future of classic

[macfreek57]

someone i know was talking on the phone to someone in the mac department of COX communications (our local cable TV and modem access company). the guy said that he heard that apple was going to eventually integrate classic support into OS X and get rid of the actual OS 9 operating system. this definitely makes since although i don't know how they'll do extensions and control panels. and there's not much future in shipping computers with two operating systems and it wouldn't make since to just abandon classic applications altogether a few years down the road. what do you guys think?

[stoid]

Apple has always lead the computer industry in inovation so if anyone can figure out how to do it Apple can.

[menoinjun]

I say give up on os 9 completely ASAP. Forget classic mode. As soon as all of the major apps are good for 10, and 70 percent of the non-major ones are...give up on 9. Maybe keep installing it for another year...but after that goodbye.

-pete

[teabgs]

I predict that apps will stop being made for classic within 3-4 years. There's now way classic will be abandoned for at least 2 years. Not everyone can make the transition so easily. people that bought a computer right before OSX came out may not want X. Therefore support will still be there for them for a few years. I think in 2 years they will start to REALLY phase out classic. With the major apps only being made for X maybe allowing for X to "look" or "act" like classic if the user would like...though with many differences. Anyway, to cut myself off classic still has a little bit to live. No more then 4 years, if that long.

[jvaska]

yeah...but apple and the software makers need to get their stuff together and make these things work...

some of us simply can't afford to waste time dealing with computers that don't work properly (or we could just buy a pc)...when things are in the clear...lots of designers will be ready to make the leap...

so...i would hope the plan is for them to support OS 9 for certainly more than a year...maybe two at least...although i'm sure i can't wait that long...hehe...

[jvaska]

oh yeah...and the other thing...

i don't know much about this OS X and OS 9 running in tandem...sure it works...but at some point soon i would hope it's possible to have a machine that is 100% OS X...no OS 9 anything...i would guess that that would be less problematic...

[irmongoose]

Originally posted by macfreek57
someone i know was talking on the phone to someone in the mac department of COX communications (our local cable TV and modem access company). the guy said that he heard that apple was going to eventually integrate classic support into OS X and get rid of the actual OS 9 operating system. this definitely makes since although i don't know how they'll do extensions and control panels. and there's not much future in shipping computers with two operating systems and it wouldn't make since to just abandon classic applications altogether a few years down the road. what do you guys think?


yeah.. heard that one before... I think here at macrumors.


Well, I guess its the most appropriate way to go, as it is too early to abandon 9 completely, and its also about time they did something to help the transition to X.



irmongoose

[krossfyter]

osx app compatibility has jumped a giant step forward with the new photoshop 7. os9 wont be around for too much longer. the only ones that will keep it alive are those who for some reason like it over 10.

[iflyguns]

How long after the Mac was released, did Apple stop supporting the Apple II OS?

[arn]

Originally posted by macfreek57
someone i know was talking on the phone to someone in the mac department of COX communications (our local cable TV and modem access company). the guy said that he heard that apple was going to eventually integrate classic support into OS X and get rid of the actual OS 9 operating system. this definitely makes since although i don't know how they'll do extensions and control panels. and there's not much future in shipping computers with two operating systems and it wouldn't make since to just abandon classic applications altogether a few years down the road. what do you guys think?

This doesn't make sense...

Eventually - Mac OS 9 will disappear - not because it is integrated into Mac OS X... but because it will cease to serve a function...

I rarely launch Classic myself... but it's nice on occasion.

I feel Apple will keep Classic functionality in the system however for the forseeable future... it's not a big effort once System 9 stops being updated. Apple still supports 68k software even into Classic. (68k apps are emulated)

arn

[OSeXy!]

Originally posted by iflyguns
How long after the Mac was released, did Apple stop supporting the Apple II OS?

...More than 8 years, I think. But they were two, completely separate products, not exactly an 'upgrade' in the sense of OS X.

[aafuss]

System 9 is for "Babya System 9/9.1" not for the mac but for the pc.

[mymemory]

What makes my affraid of OS X in my case is that I'm a VJ right now and most of the software are made by independed people. Imagine to find that software for OSX later on?

In the pass I have heard that to program for a Mac is more complicated than for a PC (I know nothing about programing in both), so if that is the case... how har is to develop something for OSX? and in that case, if is more simple... are we gonna be suceptible to viruses then?

[irmongoose]

OS X uses Cocoa and Carbon... which I believe are harder to write for than OS 9.... but the result is much much better.



irmongoose

[kansaigaijin]

worrying about OS9 only matters for people who have ols Macs that wont run X, and me when I want to run Blobbo. I don't see any reason why the classic i have now will ever cease to run alongside X, barring some new processor technology. Don't hold you breath, like the guy said there is a lot of life left in the G4!
I gotta wonder about these strangely framed rumours though, "I heard on the phone"
my dad worked for the phone co. he used to say he heard some weird stuff, but he would NEVER tell us what he heard.

[Ensign Paris]

Running a machine with JUST OSX on it is really better that running Classic on it, even if you have Classic turned off.

OS9 will be out when OSXI is released

Ensign

[krossfyter]

Originally posted by kansaigaijin
worrying about OS9 only matters for people who have ols Macs that wont run X, and me when I want to run Blobbo. I don't see any reason why the classic i have now will ever cease to run alongside X, barring some new processor technology. Don't hold you breath, like the guy said there is a lot of life left in the G4!
I gotta wonder about these strangely framed rumours though, "I heard on the phone"
my dad worked for the phone co. he used to say he heard some weird stuff, but he would NEVER tell us what he heard.




weird stuff huh? i wonder if he heard about the chupacabra being bill gates pet.



;)

[kiwi_the_iwik]

After partitioning my drive, putting OS 9 in 5GB and OS X in 15GB, I've found it to run much smoother. It's also easier to launch into either operating system on startup - considering the only reason that I still have OS 9 is to play the games that haven't been ported/patched to OS X, and to watch TV on my MyTV unit (it's OS X drivers are still being worked on).

As soon as the relevant patches and drivers are released, then so will my interest in OS9.

It's also warming to know that all new releases of game software will be OS X native. WooHoo!

[keithcobbett]

Classic will dissapear in about a year or two. Apple made major revisions to the OS with Version 7 and 9 which rendered a lot of programs unusable when they were introduced. They will continue to do it an no longer support they older OSes. They have to. They do it with the hardware now and they will do it with OS 9. There will be no need to continue to bundle it with OS X.

[strider42]

Originally posted by irmongoose
OS X uses Cocoa and Carbon... which I believe are harder to write for than OS 9.... but the result is much much better.



irmongoose

carbon is there only so developers only have to rewrite their current OS 9 code a little bit, say 20% instead of having to rewrite the entire thing for OSX. Apple doesn't really want you developing too much new stuff in carbon because it was never really implemented to allow developers to have their programs work in OS 9 and X (though it will for some programs). They want you to develop in cocoa because its supposed to be much, much faster to develop for than OS 9 or windows. Thats what I've read anyway.

[King Cobra]

According to an old rumor at macosrumors.com Apple will eventually release Mac OS Classic 9.3 as the last Classic operating system to run without OS X. After that, 9.4 and 9.5 will be available for running on a computer with OS X built in.

I really think that Apple will get all this out of the way anywhere between one and three years after the G5 has been announced (which better be soon). Also, I feel that some of the providers of OS 9 applications should at least make their applications and products Carbon if they refuse to become entirely OS X native (Cocoa).

[blakespot]

Originally posted by teabgs
I predict that apps will stop being made for classic within 3-4 years. There's now way classic will be abandoned for at least 2 years. Not everyone can make the transition so easily. people that bought a computer right before OSX came out may not want X. Therefore support will still be there for them for a few years. I think in 2 years they will start to REALLY phase out classic. With the major apps only being made for X maybe allowing for X to "look" or "act" like classic if the user would like...though with many differences. Anyway, to cut myself off classic still has a little bit to live. No more then 4 years, if that long.

I believe any future version of pretty much any commercial app will be Carbon. There is no sense in releasing anything else significant as an OS 9-only app.


blakespot

[blakespot]

Originally posted by aafuss
System 9 is for "Babya System 9/9.1" not for the mac but for the pc.


Come again....?



blakespot

[blakespot]

Originally posted by irmongoose
OS X uses Cocoa and Carbon... which I believe are harder to write for than OS 9.... but the result is much much better.

irmongoose

Cocoa apps are far easier to write than "OS 9 apps" or Carbon apps. Writing Carbon apps is basically writing an OS 9 app that uses only 2/3 of the previous, OS 9 tool box callset. Well, a wellwritten Carbon app is "aware" of certain OS X realities as well, but that gets into depth of development, etc.


blakespot

[blakespot]

Originally posted by Ensign Paris
Running a machine with JUST OSX on it is really better that running Classic on it, even if you have Classic turned off.

OS9 will be out when OSXI is released

Ensign


There is no performance penalty to running OS X with Classic turned off. (Where there is a penalty with Classic activated). If you have OS 9 and OS X on the same drive, OS 9's crashes can go towards affecting the stability of your filesystem--buy if they are on separate drives, this effect is much reduced.

blakespot

[Polith]

Not to criticize OS X at all because I love the thing. However, I do have a concern about Classic and X.

-Can Apple remove the Carbon API's? And if so, how would this affect the system performance in X?. Is there a need to remove them? How much longer can people write to use the Carbon part of X?

I was reading about the downfall of BE, and the overall streamlined system it had was awesome. I know these are very different systems, but OS X has so much stuff and it just came out. Classic is about 13-14 years old, and this system is still being added to. What will OS X look like 13 years from now?

-How Bloated will it become? Will it be bloated?

[idkew]

Originally posted by Polith

I was reading about the downfall of BE, and the overall streamlined system it had was awesome. I know these are very different systems, but OS X has so much stuff and it just came out. Classic is about 13-14 years old, and this system is still being added to. What will OS X look like 13 years from now?

-How Bloated will it become? Will it be bloated?

X would not be near as popualr if it started out a feature free as classic did back in '84. I doubt it will become bloated, almost every new addon will seem as a needed improvement the we now can not live without. I am still dissapointed X does nto have springloaded folders.

not to mention that in 13-14 years, according loosly to moore's law (and i know it is about transistors...) we will be somewhere in the low terahertz (thousands of gigahertz) so X will be able to handle the extra bloating.


also, classic will never leave. independent people will never stop developing for it. remember people still develop for the long "dead" newton os. I just see is never needing to launch the app anymore, unless we want to play an old, old game. the classis environment app will go the way of the Apple II app, it will be around and available, but few will actually use it. New hardware will no longer support it without special addon hardware in the next 2 years or so (maybe the g5?).

-idkew

[GeeYouEye]

get rid of classic only when 1. Yahoo brings messenger to OS X, 2. a decent AudioGalaxy client (sputnix sux)

[oldMac]

Fire is a Cocoa Instant Messaging app the supports Yahoo! IM as well as AOL. Still some bugs, but looking nice.

[Catfish_Man]

...you heard that Cocoa is harder than the OS9 toolbox. There have been quite a few articles written about how great Cocoa is and how it speeds up development. Also,

Carbon is not slower than Cocoa. There are a few Carbon things you can't do in Cocoa and vice versa. It is slower to develop for, but the apps run just as fast.

Classic being integrated instead of a seperate OS would be great. Drop most of the GUI, file system, and IO code from OS9 (have it just route commands that use these to their OSX counterparts) and Classic would probably run faster than OS9. All it would do is emulate the stuff that programs need, everything else (all the user interface stuff) isn't useful in Classic.

[Xapplimatic]

For a couple of reasons, OS X is easier to write for.. Cocoa is vastly easier to learn than C++ or Carbon. But for people who like C++, a free compiler is provided with every copy of OS X! And Unix applications can be ported to OS X with not too much effort for an experienced programmer.

As for losing Classic and OS 9.. well.. OS 9 and "Classic" could be completely removed from OS X, and most Carbonized apps would still work on both new systems with a pure "OS X only" setup and on old "OS 8.5-OS 9.X only" systems. At this point, most aps shipped with OS X are Carbon simply because Carbonized apps will work on either system..

OS X has in truth 3 "native" languages. Carbon, Cocoa, and Java. Carbon apps will continue to work under both systems for the forseeable future just because developers have made most initial OS X apps with Carbon. Apple hasn't announced any plans to get rid of Carbon. Because they don't want to alienate developers by moving too quickly to entirely different systems, I doubt they will get rid of Carbon any time soon--ESPECIALLY considering that the Finder is written in Carbon..(!)

[macfreek57]

you guys seem quite hateful of classic!
classic mac os is the operating system(s) that i fell in love with. i still enjoy an occasional rampage into the world of the OS 9 finder. and, i'm all about old hardware found at going-out-of-business places and cool, simple games found wherever on the net.

what about a carbon compiler? a drag and drop application that takes a classic app and "carbonizes" it. it would obviously be huge, but is it probable?

[Chrisnorth]

OS8 and 9 really are approaching dinosaur status now. Apple needs to put all its resources into OSX and make it as good today as the classic OS was in its day.

I do have a thought about OS6.x though; There is nothing more satisfying than starting my old SE30, having it boot almost instantly and run almost flawlessly. Perhaps, Apple could do something with this minmalist operating system like, say, burn it onto a CMOS chip and create a very low priced, very portable web appliance for those who don't really want to wait 5 minutes for their state-of-the-art gigahertz grinding, voltage munching desktop wonder to boot just so they can check their e-mail or see what's changed at their favourite web site.

With a little of their famous ingenuity, Apple could resurrect a system that was truly fantastic in its day, adjust it for the internet world and release it as the solution that those internet phones and internet tablets needed all along. Talking moose and Meko thrown in free, of course...

[Geert]

Originally posted by Chrisnorth
I do have a thought about OS6.x though; There is nothing more satisfying than starting my old SE30, having it boot almost instantly and run almost flawlessly.

Hey Chrisnorth, can you somehow send the OS6.x?
I have here an old mac+ but no functioning OS anymore.
If you happened to have system 7.x also, would be welcome as well.
Thxs a bunch.