Guess I must be an “archaic diehard”, because I still have some Macs that can run earlier OS versions, including 9, 8, 7, and 6. And yes, I still like to run some programs that were made for those systems. Perhaps you consider everything before OS X obsolete, but there are still some pretty cool games I like to play on those.
No, I wouldn’t try using older systems like that for major internet stuff nowadays, or DVD burning or the like. But what criteria are you using to proclaim a program “obsolete”? If there’s a newer OS X version of a given program, then sure – I’d call the old version obsolete (or at least approaching obsolescence). But what if there IS no newer version of a program you like?
So now you’ve peaked my curiousity, Priceguy – what things are you referring to? (If you don’t want to post them here, do you mind e-mailing me on it?)
For the record, I’m a computer science guy and I use as many platforms and OSes as I can. My pet peeve in Mac vs. PC debates is not so much the difference of opinions or the passion with which one side loves and defends its machine over the other – but instead, it’s when people who have never even used (insert_platform_or_OS_here) go totally apeshit about bashing said platform or OS. A Mac fanatic who bashes PCs and has no knowledge of PCs is just as annoying as a Windows fanatic bashing Mac who has no knowledge of Mac.
Me? I use them all, so I’ll be content just to be an insufferable know-it-all.
They did. It’s BSD UNIX with a nice GUI, essentially, and fundamentally an evolutionary product of Jobs’ old venture, NEXT. It preserves backwards compatibility only by A) Running on PPC processors, and B) Running OS9 as a separate application “layer” upon which non-OSX-native apps can be launched.
I find the most striking thing about OSX is how clearly it demonstrates what a complete load of shite OS9 was. I’m, quite frankly, terribly glad that the old MacOS has been jettisoned, and the day I never have to run a classic app. again will be a happy one.
FWIW, I think the Windows platform is suffering terribly now for not being able to make a clean break from legacy, and it shows most glaringly in Windows’ terrible security problems. People talk about Windows backwards compatibility like it’s some great virtue, but IMO, it’s a terrible liability that drags the platform down.
And I have a Mac SE running System 6, and a PCC clone running System 7.6. I wouldn’t use them for anything important, though. I certainly wouldn’t use OS 9 in a production environment, at this point.
I’ve always loathed computer games, aside from Sim City. Bitterly hate them. Most of my ancient software runs fine through Classic (though I don’t use it… as much as I miss WordPerfect 3.5 for Mac). I’d imagine games wouldn’t be so fortunate. But it’s a far cry from keeping a machine available to play an old game, and continuing to truly use icky old OS 9.
I’d say a program is obsolete when it becomes a chore to continue using it – such as, using old hardware and an ancient OS just for that one purpose.
I fear we’re never going to know. I’d really like to know, as well. Hell, I’d imagine many of them have been rectified in OS X.
I’ve used Macs for close to 15 years, and I used to professionally tech support Windows based computers. Is that enough knowledge?
I wasn’t referring to anybody in particular (for the record) – just adding my 2 cents into the general topic of the OP.
I’ve seen plenty of vitriolic arguments over Mac vs. PC where one arguer knew nothing about the other side’s machines or OS. Where I just wanted to bitch-slap the person for arguing out of their ass.
In any event – I really like the fact that Apple totally re-tooled OS X with unix underpinnings. And no, I wouldn’t use OS 9 for major and modern applications nowadays, or for anything that had a newer version. But I don’t think that Priceguy asking “what did people like about OS 9” is necessarily irrelevant. Although it would not be appropriate to compare Mac systems from that time frame to PCs from today. Now, if somebody wants to compare OS 9 to Windows 98… (well, don’t get me started on the P.O.S. that was Windows 98).
I guess I’ll start that thread anyway. I haven’t used a Mac for several weeks though (I only use them in school (where, yes, they’re still running Mac OS 9) and I’ve been writing my thesis from home), so I don’t remember the third of the three points I wanted to include. The thread will be up as soon as it comes back to me.
Well, that depends. Was your tech support management brighter than mine?
I used to work tech support. First I spent about a year and a half getting ripped to pieces by angry Mac users because we didn’t support Macs, only Windows. Then Management decided that we were going to support Macs, but we weren’t going to let that increase the costs. No sir. We bought two iMacs, three iBooks and a G3, if memory serves (might have been a G4 - when were those released?), and eight of us were sent on a six-hour course. After that, guess who was the primary tech support resource for Macs at this large company, the name of which is familiar to absolutely everybody in Sweden?
That’s right, the guy you’re talking to. Somehow, I managed to do damn well, too.
To be fair, it was an impressive piece of work for its time, especially when you remember that the original Macintosh OS (Finder/System) were written in a time where 512K (not MB!) of RAM was considered a luxury.
That it was actually kept alive for as long as it did – IMO, System 6 was about as far as you could reasonably push the old codebase – is a minor geek technological feat.
I tossed my old copy of Quicken and replaced it with Moneydance, and now I don’t have any need for “Classic” any more. I still keep it around, though I admit I don’t know why…
Eghch! Just crashed way, waaaay too much towards the end. System 6.0 was a marvel, an absolute joy to use. Then things just went downhill, reaching their nadir at some time during the mid 8’s. Admittedly, 9.x was an improvement over that, but a lot of the specialty apps I had to run brought my system to its knees far too often. Sure, bad coders are to blame partially for that, but there was no way to contain their sloppyness.
Well, I don’t knwo if this is what he was referring to, but I run a few DOS applications bt using a DOS emulator of sorts, so i imagine he might be referring to a 3.1 emulator.
S’okay, this won’t take long, being as I don’t know the particulars. All I know is that I have a game that I bought back in 1990; it was written for Windows 3.X. About a year ago, I downloaded the same game but someone somewhere made it compatible with XP.
If you’re referring to DOS compatiblity, Microsoft started phasing out DOS support in 98SE. XP boxes can boot to DOS but it’s not really usable for anything other than system maintenance.
Everything that is now developed to support the .NET Framework (certainly everything I’m building) can be run on any version of Windows starting with '95. This was a great bonus for me - I wrote a little, very specialist tool to manage Gran Turismo replay files that were downloaded from PS2 memory cards, in .NET, and I could get all the flashy UI options in .NET, without having to worry about which version of Windows I was running on. That program was downloaded by thousands and all the support I’ve ever had to give was limited to instructions on how to install .NET.
And certainly, '98 is still a viable OS that is being used by quite a few people - many older PCs with little memory (64mb or less) run this OS now. Sure, you need to reinstall every year due to dll management issues in that OS, but most people that use it have some form of backup/ghosting system in place.
Not really. XP is from the NT OS line, which at version 5.0 (2000) was greatly revised and improved (among others, like OS/X though not as much, made more Unix-like). XP is the look-how-pretty-I-can-be update, but is really only NT 5.1.
I think OS/X was a great step for the Mac though, and the latest additions seem pretty decent.
I’m one of those people who has pretty much used and tried all systems (Atari ST rules!). Funnily enough, the thing that annoyed me most on the Mac has always been the single button mouse. I’m not sure that’s still around, but boy did I hate it. The right mouse click context menu rules.
(btw, if Windows added .pdf support out of the box, it’d have another lawsuit on its hands)
All in all, I think happy Mac-users should be happy that they are a select few, because many of the really good benefits (few virusses and such) would disappear quite fast.
Well, like I said, the switch from NT 4.0 to NT 5.0 (2000) was a big one. Do you remember how many years of development there was between the two versions? Off the top of my head, I think it was 6 years. NT 5.0 was largely rewritten.
