If there was no OS X, would you be an Apple user?

[Apple][Forever]

Here's something I was wondering.

First, let me give you a little history. After the Commodore VIC-20 I had, my first 'real' computer was an Apple IIGS. I used it for years, until 1992. After a few angry mails to Cupertino, and a few responses with some token free books and stuff, it was clear that the II was dead. So, I switched to a PC running Windows 3.1. Life continues, and I learn all about CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, the Registry, and other wonderful, wonderful pieces of technology.

Fast forward to 1999, after I've owned a few home-built Intel and AMD boxes...

I'm done with college, at a job where we're setting up a video department. I'm in charge of figuring out what the hell to buy. Looking at available options, I decide the new Mac B&Ws are the best choice, and I get a new Mac on the desk. (Remember, this was the dot-com era.) At once, with the Canon XL1 we purchased and my new Mac, I am tearing out broadcast video like a banshee. (Damn, those were the good old days. We weren't even at a Blue alert level back then.)

Upon quitting, I take it upon myself to purchase a Mac for the home... the first Apple equipment I had purchased since '87. It's a B&W Server, bought new on auction immediately after the Yikes G4s came out. I'm actually using it right now. Granted, it has 640MB more RAM, a new 80GB HDD, a DVD burner, a 600MHz G4 upgrade ZIF, and some other stuff in it. But it still looks like a freakin' Smurf.

I used it in conjunction with my PC (Mac: Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator; PC: general Office/Internet stuff) until my PC died. Thinking I'd give OS X another try (I had 10.0 for a bit but didn't use it because it sucked), I installed a friend's copy of OS X 10.1.

I haven't had a PC since. Now I'm at 10.2 (YES, I BOUGHT IT) and loving it. While I'm writing this, I'm SSH-ing to another machine to run Folding, and encoding MPEG-2 from Final Cut, and the machine is rock-solid. I can't go back to Windows. I won't.

But, once in a while (for audio), I boot into OS 9. And, I HATE IT. It's like I stepped back 10 years in the history of computing. I'd rather use Windows XP. In fact, if there wasn't an OS X 10.1 or 10.2 I would have sold my Mac years ago, as near and dear as it is (I have bought an iBook since as well).

So, assuming you've read through all this--had Apple stuck with OS 9 going into '03, would you switch to the DARK SIDE? There's advantages and disadvantages, but for me, the cheaper hardware, wider selection of drivers and software, and protected memory structure of WinXP outweigh the ease of use of OS 9.

What do you think?

[Macette]

I wouldn't have gone dark side. I loved OS 9 (but was very excited about OS X, and switched over almost immediately despite some performance flaws in the early versions).

Do you know what my greatest fear is? That I'll build my whole life on Macs and then Apple will go bankrupt and I'll never be able to use them agian. That would be too much to bear.

[Mr. MacPhisto]

I would never have switched without OS X. There's no doubt at all about it. I don't like OS9 at all, but think OS X is just so wonderful. I know many people who are currently thinking about switching - not because of the ad campaign, but because of X.

[janey]

yeah i would because it would still be better than Windows.

[Flowbee]

If there was no OS X, I would not be a Mac user (I'd still have an iPod, though). I've always liked Apple hardware, but the old OS never seemed to have any advantages over Windows. But as soon as I saw OS X in action, I was hooked. I originally intended to be an "adder" rather than a "switcher," but ever since getting my "new" Cube, my PIII has just been gathering dust in the corner.

[rideahyperLite]

w/o x i would stay windows

[rideahyperLite]

this should be a poll

[zimv20]

Originally posted by Macette

Do you know what my greatest fear is? That I'll build my whole life on Macs and then Apple will go bankrupt and I'll never be able to use them agian.

considering every mac i've owned since 1986 is still fully functional, i don't think you need to worry about not using them if apple went under.

still, it would suck.

would i still use macs w/o osx? i used 'em for 16 years like that, so i guess so.

[AtariMan]

without osX i would never have thought about switching back.

A mac classic was my first computer and i used macs until 1997. From then on it was cheaper hardware and windows, which was almost as stable if set up properly.

Once win2K came out i didn't think i would ever switch back. It was faster and more stable than any mac OS at the time.

When 10.0 came out i used it on a friends mac, i thought "nice, but too slow and colorful". By the time Jaguar came out i was hooked, i convinced my dad to buy an iBook and i've loved every minute that i've had the opportunity to use it.

Now a few of the places i do freelance video editing for are running 10.2 and its great.

My home PC's getting a bit old and i'm about to order a new G4. Sure its not as fast as a new PC, but it runs osX. Before osx i would never have wanted a new mac, the only things going for them were....... um........ they had a cool case........ and the iApps were good.......the resale value was higher and, ah, os9 forced you to concentrate on only one App at a time, cause running too many would crash it.

So yeah OSX is the reson i'm switching back

[reflex]

I wouldn't have bought a mac without OS X. I don't know why it attracted me exactly, but I think it was mostly because I miss BeOS (note: OS X is much better than BeOS in a lot of ways, of course, more mature for one thing).

[john123]

I'll offer the opposite viewpoint.

I've owned the Power Mac 6100, two G3 desktops, a Pismo, and 3 PowerBook G4s. If OS X doesn't improve in GUI performance and allow me to manipulate it more (e.g., turning off anti-aliased fonts, and no, TinkerTool doesn't do a good job in this regard), it'll probably be my last Mac.

[yosoyjay]

Without OS X I wouldn't have touched a Mac with a 10 ft. pole.

Luckily, the Jaguar update prevented me from throwing my iBook out the window because I was so frustrated with the s l o w n e s s of the first iterations.

I tried OS 9 and nearly regurgitated. I'd rather use Windows 98 or NetBSD.

[mac15]

I used OS9 for ages, so yeah I'd still be on a mac

[f-matic]

i kind of agree with john123... kinda. see, os 9 is pretty sweet when it comes to music - for the last few years it's been the only real system you could use to use for 'experimental' music, with max/msp and supercollider both being os 9 only (granted you have pd, audiomulch, etc. etc. for other platforms, but i'd argue max and supercollider were/are the best featured). on top of that, os 9 is supereasy to customize for audio work, and it's a very light operating system - meaning for live laptop use it's responsive and fast, two key issues for a decent musical interface.

application-wise, os x isn't quite there yet, though it soon will be, with max/msp for os x coming soon and other pretty exciting unix-flavored musical programs too (supercollider 3 with client/server command line interface - pretty sweet!). but i'm not totally sold on os x as a musical interface. os x is still too slow for the kind of quick responsive interaction you need for live music creation IMHO. i'm sure this isn't a problem if you have a new g4 12/15/17 whatever but who has the money for that? especially when os 9 is a speed demon on just about any g3 you can throw at it...

just my $0.02,

np

[goglamosh]

OS X is 99% of the reason i bought an iMac. But now I see more advantages to having a Mac. Like software-hardware integration, and higher quality components. In the past I would build my own computers but I grew tired of the weirdness and instability of that other OS from Redmond.

[Gus]

Yeah, I'd still be using a Mac if there was just OS 9, (since I've been using them since System 6 anyway), but instead of happily typing away at this post, I'd probably be rebuiding my desktop, or trying to find which freakin' extension was causing that constant lock-up. Nah, I don't miss 9 at all, and I jumped into X from the very beginning. I've been waiting for X since they promised me Copland/Rhapsody back in '96/'97.

Regards,
Gus

[Chimaera]

There is no chance. The main reason I bought an old iMac was to play with OSX (although I must admit the price was also good, but thats another story). My job involves supporting and maintaining a number of systems from OS6 on up to Jaguar, and I *hate* the previous OS's, although they improve throughout to OS9. On my work machine (running jag, natch) I just finished removing Classic mode from the system, the one thing I used it for finally being available in a carbon version.

I won't miss the precursors to OSX at all when we upgrade the entire network to OSX over the summer :)

[john123]

Well I guess from a marketing standpoint, OS X is good.

I don't think I'm alone in demanding speed speed and more speed, though. See, lots of people complain about crashes with OS 9, but that doesn't happen very much to me. Sure it happens occasionally, and I have to restart...but I almost never lose any work. And the time I lose in restarting is far, far less than the time I lose waiting for OS X to do something with its GUI. Yes, OS X is far superior in true multitasking, but the reality of the matter is that most of us don't do true multitasking. I see all kinds of people "testing out the new Macs" in Apple stores by playing a DVD and letting iTunes go and running some other process in the background.

If I'm gonna listen to music, I'm gonna listen to music. If I'm gonna watch a movie, I'm gonna watch a movie. And if I'm gonna work, I'm gonna work. I might even combine work with music if I'm in a particularly daredevil mood, but I swear, if you were my college roommate and you sat down at your desk and starting playing songs in iTunes while watching the Matrix or something...well, something bad would happen. :)

Most of us use our Macs to do simple things, one task at a time. We run a filter in Photoshop, we do some work in iMovie...we rarely do multiple user-oriented things simultaneously. And that's why, for most of us, OS 9 is snappier.

And I also prefer the OS 9 fonts. I simply can't stand those "smoothed" fonts...if you have a PowerBook, look at the lower cased Ls and Is in the menu bar. That vertical band of reddish pixels that's an artifact of font smoothing positively drives me nuts. I far prefer the "pixely" OS 9 fonts that are at least clear and readable. It also gives me more screen real estate -- try making the font for your desktop items in OS X the same size as the default Geneva 10 in OS 9 and see how readable it is with that white-outlined-with-black nonsense.

Bottom line, I value performance over pretty. And over features sometimes, too. I can understand why sysadmins may love OS X...but for Joe User, who really compares between the two, I don't. Ultimately, I fault Apple for not giving people like me the customization options to make our fonts and windows like they were in OS 9, or to eliminate the dock. All that GUI nonsense slows down my machine (and I'm on a PowerBook 1Ghz with the 64MB video card, to boot!) and makes me a rather unhappy camper.

So there's my opinion. :)

[springscansing]

Hell, I'm STILL IN 9 FOR AUDIO APPS.

So .. yeah .. I'd still be a mac user. ;-)

[springscansing]

Originally posted by f-matic
i kind of agree with john123... kinda. see, os 9 is pretty sweet when it comes to music - for the last few years it's been the only real system you could use to use for 'experimental' music, with max/msp and supercollider both being os 9 only (granted you have pd, audiomulch, etc. etc. for other platforms, but i'd argue max and supercollider were/are the best featured). on top of that, os 9 is supereasy to customize for audio work, and it's a very light operating system - meaning for live laptop use it's responsive and fast, two key issues for a decent musical interface.

application-wise, os x isn't quite there yet, though it soon will be, with max/msp for os x coming soon and other pretty exciting unix-flavored musical programs too (supercollider 3 with client/server command line interface - pretty sweet!). but i'm not totally sold on os x as a musical interface. os x is still too slow for the kind of quick responsive interaction you need for live music creation IMHO. i'm sure this isn't a problem if you have a new g4 12/15/17 whatever but who has the money for that? especially when os 9 is a speed demon on just about any g3 you can throw at it...

just my $0.02,

np

I 100% agree. Fortunally I had the money to get a dual 867, so I think OS X is good for audio for myself personally, as Coreaudio is fantastic and OMS is hell.

But yes, when Max/MSP comes out for X along with Reaktor, I'm switching. I hope Supercollider 3 server comes out soon as well too.

Max is such a fantastic program.

[robbieduncan]

I bought my first ever Mac (Clamshell iBook 466 SE) to run the OS X Public Beta. Without OS X I would not have even considered buying a Mac. Before I was a hardcore Linux user (I am still a Linux user) and was looking for a laptop that would run Linux well. The iBook seemed to be about as good as the PC competition in that respect (but was the cheapest DVD playing laptop I could get in the UK at the time). But it was OS X that sealed the deal. I would now never buy a non-Mac laptop, although I am still an x86 desktop person.

[peterjhill]

I have been an apple user since the apple iie. Apple would not have any marketshare now without an advanced OS. WinXP kicks OS9s butt for the things I want to do. I would probably have a dell laptop running Linux with VMWare running XP.

[aethier]

If Apple never realesed mac os X i wouuld still be useing a Mac. first of all, my dad had a Mac Plus befor i was even born. He continued to upgrade by buying new macs every few years. so if os x never came out i would just be another happy os 9 users. i have nothing against that os. and after all, if OS X neve came out we would have nothing to compaire it to. winXP wouldnt be as good cause they would have no inovative new mac os to copy.

-aethier

[moby1]

I loved mac OS 8.6 and OS 9.2 at the time but...

Based on my recent use of Windows XP Pro, I'd have moved over to an IBM ThinkPad with XPP and Red Hat 8 on it.

I used OS X since the Public Beta and I was getting really frustrated with the progress by the release of 10.0 (sloo0). 10.2 "Jaguar" has finally confirmed to me that Jobs and the "NeXtites" were right. The clincher is the recent upgrades of the iApps - they are really getting to be a major factor in making OS X the most attractive OS today.

I've ordered my iLife package & I can't wait to try iDVD 3 with iPhoto 2 to make a DVD of my digital photos! I think Apple should push the iApps as the reason to switch over the current "Switcher" campaign.

moby1

[moby1]

Sexy new hardware aside, I think Final Cut Express was the biggest announcement at MWSF. There are plenty of us "prosumers" out there who don't need a top-of-the-line app' but are willing to pay a reasonable fee for something to expand beyond the consumer app's like iMovie.

Perhaps we'll see a whole 2nd tier of app's like FCE. :)

[weev]

Reading all these posts I feel like I've been left sitting in the station.

Y'see, I still use 9.2 to do web and graphic design. My graphite 500mhz imac is well up for the job and the OS does what it needs to do.

I've not used XP and I've played with OS X (even ran it on my machine for a while but a bit slow). It's nice, yes, but I can look forward to using it one day when I buy a new mac, maybe the new 970, who knows, don't need a new computer now, want yes, need no.

I've only ever used macs since I bought a Plus in the late 80s. I guess I really don't know what I'm missing ;)

[ibjoshua]

i'm a long time mac user and would still be trudging along with OS9 if necessary.

i_b_joshua

[Bear]

This is a good question an dprobably would make a good poll of the day.

I'm not sure what I would have done without OS X, I've only ever run OS X on the Macs I bought last year.

I possibly would have been forced to Macs & OS 9 to get away from Microsoft and windows.

As it was, making the switch to OS X was wonderful. I know Unix very well, so I had no problems with that piece. Photoshop is the most extensively used piece of commercial software I own. (Not counting what comes with OS X.) Which sort of dictates having a PC or a Mac.

[bbarnhart]

About a year ago I decided that I needed a new computer (my mac is very old and is painful to use). I was going to build an AMD based PC. Why was I going to switch from a lifetime of Apple computers to a PC? I use PC's at work (developer) and I find them no trouble at all and they are very inexpensive.

But...

Mac OS X is just so great. We also have an iBook and I've installed Mac OS X on it, but my desktop would not run X. Or would it? After discovering XPostfacto and installing it on my old 8500 I was set.

But...

It is still slow. However, the price difference between a new dual 1.25 PowerMac and a similarly configured PC was about $600. But, the PC did not run Mac OS X and to me that was very important.

I mean, why use a computer if it doesn't run Mac OS X. :D

[Pablo]

Originally posted by Mr. MacPhisto
I would never have switched without OS X. There's no doubt at all about it. I don't like OS9 at all, but think OS X is just so wonderful. I know many people who are currently thinking about switching - not because of the ad campaign, but because of X.

Same here. I'm thinking about switching, pretty much due to OS X. I started out on Macs (~15 years ago), but left it for Windows 3.1. About the time XP came out, I started looking for an alternative OS, as I was becoming more and more displeased with the way MS is headed.

I tried various versions of Linux, and while it was fun tinkering, I spent all my time getting things to work and never any time actually using it as a desktop OS. Add to that the fact that there's no way to get many programs I need to work (Quicken, other financial software, etc). I wanted a desktop OS (not MS) that just worked...and I didn't (and don't) see Linux as being a viable alternative...for anytime in the forseeable future. Perhaps for servers, but not for a desktop.

So then I learn about OS X, and after playing with it a little, and seeing it in action, I'm very encouraged. Add to that the fact that it's backed by Apple and I'm eager to get my feet wet.

Now, if I could just get an updated 15" PowerBook, or convince myself that I need a 17" PB (especially that I could get it sooner)...which is starting to happen.

[PieMac]

As much as I love my Macs (iBook and iMac flat panel screen), I hate OS 9 and would take XP over it any day.

Too, I just can't imagine the newer (especially in the last 2 years or so), Apple computers running anything but 10.0 and up....one compliments the other so perfectly....the design of the computer itself is a work of art. The very few times that I've had to boot into 9...well, it looks just foreign on either one of my Macs...it just doesn't belong.

I've had nothing but Jaguar running on my iBook since last summer and I plan to do the same with my iMac next time I do a clean install. Thank goodness everything I run is now Jaguar compatible!:cool:

[Jaykay]

Yeah i have to say i love OS X but seeing that the first mac i had was when my father bought one with just the motherboard, ya had to make yor own case.

So i know id still be using 9 seeing by know they probably would have seriously ugraded i by now, eh?

[Das]

Well, a better question would be if you would like OSX without the suck feature.

I've used macs primarily in 9, so I would have still been a mac nut either way, although probably without an addiction to minimizing everything in sight.

[hesdeadjim]

I got my first Mac with OS 9, and I was very happy with it. I didn't like some of the little things about it, but it was less problematic than Windows. So, I would still use Macs without X though.

Now, if I had to go back to 9 now, that is another question. I would probably never go back. A quote from my GF who was a PC user until this year ;), "My professor has a PowerBook G4 in OS 9, and every time he boots up, I'm like Nooooooo! It just looks unusable." This was the same person who was upset when I updated my G3 iMac to OS X.

[hesdeadjim]

Originally posted by Das
Well, a better question would be if you would like OSX without the suck feature.

I've used macs primarily in 9, so I would have still been a mac nut either way, although probably without an addiction to minimizing everything in sight.

I like suck, but it slowed down my computer quite a bit. Maybe that was just my experience.

[hesdeadjim]

Originally posted by john123
Well I guess from a marketing standpoint, OS X is good.

I don't think I'm alone in demanding speed speed and more speed, though. See, lots of people complain about crashes with OS 9, but that doesn't happen very much to me. Sure it happens occasionally, and I have to restart...but I almost never lose any work. And the time I lose in restarting is far, far less than the time I lose waiting for OS X to do something with its GUI. Yes, OS X is far superior in true multitasking, but the reality of the matter is that most of us don't do true multitasking. I see all kinds of people "testing out the new Macs" in Apple stores by playing a DVD and letting iTunes go and running some other process in the background.

If I'm gonna listen to music, I'm gonna listen to music. If I'm gonna watch a movie, I'm gonna watch a movie. And if I'm gonna work, I'm gonna work. I might even combine work with music if I'm in a particularly daredevil mood, but I swear, if you were my college roommate and you sat down at your desk and starting playing songs in iTunes while watching the Matrix or something...well, something bad would happen. :)

Most of us use our Macs to do simple things, one task at a time. We run a filter in Photoshop, we do some work in iMovie...we rarely do multiple user-oriented things simultaneously. And that's why, for most of us, OS 9 is snappier.

And I also prefer the OS 9 fonts. I simply can't stand those "smoothed" fonts...if you have a PowerBook, look at the lower cased Ls and Is in the menu bar. That vertical band of reddish pixels that's an artifact of font smoothing positively drives me nuts. I far prefer the "pixely" OS 9 fonts that are at least clear and readable. It also gives me more screen real estate -- try making the font for your desktop items in OS X the same size as the default Geneva 10 in OS 9 and see how readable it is with that white-outlined-with-black nonsense.

Bottom line, I value performance over pretty. And over features sometimes, too. I can understand why sysadmins may love OS X...but for Joe User, who really compares between the two, I don't. Ultimately, I fault Apple for not giving people like me the customization options to make our fonts and windows like they were in OS 9, or to eliminate the dock. All that GUI nonsense slows down my machine (and I'm on a PowerBook 1Ghz with the 64MB video card, to boot!) and makes me a rather unhappy camper.

So there's my opinion. :)

There is a difference between watching a movie and playing iTunes at the same time and actually multitasking. I surf the web (both safari and chimera), on iChat, check my email in both Mail and Entourage, run Word, run Excel, run preview, have system preferences open, and maybe Photoshop 5.5 in classic all at the same time. Mind you, I'm working in Photoshop, Word, Excel, iTunes, and surfing all at the same time (well I switch apps, but as I run a photoshop filter, I work on Excel worksheet for example). That would have never been possible in OS 9 despite what others might tell you. Hell, I had trouble running both Word and Excel at the same time, which I do at least 2 or 3 times a week.

[ExoticFish]

i was always one of those ignorant windows users that was 100% against anything Mac. then as my knowledge of computers grew i quickly realized that windows just sucked, so i switched to Linux. I still kept windows around for games (and still do), but my dual boot machine was mostly running Linux. then the TiBook came about and i just started to drool all over myself. i mean, how sweet did that thing look??? by then i wasn't quite so against Mac but i didn't really care about OS 9. When OS X came out i was so stoked. my main desktop was Linux and i loved it, but OS X? absolutely amazing. I got an old 233MHz G3 and played with X and i was hooked. I bought my 667 DVI TiBook and have since upgraded to a 1GHz Ti. But now that I have used it, i don't mind OS 9 at all, no where near as good as X, but it's alright.

[john123]

Originally posted by hesdeadjim
There is a difference between watching a movie and playing iTunes at the same time and actually multitasking. I surf the web (both safari and chimera), on iChat, check my email in both Mail and Entourage, run Word, run Excel, run preview, have system preferences open, and maybe Photoshop 5.5 in classic all at the same time. Mind you, I'm working in Photoshop, Word, Excel, iTunes, and surfing all at the same time (well I switch apps, but as I run a photoshop filter, I work on Excel worksheet for example). That would have never been possible in OS 9 despite what others might tell you. Hell, I had trouble running both Word and Excel at the same time, which I do at least 2 or 3 times a week.


(1) That is *not* true multitasking. That's a process that you the user are using in the foreground and a bunch of background processes. When developers talk about preemptive multitasking, they are talking about the situation I talked about in my first post -- multiple user-driven "foreground" processes.

(2) I do exactly what you are describing every day on my Mac in OS 9. AIM, IE, Word, Excel, graphics program(s), and iTunes are open 99% of the time, and on average, there are about three other programs open as well. All at the same time. No problems...

Maybe I'm blessed, or maybe you people just are doing weird stuff with your Macs.

[leprechaunG4]

Multitasking refers to a system's ability to manipulate multiple processes at one time. Both foreground and background processes are included. Multitasking does NOT mean a multiuser environment, though such and environment would require greater multitasking capabilities it is not the definition of multitasking. Now back to the topic of this thread. Would I have ever purchased a MAC without OS X? Heck No! I hadn't touched an Apple since the IIgs of my childhood. Apple has always had nice hardware, but the OS's have been total junk. Former MAC OS's offered no real control over the system, no command line to get to. Too user friendly is a big problem if you are a computer networking major like myself. I can't be happy with just pretty little pictures and wizards. OS 9 and previous were like giant barriers between the user and the machine. Since OS 10 and later are based on the greatest OS ever designed (Unix based) they finally can take advantage of their incredible hardware. There is now a command line, a Unix command line! My networking blood couldn't be happier. Result. Last night I ordered my first MAC, a 12" Powerbook G4 with superdrive :cool:

[john123]

No one referred to a multi-user environment in the first place....

Anyway, I always have to chuckle at how many people accept an OS that is dog slow with blurry fonts just because it's "built on UNIX." Kudos to Apple's marketing department.

Sometimes, I wonder what would happen if Apple rebranded Windows XP under its own name. I suspect there'd be lots of users who'd flock to buy it, crying out, "This is so much better than a PC!"

[edesignuk]

Nope, I wouldn't. OS 10.1 is what really did it for me. I had a 400Mhz Powermac G4 (AGP) with OS 9 but I rarely used it. Then one day I thought I'd give OS X a go, and boy am I glad I did. I was so impressed I went out and bought myself a new machine to run it on! :) Now I rarely use my PC.

[caveman_uk]

I bought my first ever Mac (Clamshell iBook 466 SE) to run the OS X Public Beta. Without OS X I would not have even considered buying a Mac. Before I was a hardcore Linux user (I am still a Linux user) and was looking for a laptop that would run Linux well. The iBook seemed to be about as good as the PC competition in that respect (but was the cheapest DVD playing laptop I could get in the UK at the time). But it was OS X that sealed the deal. I would now never buy a non-Mac laptop, although I am still an x86 desktop person.

That's pretty much me too. I would never have bought a mac at all if it still had OS9. I was a Linux user (still use it on my servers) and was amazed to find an OS with the Unix underpinning without the hamfisted GUIs. I've still got an x86 desktop - though I only really play games on it - I may as well get a PS2. I'm not sure whether I'd get a desktop mac. Maybe I'll upgrade to a powerbook in a years time when the ibook starts creaking...

[leprechaunG4]

Originally posted by john123
No one referred to a multi-user environment in the first place....

Anyway, I always have to chuckle at how many people accept an OS that is dog slow with blurry fonts just because it's "built on UNIX." Kudos to Apple's marketing department.

Sometimes, I wonder what would happen if Apple rebranded Windows XP under its own name. I suspect there'd be lots of users who'd flock to buy it, crying out, "This is so much better than a PC!"
Sorry misread the multiple user-driven part. Or misinterpreted what you where saying. As for the Unix being a marketing ploy, please. If you understand the core of an OS, then you realize the vast greatness of Unix over the OS 9 platform. To complain about a fuzzy font seams rather foolish when you consider everything else gained.

And as for the fuzzy font here's a quote from another thread here by another member, MacBandit:

"I've never heard of a complaint about jaggies in OSX. OSX has AA built into the system and usually people confuse the smoothed fonts with blurred fonts and complain that there screen seems to be fuzzy. The AA settings can be turned up and down or off for that matter."

[john123]

Originally posted by leprechaunG4
Sorry misread the multiple user-driven part. Or misinterpreted what you where saying. As for the Unix being a marketing ploy, please. If you understand the core of an OS, then you realize the vast greatness of Unix over the OS 9 platform. To complain about a fuzzy font seams rather foolish when you consider everything else gained.

And as for the fuzzy font here's a quote from another thread here by another member, MacBandit:

"I've never heard of a complaint about jaggies in OSX. OSX has AA built into the system and usually people confuse the smoothed fonts with blurred fonts and complain that there screen seems to be fuzzy. The AA settings can be turned up and down or off for that matter."


Regarding the core, I don't see what else is "gained." Well, not for me anyway. I don't run an Apache server on my Mac. I'm like most users -- I do the usual productivity apps with some leisure work. I can see the huge advantage of UNIX in a networking environment, and for sys admins and net admins, it's probably great. But for folks like me, who buy new Macs because we love speed, 9 and the latest and greatest hardware is a dream.

And yes, I know how to adjust antialiasing. That doesn't change anything in the menubar, however. It also doesn't affect global settings a lot of the time -- you need something like TinkerTool to do that. And TinkerTool just doesn't get it "right" -- it mushes letters together, unlike 9 where they are spaced correctly. And yes, I've tried changing the menubar and other fonts with Silk, and no, it doesn't make a difference to me.

[yzedf]

Many people I know went from Windows 98 to RedHat 6 to 7 to OS X.

I am in the minority that is still using Linux (Mandrake 9.1b3). This is only because I don't have the scratch saved yet for my new ibook/powerbook.

Without OS X, I would still be preaching the aspects of Linux :rolleyes:

OS X gives me the CLI that I have learned to use in the past 3 years, but with a nice GUI, and lots more commercially available programs, that work.

Plus my PowerShot S200 works brilliantly with iPhoto 2, unlike gPhoto 2 ;)

[yzedf]

Originally posted by john123
(1) That is *not* true multitasking. That's a process that you the user are using in the foreground and a bunch of background processes. When developers talk about preemptive multitasking, they are talking about the situation I talked about in my first post -- multiple user-driven "foreground" processes.

Maybe I'm blessed, or maybe you people just are doing weird stuff with your Macs.

Ecactly. Burning a cd while checking email and surfing Safari style etc etc.

OS 9 was timeshare, "you get 1 sec, you get 2 sec, and you need 130 sec" (avail proc time)

OS X is "you get 10%, you get 10%, and you need 70%" (avail proc power)

[medea]

yes, I was planning on making the move over to macs before I knew much about OS X, when I did make the transition OS X just made it that much sweeter.

[bryanc]

I cut my teeth on an Apple ][, but when I had to start buying my own computers, the PCs where just *so* much cheaper, that was the only viable option.

So I languished for two decades in the realm of Redmond OS'es.

I had a brief affair with OS/2, and then jumped on the Linux bandwagon, with high hopes that some useable desktop software would become available. I still hope to see a viable Linux desktop system emerge in the PC world, but when OS X appeared, it was obviously everything I had hoped Linux would be...a unix-based OS with a beautiful GUI (yet still providing a CLI) and loads of great professional-quality applications. I was hooked and bought at TiBook as soon as I could.

From what I've read in this thread, OS X is largely responsible for the Apple Renaissance.

[charboneau]

OS X is incredible. I can probably count on one hand the times I've been in 9 since I got my iBook in June.

I've used Windows 95, 98, NT at work, and didn't like them. 2000 I actually kind of liked. XP is 2000 with a lot of unnececessary crap.

The price is right on Intel/AMD boxes. If it weren't for X, I might very well be running 2000 and trying to wrap my non-geek mind around Linux. Primarily out of price concern. The 9 interface is nice, but the stability/performance isn't so hot. I'd still be using my old Mac with 9 though.

[icetraxxg5]

MacOS (9) is far behind even windows 95 because it didn't have very good multitasking, crashed more then windows (haha, believe it or not), and didn't manage memory worth crap. Believe it or not MacOS 9 and anything earlier is stuck in the 80's. MacOS X walks over Windows and Windows XP in most areas and looks SOO Much better.

[Fukui]

The only reason I ever wanted a mac was because of OS X...and the G4 Cube.

But now that I have learned so much about apple etc. I now know this is because of steve, and if he ever left, so would I.

OS X is an amazing piece of software, but remember what happened when steve left the first time...If there was no steve jobs, there would have been no NeXT, no Web Objects, no OS X, no iApps, no iLife, no FCP, no cool little cleavage speakers...he is basically the single most important reason for Apple's success.

Well, him and Avie Tavenien.

But yea, if I didn't know about OS X, I would still have been cutting my fingers on crappy aluminum PC cases trying to figure out what just "went wrong" with my computer, and cursing at it for cutting me!!

[mymemory]

I'm not a friend of OSX for several reasons. Just to tell you a big one.

I'm a VJ and with OSX I can not overscan the screen with the 2nd video out put. If I'm goint to project somethin with OSX I would have to deal with the black border around my animations.

Another reason is that most audio aplications still in OS9.

I can not make the transition yet and I'm not in a rush for it.

I know my system and I have it under control, to jump in to OSX would be a shock that I'm not ansious to take.

BTW, OSX still no a big deal for me.

[iPegboy]

At work, I always used os9 and wasn't a huge fan because of the crashing and slowness of multi-tasking. When OSX came out, I was intrested. I used it and love it. I then bought an iBook to replace my gateway desktop. It sits in the corner, cords wrapped up, collecting dust.

[barkmonster]

i kind of agree with john123... kinda. see, os 9 is pretty sweet when it comes to music - for the last few years it's been the only real system you could use to use for 'experimental' music, with max/msp and supercollider both being os 9 only (granted you have pd, audiomulch, etc. etc. for other platforms, but i'd argue max and supercollider were/are the best featured). on top of that, os 9 is supereasy to customize for audio work, and it's a very light operating system - meaning for live laptop use it's responsive and fast, two key issues for a decent musical interface.

application-wise, os x isn't quite there yet, though it soon will be, with max/msp for os x coming soon and other pretty exciting unix-flavored musical programs too (supercollider 3 with client/server command line interface - pretty sweet!). but i'm not totally sold on os x as a musical interface. os x is still too slow for the kind of quick responsive interaction you need for live music creation IMHO. i'm sure this isn't a problem if you have a new g4 12/15/17 whatever but who has the money for that? especially when os 9 is a speed demon on just about any g3 you can throw at it...

I agree totally.

You should read some of the stories on the Digidesign User Conference about how slowly PT 6.0 runs in OS X unless you've got 1Gb of RAM and a mac with AGP graphics. We're talking completely unusable on a yikes G4 with 640Mb. B & W G3s and upgraded beige G3s with similar amounts of RAM that could all run plenty of tracks with a modest amount of plug-ins under OS 9 arn't having any luck at all.

It's all apple's fault for making that stupidly bloated interface. who care's if it's unix based and way more stable than OS 9, the sheer bloat of the interface gets in the way of any advantage OS X has over OS 9 unless you've got a fast mac. Even the dual models that DO perform well with it must be getting one of the cpus hammered by quartz just to keep it all running smoothly.

I'm getting an upgrade for my mac and waiting a while before I switch to OS X for audio. It just seems too bloated to me. I'd guess running OS X on a pre sawtooth powermac would be like trying to run XP or windows 2000 on a 450Mhz Pentium 2.

I actually came to the mac from the atari, we had PCs in school that ran either DOS, GEM or windows 3.0. I thought the mac I used on work experience was far more logical and friendly than windows but it was like GEM on my atari except it had these little help balloons and the cool little word processor (Quark, I was only 14) was better than word. I started using macs fulltime at work in around '95 and after a few years of wondering if I should by this or that akai sampler or whatever, I bought a beige G3. It's done me well for quite a while but I feel kind of cheated on how un supported it is in OS X. It's not enough to run the OS, it's the software I bought it for as much as anything.

I'm staying in 9 for everything till I can afford a better model of mac. OS X seems to be only half ready for what I want to do because of the software not being out for it yet. Also, there's so many mac like things missing, labels, aliases that actually work 100% of the time, the 2 MAJOR issues I have with it is the bloat of the interface/the speed and the all important thing that's always set the mac apart from the dormant windows OS. Metadata!!! I want type/creator codes in native OS X software just like in OS 9. I don't want to have all my .html files open in Safari or something or all my .aif files opening with Quicktime. I want them to open with whatever I made them in. I don't want file extensions to be necessary, I want to use them as a visual aid like I do in OS 9. Infact the only time I bother with extensions in OS 9 is if it's something that's going to be online.

Talking of supercollider, can you recommend a good book on it ?

Something easy to follow like the client and reference guides you can get for Javascript. I'd love to make some stuff with supercollider, I've been and got some online tutorials in both PDF and html format with plenty of examples but I need more help learning the language.

Thanks if you can help with this. I love some of the music I've heard it used on 'Running Down The Way Up' - BT, 'Finished Symphony (echoplex mix)' - Hybrid. for example.

[leprechaunG4]

Originally posted by john123
Regarding the core, I don't see what else is "gained." Well, not for me anyway. I don't run an Apache server on my Mac. I'm like most users -- I do the usual productivity apps with some leisure work. I can see the huge advantage of UNIX in a networking environment, and for sys admins and net admins, it's probably great. But for folks like me, who buy new Macs because we love speed, 9 and the latest and greatest hardware is a dream.

And yes, I know how to adjust antialiasing. That doesn't change anything in the menubar, however. It also doesn't affect global settings a lot of the time -- you need something like TinkerTool to do that. And TinkerTool just doesn't get it "right" -- it mushes letters together, unlike 9 where they are spaced correctly. And yes, I've tried changing the menubar and other fonts with Silk, and no, it doesn't make a difference to me.
You definately sound like an old school MAC user, "I want it to work, I don't care how it works, In fact I don't want to know how it works." Which you know really isn't that big of a deal for you, like you said it did what you wanted. Comin from my vantage point of supporting systems, I HATE 9. I work for an ISP and I have to give phone support, which is horrid to do with an OS 9 machine. Everything is over simplified. With OS X support calls are much easier. It's the same story in my helpdesk position at my college. However, I can see your point of your apps worked how you wanted them to, and you were happy. And I think you see my point as well. I have a feeling you and I will probbaly have some good convos as the future as I melt into the mac world:cool:

[john123]

Originally posted by leprechaunG4
You definately sound like an old school MAC user, "I want it to work, I don't care how it works, In fact I don't want to know how it works." Which you know really isn't that big of a deal for you, like you said it did what you wanted. Comin from my vantage point of supporting systems, I HATE 9. I work for an ISP and I have to give phone support, which is horrid to do with an OS 9 machine. Everything is over simplified. With OS X support calls are much easier. It's the same story in my helpdesk position at my college. However, I can see your point of your apps worked how you wanted them to, and you were happy. And I think you see my point as well. I have a feeling you and I will probbaly have some good convos as the future as I melt into the mac world:cool:

I worked in computing support in college. Lead tech, actually. You know, I don't think I ever found a problem in 9 that I couldn't fix, one way or another. Granted, I avoided doing phone support...if the problem didn't lend itself to a quick solution, I made house calls. Let's face it...it would take me 5 minutes to do what you and I might do together for an hour.

In OS 9, yes I want it to work, and I do know how it works. I understand 9 inside out pretty much, and that global understanding may be part of the reason why I have few problems. I run a relatively lean system with relatively few third party extensions and control panels, and I multitask a lot without many crashes. Heck, I have 9 apps open right now and could add even more and would still be fine.

I guess you hit the nail on the head -- that I am an old school Mac user. To be totally honest, I enjoy using Windows 2000 more than OS X. That makes me cringe to say it...but it's true. :(

[bousozoku]

I think I would be running Windows XP and Linux by now on very carefully selected hardware.

Judging from the current hardware and Mac OS 9.x and it's various pains, there's no way I would continue that path.

There were Atari 8-bit machines, Atari 16/32-bit (680x0), a lame IBM 386sx laptop that bit the dust, and a few Macs and one Mac clone.

Those Amigas are looking good. :)

[StarmanDeluxe]

OS 9's alright. I've been using Macs system system 7.0, so I'm pretty used to that kind of system.

Yeah, I'd still be a Mac user with OS 9, just not nearly as happy a Mac user.

[mania]

Ahhh what a great topic.

I bought my first mac (for web design) when the choice was win 3.1 or OS 7 (or was it 8 - can't really remember). The choice was obvious - the mac won.

Then win 95 came out (still sucked but not as bad as 3.1) so the mac still won. Eventually got my own linux server and began to speek command line.

Along comes win 98 then ME then XP and somewhere in ther OS X (a dream come true for a Linux/Mac user). Let me say after using 10.2 it makes OS 9 look soooooo baad. I would choose even ME over OS 9. I have even removed classic from my mac and hope to God to never see it again.

So yes thank the good Lord whats his name bought Next and Steve and Steve took control and gave us OS X. Since then I obsess about Apple hardware and read rumor sites all day long. I wish I could install X on any home made box like I do with Linux. Oh well

[sparkleytone]

without OS X, i wouldn't own a Mac. I would have bought a COMPAQ if it was the only computer that ran OS X. Then again, I am sure I have had a better experience with Apple :P

OS X has been a reawakening of my love of technology. Technology that works WITH and FOR you, not the other way around.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=526

[f-matic]

>Talking of supercollider, can you recommend a good book on it ?

Frustratingly, there's a lack of good resources on SC. The best book (as far as completeness) was written by Stephen Pope, but it covers only SC1, so it's obsolete. There's a pretty good tutorial in pdf form at www.byu.edu/music/labs/ems/287/SCManual.pdf and there's a tutorial by Alberto de Campo that comes with the SC download. There's also a pdf somewhere online of James McCartney's original docs for the program (they're also included with SC as SC files, but having them in PDF is nice too!) Hope some of that helps...


Actually as an aside - somebody mentioned quite liking XP. I have to say I'm sort of in the same boat - I was messing around on a friend's computer with XP installed and was quite impressed at how fast it was. So I checked the processor speed - Celeron 600Mhz!! I was pretty amazed. And to be even more heretical - now that Max/MSP is about to release a windows version I'm even thinking of jumping ship to the PC world. For $1200 (plus the cost of switching platforms for Max, which I'm guessing will be $100 or so) I could nab a top of the line laptop PC with 3 year warranty. Looks kinda nice compared to $2800 for the 1ghz tibook g4... plus you could dualboot with linux and get pd...

best,
np

[nptski]

I had to go to the dark side, real estate stuff only runs on it and VPC was too slow (still is). OS X was too alluring not to want to use it. I need to get VPC 6 to run my real estate apps faster, there must be a hack or maybe now that MS owns it, it will get a boost. I don't want to go back, but to run my business, I have to have reasonable performance. I may just keep a PC around to do just that, wastes desk space, though.

[MacFan26]

I've been waiting for X since they promised me Copland/Rhapsody back in '96/'97.
[/B]


I'm with Gus, I had been reading about the new OS for a long time and I supported OS X from the release of the beta. In the beginning I wasn't too excited because of the restrictions and speed of the OS, but soon a lot of those problems were fixed. Also, when I first upgraded to X, I spent more time in 9 than in X. Now, I very rarely go back to 9. I still would have had a Mac if there was no OS X. Macs have been in my family since the 80's, so it would be hard to part with them. My favorite OS of all besides Jaguar was 8.6. I would have been happy with that. I just hope that OS X will be able to compete with the new OS that Microsoft is apparently developing.

[buffsldr]

I switched because of OS X. I got my mac in Jan of 2001, two months later i was at my local apple retailer at 1 am for my copy of os 10.0

i do hop over to os 9 once in a while for audio apps and i hate it. it is like going back in time, even though i never really used 9. it just looks like crap in my opinion.

[benixau]

Originally posted by barkmonster
I'm getting an upgrade for my mac and waiting a while before I switch to OS X for audio. It just seems too bloated to me. I'd guess running OS X on a pre sawtooth powermac would be like trying to run XP or windows 2000 on a 450Mhz Pentium 2.

Metadata!!! I want type/creator codes in native OS X software just like in OS 9. I don't want to have all my .html files open in Safari or something or all my .aif files opening with Quicktime. I want them to open with whatever I made them in. I don't want file extensions to be necessary, I want to use them as a visual aid like I do in OS 9. Infact the only time I bother with extensions in OS 9 is if it's something that's going to be online.

1: i ran XP Pro on a Celeron 333A w/768MB PC66 and a 4GB ATA66 Fujitsu. it ran as fast as some Pentium 3 processors at 733 did.

2: type/creator does exist in OSX. go into Cmd-I and then you go to open with, then select your program. dont click apply to all and voilá.

[addsapple]

NO!

When I saw my first iMac in 1999? The Indigo one, I was 13 and saved up for a hell of a long time just from the look of them, I thought they were so cool! I had that for one year, running OS 9, and in 2000 I bought OS X straight away, even though I knew from the first build of it, it wasn't as well built as I wanted it, but time moved on, and so did Apple... I then bought an iBook, the Airport, then the new iMac flat panel, an iPod, and Now I have my PowerMac and 20" Display, all at 16years old! I don't think I would ever make the move back to Windows, only because I know what Apple are capable of bringing out! Although Mac OS X is the operating system to have, Mac os 9 is still... a Mac OS! It isn't Windoze...

Unless there were Macs that run Windows OS on them, then maybe I would consider moving to Windows... But im just hoping that day doesn't come... Instead im hoping Microsoft go out of Buisiness and let the professionals do the work (Apple of course)...

;)

[steeleclipse]

Is it me, or is this the most pro-OSX site on the web??? It is like a breath of fresh air.

I AM SICK OF ALL THE PEOPLE THAT ARE SCARED TO TRY SOMETHING NEW KNOCKING IT. QUIT WHINING ABOUT PRINTER SUPPORT AND SEE WHAT JAGUAR HAS TO OFFER.

I use OS9 at school, and it was good in its day, but computers are a technology that is ever-changing and constantly evolving. OSX was due. Especially when Apple is the design platform of choice, it needed an OS that was pretty AND effective.

BTW: I am not raving about 10.1.5. Kudos to Apple for finding what wasn't so great and making OSX JAGUAR the purring cat that it is.

[khollister]

I would certainly NOT be using a Mac without OS X. A brief history...

My very first computer was an Apple II. I owned a Mac IIcx way back when for music. I then migrated to PC's for the next several years. After using many different UNIX platforms at work, I bought a NeXT in 1991. I sold it when NeXT got out of the hardware business, and went back to PC's. I bought a G4 iMac last year to "kick the tires" on OS X, since it was the evolution of NeXTSTEP.

Wow - I sold the iMac 2 weeks ago to a colleague at work (who is enthralled with OS X) and bought a Power Mac. I am off the PC except for ripping CD's (there is no ripping SW for the Mac that does jitter correction like Exact Audio Copy). My DP Power Mac with OS X is everything, and then some, that I wanted when I had the NeXT.

For a UNIX hack, former NeXT owner, software architect & Java developer, OS X feels like home.

[voicegy]

My first machine was an AppleIIe. I never used a PeeCee. OS X or not, I'd never use another computer. Just like I'd never buy any stereo except B&O, or any car except a Volvo. To me, it's mainly the look and feel of the machine, the design, the thoughtfulness, the ease of use, the cleanliness, the desire to continually advance the technology without making it look like another piece of crap. Which is what all the above companies do for me, and what all of them have at their hearts.

But I'll admit, OS X just puts the icing on the cake. And I'm thrilled that the operating system brought so many users over, as well.:)

[g30ffr3y]

i bought my quicksilver to run pro-tools... i realize i could do this on a pc, but i always heard that the mac was the place for multimedia, i even chatted it up with the guys from gODHEAD about there programming and stuff [industrial type band for any of you who dont know] and they said to go with a g4 and never look back... so after a little saving and a little luck i got my first mac... up until now protools couldnt run in ten or even classic so i had no choice but to use nine... its a little ancient looking, but it runs like a champ and has never crashed on me... so yes i would use a mac even without os x... i hate having to even turn on my windoze box... but we dont have sim city 4 on the mac, so thats my dilema...

[sawaguchishinji]

Originally posted by john123
... Heck, I have 9 apps open right now and could add even more and would still be fine.(

OS9 was dependant on the RAM, wasn't it?

[samsflagdrummer]

About a year ago I was dying to have a brand new pc, with all this sh-t, but then I went to a compusa and tried OS X and imediatly I knew I needed a mac. I have since made the switch, but I still hate OS 9 and would not be sitting here at my 17" widescreen iMac typing now without OS X.

[brian0526]

I've been eyeing Macs for about 10 years now. Always wanted one but was scared of the lack of compatibility with the rest of the world. Finally, after suffering through DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 95 and Windows 98, i had enough.

I wanted to jump to a more stable platform. But, I just didn't have the time to learn Linux. OS X is the perfect OS, IMO. Built on a stable UNIX platform. But, with a beautiful, simple interface to hide all the stuff I don't have time to learn. I can't believe no one's been smart enough to do the same thing with Linux for the PC.

OS X is the ONLY reason I'm on my two week old 17" iMac. Finally, there's an OS that allowed me to break free of Microsoft. Now, if I could just find a decent Office Suite for this thing, I'd be really be in heaven.

Peace,
Brian

[Fukui]

Try Microsoft Office....

[brian0526]

Originally posted by Fukui
Try Microsoft Office....

I'm trying to avoid buying Microsoft products. They are expensive. I don't want to fund their empire any more than I have to (that's a major reason I bought a Mac). And, their software is bloatware.

I'm checking out a few Office alternatives.

Thanks,
Brian

[Fukui]

I'm checking out a few Office alternatives.

Yea,
open office is coming...

Though for now you need to use X11.

[ThomasJefferson]

OSX brought me back. I used my first mac back in graduate school 1984. I have always owned one, but honestly abandoned the platform about 7.5.3. Macs shipped to our school in 1997-8 were crashing out-of-the-box. I gave up out of disgust because of the faulty hardware.

If powermacs that are worth the name "power" do NOT materialize by the end of this year, then I will abandon it again and use my ibook 600 to play at what might have been ...

[timbloom]

I would be, but definately not like I am right now, OS X rekindled my addiction to macs.. Before I seriously was lost, and had lost all interest in computers because they were getting boring... so all I did was go to school and toke up.. now days I just just sit at the computer, no longer toke, and miss many classes.....

[Stelliform]

I have always been intrested in Apple products, but I really couldn't justify it until X. I have also always been interested in Linux, so with OS X I have the best of both worlds.