS might deserve a full new version number, the marketing aspect of it definitely pulls in the direction of keeping "OS X" as long as possible.

zach

Re:Happy OS X user

[tantalus]

There's been a lot of talk to the effect that Apple is not likely to abandon the catchy-sounding "OS X" name. ("O S X I" doesn't sound as cool as "O S X"....)


On the contrary, "O S X I", obviously pronounced "Oh, Sexy" sounds very cool indeed.

Switching views

[OmniVector]

It's pretty amazing how polar opposite many slashdotter's views about Apple have changed since the release of OS X. The science and *nix community has really embraced this newcommer to the *nix world.

Who else here used to hate macs until OS X, and now uses it as their primary machine? I'm sure I'm not alone.

Re:Switching views

[Dstreelm]

yes, i never used a mac before osx, i bought my powerbook over a year ana a half ago, and i have absolutley no regrets. i was a hardcore windows user and now i just laugh at my friends whose computers crash, my roomate just virus checked his system and he found over 2000 viruses, i have none. that being said, i would rather that alot of windows xp users not 'switch' because i like being the outnumbered and decenting. i know my system is betterand i could care less about most windows users. however i would like to see apple continue to grow and gain more acceptance

Re:Switching views

[MBCook]

Well, I didn't LIKE Macs (in a way) untill OS X.

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!

Re:Switching views

[DavidLeblond]

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.

Re:Switching views

[daviddennis]

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

Re:Switching views

[Van Halen]

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.

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)!

Mac OS X Release History

[Goo.cc]

I have a page that lists all revision of Mac OS X (client) since the public beta. I created it because I periodically save screenshots and I couldn't always remember which OS revision the screenshot was created with.

Anyway, you can access it at http://www.goo.cc/macosx.html

PCI-E != PCI-X

[Tumbleweed]

Nope. PCI-X is a much older technology, and very different from the new serial connector technology called PCI Express (abbreviated PCI-E). Macs _have_ had 64-bit 66mHz PCI for quite some time, though that's still nowhere near as sophisticated as PCI-E.

PCI-Express, however, will be replacing both AGP _and_ PCI slots, so all your peripherals will be using the same technology, albeit in different form factors (16x connector for AGP replacement, 1x or 4x connectors for most everything else). I believe it's 250MB/s (each direction?) per 'x' of connector length in PCI-E, so this will be a substantial improvement in bandwidth on PCI-E systems.

Re:They do

[undef24]

I bought it and its slow. The next week I bought a powerbook.

present

[witort]

I just wish I didn't have to buy it a $129 present every year...

Too bad...

[PrintError]

Too bad, because I heard Apple's going out of business.

Again...