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Death of OS 9

eyoungren

eyoungren

macrumors Nehalem
Original poster
Aug 31, 2011
30,293
29,811
Let me start out by saying that OS 9 was a good OS. But I much prefer OS X. Because I do prefer OS X, I abandoned OS 9 in 2003.

Now, because of various apps at work I have been forced to use it up until about 2011-12 at work, but I do not have it installed on any Mac I own, with the exception of the two OS 9 only Macs I rarely use. I don't need it, don't want to use it.

Even the iMac G3 I have with 96mb ram and Tiger 10.4.11 does not have OS 9 installed. My only allowance in that case was that to get Tiger to boot I had to make sure the G3 had OS 9 HD drivers installed. But other than this I make no personal choices about my Mac hardware that allow for any OS 9 functionality. If that happens to be the case that's fine, it's just something I won't ever utilize. But I don't look for it because I don't use OS 9.

I realize OS 9 is still a valid and used system around these parts so I'm not trying to start anything. Just merely stating my opinion.

When did you abandon OS 9?
 

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depends on what you mean by abandon. i have a g3 dual boot imac upstairs but it's probably been three years since i've booted into os x on it. os 9? maybe 2 or 3 times a week. i have a couple of old games on it i sometimes play, sometimes a little background music i play through external speakers, a couple of accounting programs i use, a slideshow for some pictures and appleworks for writing letters. it's the only computer i have that's hooked up to a printer. it's not hooked up to the internet. do i need os 9 to do all this stuff? no, but it's different and it's fun and these programs run very fast on os 9. the pictures look very good on a crt screen also. the machine is dead quiet which helps with the music.
 
I only used OS 9 a few times on my Dad's Power Mac to sync my first iPod. Regretfully it wasn't a good experience. One app crashing would take the entire machine down. I had many a long sync experience divided by lengthy boot sequences because some app decided to KO.

I was mainly a Windows 98 user back then. Which (most times) could handle an unresponsive app just fine(ish).
 
I STILL HAVEN'T ABANDONED OS 9!!!!!
SheepShaver and Classic Support all the way!
Ok, well, all I really use them for is classic gaming...
 
The only time I used OS9 was when I did a G4 CPU swap in my B&W. It was painful an installing OS9 and making it work sucked too. I could only install the bare bare stuff. Nothing else would install. I've always been a OS X guy :)
 
gooser said:
depends on what you mean by abandon. i have a g3 dual boot imac upstairs but it's probably been three years since i've booted into os x on it. os 9? maybe 2 or 3 times a week. i have a couple of old games on it i sometimes play, sometimes a little background music i play through external speakers, a couple of accounting programs i use, a slideshow for some pictures and appleworks for writing letters. it's the only computer i have that's hooked up to a printer. it's not hooked up to the internet. do i need os 9 to do all this stuff? no, but it's different and it's fun and these programs run very fast on os 9. the pictures look very good on a crt screen also. the machine is dead quiet which helps with the music.
Click to expand...
Don't get me wrong. I'm not putting OS9 down. I just have no need for it. Any old games that I have are all DOS/Win95 because I did not become a Mac convert until 2003.

I have two OS 9 Macs at home, but I rarely use them because I don't need them. If I happen to be in the garage I may boot one to use iTunes internet radio, but I'm rarely out there. The other is so laughably underpowered that I have zero use for it (a 7200 with a 4GB HD). My only reason at work for having to use OS 9 was QuarkXPress 4.11 once a week to pull in our classifieds. Once we abandoned that system and went to a simple Word doc there was zero need for the OS 9 Mac at that point. Anything I really use runs in OS X.

So, just for me, it's a personal preference (OS X) as I have no need for OS 9 anymore.

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roadbloc said:
I only used OS 9 a few times on my Dad's Power Mac to sync my first iPod. Regretfully it wasn't a good experience. One app crashing would take the entire machine down. I had many a long sync experience divided by lengthy boot sequences because some app decided to KO.

I was mainly a Windows 98 user back then. Which (most times) could handle an unresponsive app just fine(ish).
Click to expand...
Yeah, see in 2003 I came over completely. I had my old TiBook at the time and it just worked. My PC did not. That's one thing I do credit OS 9 for. Despite your sync issues you could effectively cripple the OS and it would still boot and you could work. You can't do that with a PC. Or at least you couldn't then. This was also around the time that 10.2 was out and that for me was the first, real viable version of OS X. So, that's where I headed.

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jrsx said:
I STILL HAVEN'T ABANDONED OS 9!!!!!
SheepShaver and Classic Support all the way!
Ok, well, all I really use them for is classic gaming...
Click to expand...
Yeah, I guess that's the difference. Classic gaming for me is PC, because as I've mentioned I wasn't on Mac fully until 2003.

So all my old games are PC. Easier just to run VPC 7 for all of that, or one of the two old PC towers I have.

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gavinstubbs09 said:
I've always been a OS X guy :)
Click to expand...
Yeah, pretty much the same here once Jaguar hit. Night and day over OS X 10.1 and 10.1.5.
 
I was a late bloomer when it cam to computers and actually didn't own my first actual computer (Compaq Presario desktop) until 2004. Crazy, right?

So I actually never used OS 9 until I had to fix a friend's Pismo and find some way to get him some money for it. I ended up giving to to someone on MR for the cost of shipping and then just giving my friend some money for the trouble.
 
RedCroissant said:
I was a late bloomer when it cam to computers and actually didn't own my first actual computer (Compaq Presario desktop) until 2004. Crazy, right?

So I actually never used OS 9 until I had to fix a friend's Pismo and find some way to get him some money for it. I ended up giving to to someone on MR for the cost of shipping and then just giving my friend some money for the trouble.
Click to expand...
LOL, yeah it can be a cranky beast. I spent loads of time trying to sort issues when OS 9 was the system on the design Macs at other jobs.

Let's just say that I hope Adobe Type Manager Deluxe is burning in hell right now!
 
The last time I used OS9 for anything serious other than just tinkering was 2003/2004 - that was on an iMac G3. I've since used it occasionally on my very old Powerbook (the Mainstreet version with no L2 cache and a terrible passive matrix LCD - stunning looking laptop though).
 
I'm trying to head BACK to OS 9, lol. I have a 2011 mini for regular use, a G5 for 10.5 usage, and I'm going to revert my old G4 to an OS 9 only machine.
 
I keep using OS9.

Most apps are 2x-3x times fasters on OS9 than OSX.

Protools and Logic versions on OS9 were superior that same OSX versions.

Some graphics designers were using photoshop and others on G3s and OS9 till 2004-2006.
Some people kept final cut pro on OS9 some years more than expected.
Media 100 users kept using OS9, and Avid video users too.
Some print facilities did not have money to "G5" and their OS9 software were running till 2006 beside an XP machine, at least on some places in my city.
Some recording studios keep using OS9.

Steve Jobs washed our brain with the nextstep thing, and forced the end of OS9 when the OSX was not really polished.
Until 10.3.9 OSX was a joke in performance compared to OS9.

There are lots of machines that work better in OS9 than to force OSX work in them.

With the same "low end memory" an OS9 can deliver work and in OSX had continuous spinning balls.

As everything in powermacs YMMV depending of the apps used
 
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G4fanboy said:
I keep using OS9.

Most apps are 2x-3x times fasters on OS9 than OSX.

Protools and Logic versions on OS9 were superior that same OSX versions.

Some graphics designers were using photoshop and others on G3s and OS9 till 2004-2006.
Some people kept final cut pro on OS9 some years more than expected.
Media 100 users kept using OS9, and Avid video users too.
Some print facilities did not have money to "G5" and their OS9 software were running till 2006 beside an XP machine, at least on some places in my city.
Some recording studios keep using OS9.

Steve Jobs washed our brain with the nextstep thing, and forced the end of OS9 when the OSX was not really polished.
Until 10.3.9 OSX was a joke in performance compared to OS9.

There are lots of machines that work better in OS9 than to force OSX work in them.

With the same "low end memory" an OS9 can deliver work and in OSX had continuous spinning balls.

As everything in powermacs YMMV depending of the apps used
Click to expand...
I hear you. None of that was ever really applicable to me though. Oh sure, I could have made it so I was using OS 9 here at work when hired. But I just can't see myself trying to do what I need to do using QuarkXPress 4.11 or ID 2.0, Acrobat 5, Photoshop 6 and Suitcase 9. Just not real workable in 2014.

Some people can pull it off, but they tend to be single professionals operating their own equipment. My God, I couldn't even go and get artwork reliably if still having to rely on Netscape 4.77 or IE! No way those browsers would function with some of the sites I have to use! I'm glad that it's still useful to others. It's still a good OS, I just (again) have no use for it any more.

And I really do not miss the intense praying I'd start having to do whenever QuarkXPress bombed because you never knew if you were going to be able to continue or clicking that "OK" button was going to freeze the system.
 
G4fanboy said:
It is alive and kicking http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/adobe-type-manager-46

Erik, just tell me you cant do 70% of your job with these tools
http://macintoshgarden.org/author/adobe

http://macintoshgarden.org/apps/quark-xpress-5-passport
Click to expand...
LOL! Oh man sorry! :)

I was part of the QuarkXPress 5 beta program. Let me tell you my friend, when the previous version is BETTER than what replaces it then you have a bad release! First and foremost it was never OS X capable. That didn't happen until QXP 6. QXP 6 had it's own issues.

And 5 was buggy and problematic. Quark gave us the ability to output web pages, which is really not useful or helpful when they can't fix or offer other things that relate to print. I had to rely on third party XTensions to embed fonts in to EPS files up until XPress 7. Direct PDF exporting didn't come until 7 either and transparency was problematic in 7. No way you could import a PDF in 5.

As to ATM. Simply no. I used ATM ONLY to smooth fonts on screen. Use it for anything more and it falls down. ATM Deluxe is worse. It has the VERY BAD habit of using the LAST version of fonts loaded INSTEAD of the fonts you are SPECIFICALLY telling it to load. Then it crashes!

So, Suitcase 9 at least, probably Suitcase 10.

Any version of Acrobat less than 6.0 Pro would not be able to use Enfocus PitStop Pro. Or at least a more modern version of it. You can use 7.5 in 6.0 Pro, but Enfocus is on version 12 I believe now.

Anything less than Illy 9 is also a non-starter. Illy 10 will run on OS9 and you might scrape by with 8, but if we are really going that route at that point I'd rather just pull out Freehand. Illy 10 has a more modern tool suite.

I get a lot of bad outside PDFs my friend and I need every tool I can use to fix bad work by customers. As I said, I could probably get by, but just no! :D
 
I guess, ultimately what I'm trying to say, is that working on OS 9 with tools that work in that OS is certainly doable. I did it for five years in three different jobs, six if you want to count the fact that Vertis Inc. used Classic under 10.2.8 to build the weekly adverts for Albertsons using XPress 4.11.

But do I want to? No. There's just too much work involved to actually work that way and my work goes outside to professional printers who need specific things that only modern programs can provide.
 
As a gag, I used Ulrich, my MDD Dual 1.0, to load and run OS 9.2.2. I had thoughts of loading a 64-CD wallet of data from 1999 through 2003 onto it, and had things all prepped when I thought long and hard about why I wanted to do that.

The OS, while nice to look at and use when fully customized, as my installations were, still had issues. I still had crashes when using Ulrich to look at certain things and I just didn't feel comfortable with it. I had also forgotten a lot of the little details that went with using an OS9 machine.

I'm far, far, far more comfortable with a maxed-out Tiger Mac. The 64-CD wallet wound up being installed on Liz, my MDD Dual 1.25. I don't have many plans to copy the OS9 installation over to Liz from Ulrich, but I could if I really wanted to.
 
OrangeSVTguy said:
Funny how I just found out about that site and was going to post here about it :D
Click to expand...
LOL!

TBH, when I first got this job the one Mac in the back for Classifieds was running OS9. I scared the heck out of the other person (whom I was hired to replace because she was leaving) when I installed and booted into OS X.

In any case, OS 9 and the apps common around 2003 or earlier are just not going to fly here at work. Setting aside my boss' long ago directive that I keep my employee and myself equal, if I rolled us back (which I could do) I would have no end of complaints from the other person because she could no longer work the way she is used to.

No Spaces, no integration with our Windows 2003 Small Business Server (HELL no, I am NOT going to install and use Services for Macintosh!!!), no Pitstop Pro, no PDF/X-A:2003, on and on.

All of that said, the two production Macs are now a MacPro Quad Core Xeon 2.8Ghz with 3GB ram and a PowerMac G5 1.8Ghz with 4GB ram (yeah, the G5 has more than the MP). There's zero way I could get OS9 working on these two Macs. Classic on the G5 yes, but that only and only on the G5. I do not wish to contemplate the issues I'd have with Sheepshaver on the MP.

And there's no way I am going back to a G4/400 PCI and a G4/450 AGP. No. Sorry. Nope! :D :D
 
I finally quit using OS 9 and 8.6 with the introduction of 10.2 on my B&W G3. Seemed like OS X had finally become a stable enough OS to use everyday (and Apple's "Ten for Teachers" program got me a free copy) so thats really when I would say I quit using it. I still do use OS 9 on a few Macs I own and to use PIMS Classic for my computer service.
 
I never really used OS 9 until starting where I work now a few years ago. I went from OS 7.6 (not 7.6.1 as it doesn't play nice on my Performa 6200) to Mac OS 10.2. What a jump that was for me. The 10.2 machine had OS 9.1.1 on it, but I never used it and stuck with OS 10.2. The only thing I use it for now is for getting data off of old archived floppies that are found at work. I've gotten the whole process down to an AppleScript. Put the floppy in, it makes a disk image of it, spits it out, moves the disk image to an Xserve which then extracts the data into a shared folder, and archives the disk image. Side note, I hate OS 9's AppleScripting abilities.
 
I still use OS 9 almost daily. I have tons of games and apps that run on it like a charm. All my PPC machines that can boot OS9 have it installed along with Tiger or Leopard.
 
I haven't abandoned OS 9. I still use OS 9 on my old beige G3. Hell, I still use System 7.5 on my Quadra 700 and Quadra 605. :D
 
eyoungren said:
Don't get me wrong. I'm not putting OS9 down. I just have no need for it. Any old games that I have are all DOS/Win95 because I did not become a Mac convert until 2003.

I have two OS 9 Macs at home, but I rarely use them because I don't need them. If I happen to be in the garage I may boot one to use iTunes internet radio, but I'm rarely out there. The other is so laughably underpowered that I have zero use for it (a 7200 with a 4GB HD). My only reason at work for having to use OS 9 was QuarkXPress 4.11 once a week to pull in our classifieds. Once we abandoned that system and went to a simple Word doc there was zero need for the OS 9 Mac at that point. Anything I really use runs in OS X.

So, just for me, it's a personal preference (OS X) as I have no need for OS 9 anymore.

----------


Yeah, see in 2003 I came over completely. I had my old TiBook at the time and it just worked. My PC did not. That's one thing I do credit OS 9 for. Despite your sync issues you could effectively cripple the OS and it would still boot and you could work. You can't do that with a PC. Or at least you couldn't then. This was also around the time that 10.2 was out and that for me was the first, real viable version of OS X. So, that's where I headed.

----------


Yeah, I guess that's the difference. Classic gaming for me is PC, because as I've mentioned I wasn't on Mac fully until 2003.

So all my old games are PC. Easier just to run VPC 7 for all of that, or one of the two old PC towers I have.

----------


Yeah, pretty much the same here once Jaguar hit. Night and day over OS X 10.1 and 10.1.5.
Click to expand...


I stopped using it after OS X came out, but i used Classic support on tiger until like 2008, when i got an intel mac, i still play my old Mac OS 9 era games, never had DOS or windows.
 
Confession or boast?

bse5150 said:
I haven't abandoned OS 9. I still use OS 9 on my old beige G3. Hell, I still use System 7.5 on my Quadra 700 and Quadra 605. :D
Click to expand...

I - until recently - ran a business on a beige G3!

I have now joined the 21st century by running it on a MDD 1.25 G4 (dual boot) .. the business side is still running OS 9 (filemaker for a database ...Word 5 (c1993) for producing letters ... Quark for drafts of publicity material etc) … GraphicConverter for simple image editing ... it's coupled to an Apple one Scanner and still does some printing from a LaserWriter (all built like tanks and all 150% reliable).

I use the OSX side of the MDD mainly for email etc and use a Macbook Pro at home for video/internet/entertainment but there isn't anything 'business-y' that the old G3 didn't do just as well.
 
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