A Spotlight on 10.4.12

[z970]

As Sorbet Leopard continues to win people over with its fine optimizations and useful tools built-in, I have gotten an increasing number of requests over the past several months for a Tiger-based followup to Sorbet Leopard that runs on G3 machines, the most recent one being by @Certificate of Excellence. Rather than withhold information behind the curtain for any longer, I figured that I would share the situation as it stands now.

And the truth is, there was one in the works for the longest time ... and it was named Siberian Tiger.

The idea for Siberian originally came about alongside the creation of Sorbet during mid-2021, and went into production in earnest almost immediately after Sorbet first came out. It was scheduled to be publicly revealed this June on the anniversary of Sorbet's first appearance, and would have debuted many new features and ideas, alongside numerous updates and implementations carried over from its Leopard sibling, plus a slightly bolder default UI appearance than its predecessor.

Coupled with all of the same performance optimizations that 10.5.9 saw, plus the inherent speed advantages of the 10.4 base, it was expected to be about as fast as Mac OS 9 natively running on the same machine; with a patched and more performant Classic mode to boot.

Unfortunately ... changing schedules, roadmaps, and professional responsibilities this year (as well as the calculated projection for all future years) didn't turn out to be quite as forgiving as they were during the last, so the project was quietly canceled some weeks back due to an insurmountable lack of time / priority.

Rather than delete all progress and forget about it entirely though, what was assembled so far was then incorporated into Sorbet Leopard Revision 1.5 -- mainly being graphical assets, among certain other things.

Still, I would have loved to see this project happen to completion. Every time I see something that reminds me of it, I cannot help but wistfully wonder what could have been ...

-

Furthermore, certain events have recently occurred where I find myself no longer in a position to develop for the PowerPC platform altogether (sans minor infrequent activity for retro computing in general, primarily related to Web 1.1), effectively making Sorbet Leopard Revision 1.5 my swan song of sorts.

Should there ever be a legitimate 10.4.12 in the future, it will need to have been undertaken by someone else, perhaps using R1.5's Changelog as a starting point. Otherwise, I'm afraid both AquaTrimcelerator and AquaSuite will have to suffice for now and up until then.

But now it is time to turn the page, as all things must come to an end. Nonetheless, I will say that over these past several years, it was a pleasure creating both software and informative resources for you all.

​

 

[Hughmac]

Sorry you are having to stop PPC development, and all the best for the future

Thanks for all the hard work, and be assured Sorbet will be around for a long time.

Cheers

Hugh

 

[Raging Dufus]

OK @z970, you're killing me. I mean, you're just killing me here.

I'm someone who tries to make sense of how other people think. It's part of what I do for a living. I try to identify some rationale, some scheme to their way of thinking, to identify some thread of consistency in the inconsistent way most human beings think and communicate.

But -- I just can't make sense of your naming conventions. So before you go, I have to take what is always my last resort and just ask - why "Sorbet" of all things? Why did you name your shiny new hot-rodded Leopard package after... a frozen fruity dessert???

I mean... you have your "Aqua-" stuff, which makes sense, it's Tiger, which is OS X, and OS X uses the Aqua interface, so... cool.

And you had your "Aurora-" stuff, which was Leopard, and Leopard had the whole aurora wallpaper thing going on, so again... cool.

Then you changed your "Old Web" to "Renegade Web"... but you explained that one. Badassery. I get it.

And now you've got "Siberian Tiger"... which works, because it's Tiger, and Siberian Tigers are a thing, and they're the biggest baddest tigers out there, so... more badassery!

But then there's Sorbet. It's an outlier. It's the exception. I can't make sense of it, and I've been dying for someone else to ask you why, or for you to explain it, but - nothing. At least, not that I've found.

This is NOT a criticism, so don't take it that way. You can name things what you want, it's your stuff and I appreciate your efforts.

But there it is: Sorbet, WTF??? End my suffering please.

And thanks for all you do.

 

[eyoungren]

OK @z970, you're killing me. I mean, you're just killing me here.

I'm someone who tries to make sense of how other people think. It's part of what I do for a living. I try to identify some rationale, some scheme to their way of thinking, to identify some thread of consistency in the inconsistent way most human beings think and communicate.

But -- I just can't make sense of your naming conventions. So before you go, I have to take what is always my last resort and just ask - why "Sorbet" of all things? Why did you name your shiny new hot-rodded Leopard package after... a frozen fruity dessert???

I mean... you have your "Aqua-" stuff, which makes sense, it's Tiger, which is OS X, and OS X uses the Aqua interface, so... cool.

And you had your "Aurora-" stuff, which was Leopard, and Leopard had the whole aurora wallpaper thing going on, so again... cool.

Then you changed your "Old Web" to "Renegade Web"... but you explained that one. Badassery. I get it.

And now you've got "Siberian Tiger"... which works, because it's Tiger, and Siberian Tigers are a thing, and they're the biggest baddest tigers out there, so... more badassery!

But then there's Sorbet. It's an outlier. It's the exception. I can't make sense of it, and I've been dying for someone else to ask you why, or for you to explain it, but - nothing. At least, not that I've found.

This is NOT a criticism, so don't take it that way. You can name things what you want, it's your stuff and I appreciate your efforts.

But there it is: Sorbet, WTF??? End my suffering please.

And thanks for all you do.

I always took Sorbet to mean dessert.

As in the cherry on top of Leopard. The final finishing touches.

That's how I read it anyway.

 

[Raging Dufus]

I always took Sorbet to mean dessert.

As in the cherry on top of Leopard. The final finishing touches.

That's how I read it anyway.

Nice! I like that. Until z clears it up, I'm adopting your theory

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Well, personally it just reminds me of this amazing sorbet and gelato shop I loved to go to in the 90s and early 2000s. I also was counting how many different pronunciations I heard on the interwebs from sore-bay to sore-bit to sore-bet etc. It was evidently a tongue twister for the PowerPC and greater retro computing community as well

Siberian would have rocked but I totally get life happening. Happens to us all. Like Wicknix, dosdude, Erik and others, I appreciate & applaud you for all of your talent and work supporting the PowerPC community.

 

[z970]

@Raging Dufus No, I think it is you who is killing me. I find this post absolutely hilarious.

To be honest, I've been waiting for someone to raise that question as well, and I'm very glad you brought it up now.

To begin with, I never expected Sorbet to become as big as it did, so I didn't place a great level of importance on the project's name. At the time however, the rationale was to follow a similar convention to Snow Leopard, or to be cut from the exact same cloth name-wise, if you will, to indicate their similar natures at just a glance.

So when first deciding on a name, the choices came down to "Frost Leopard", "Sherbet / Sorbet Leopard", and once I had designed its first promotional graphic with the streamlined 'X' (itself another symbolic action), I had even considered dubbing it "Shuriken Leopard" (for self-evident reasons). Sacrificing originality, I knew it was supposed to be directly related to snow. But then I couldn't find any other snow / ice-related materials that would have provided as fitting a meaning as "Sorbet".

I suppose I was thinking in a very literal sense and equated "Sorbet" to a flavored version of "Snow", which symbolizes the additional features, updates, and extras bolted in, assuming an ordinary "Snow" symbolizes integrated performance optimization on its own.

With that in mind, "Sorbet" essentially won out over "Shuriken" because the latter did not contain that all-important organic nod to "Snow". Plus the default Snow Leopard aurora background happens to use a vibrant and almost artificial-looking color scheme distinctly reminiscent to that of a typical serving of the sorbet dessert.

And when you consider it from that perspective, it actually makes sense (in an abstract sort of way).

Nonetheless, I can assure you that there have been a couple times since then where I've regretted naming the project after some frozen fruity dessert (that typically contains loads of sugar, which I'm not fond of), even if it does make sense from a purely materialistic standpoint.

So when the idea for a Tiger-based successor came around, I wanted it to make up for the outlier that was the "Sorbet" branding, and it had even boasted claw marks behind its X to drive the point home (this was one of the many elements that was later reworked into R1.5). But as previously mentioned, professional obligations continued to stack up and I had already lost a lot of steam from working a little bit too hard on the Sorbet App Store plus the rest of Revision 1.5. So even if it were spontaneously revived, the idea of doing it all over again for 10.4.12 (once again at the expense of the aforementioned obligations) was just a step too far.

That said, I suppose it worked out in the end. Most people seem to like it quite a bit ... and even in the most basic comprehension, sitting down to a bowl of sorbet is an almost universally pleasurable activity for most, and just as well, so is using Sorbet Leopard on a PowerPC Mac. So maybe it can also be thought of as sitting down to a computerized bowl of sorbet; as something to endlessly look forward to at the end (or beginning) of one's day. And I will reveal that this very result; the act of subtly creating positive experiences that impart lasting impression, was the core objective from day one.

And that's why I feel that it's finally time to turn the page now, and is also something I've been pondering for a while. Why limit special products that offer lasting experiences to the relevancy of just a small computing niche? Why not open the floodgates, and share that same concept (albeit in different forms) to ten times that number of people, with ten times the professionalism and production value attached, and thereby reaping ten times the overall usefulness and long-term legacy as a result?

So needless to say, that can't be accomplished on an Internet forum. Thus rather than spend every bit of free (or stolen) time on software and devices from 20 years ago, that idea will be my focus going forward.

And that's all there is to say.

@Certificate of Excellence Don't forget sore-bert.

 

[Raging Dufus]

I suppose I was thinking in a very literal sense and equated "Sorbet" to a flavored version of "Snow", which symbolizes the additional features, updates, and extras bolted in, assuming an ordinary "Snow" symbolizes integrated performance optimization on its own.

Plus the default Snow Leopard aurora background happens to use a vibrant and almost artificial-looking color scheme distinctly reminiscent to that of a typical serving of the sorbet dessert.

And when you consider it from that perspective, it actually makes sense (in a warped sort of way).

sitting down to a bowl of sorbet is an almost universally pleasurable activity for most, and just as well, so is using Sorbet Leopard on a PowerPC Mac.

Ah I see. Interesting that the choices boiled down to a ninja's weapon vs a fruity dessert. Too bad Fruit Ninja was taken, you could have had it all!

But seriously, thanks for clearing that up. It all makes sense to me now, and not in a warped way. I can see your thought process there. I do think the name worked out, and clearly others such as @eyoungren caught your intended meaning from the start. But he's Gandalf and I just root around in the mines all day, so no surprises there.

Why limit special products that offer lasting experiences to the relevancy of just a small computing niche? Why not open the floodgates, and share that same concept (albeit in different forms) to ten times that number of people, with ten times the professionalism and production value attached, and thereby reaping ten times the overall usefulness and long-term legacy as a result?

Don't know what you're hinting at, but whatever it is you're off to, I'm sure it will be fantastic. Thanks for sharing your talents with us.

And thanks for having mercy on me, I can use Sorbet in peace now

 

[Amethyst1]

Don't know what you're hinting at, but whatever it is you're off to, I'm sure it will be fantastic.

“Sorbet Snow Leopard” for the ultimate early Intel Mac experience maybe…?

 

[z970]

But he's Gandalf and I just root around in the mines all day, so no surprises there.

I can relate. As a sentient glowing cube floating in midair, I can hardly ever make sense of what the Tesseracts chatter about all day, whom regularly teleport in and out of the fabric of spacetime.

Something about nonatilic universal hypotenuses to the seventh degree with 842,000 pigeons in the thirteenth sector compounded by a radical nucleic half-life of 4.9.6.2.1.8.5 ... or something like that. Ask them, not me.

 

[richmond62]

As a 61 year old man (Yes, I do identify as that; none of your wokey-pokey-cokey split genderness for me, so there) who only floats when he can actually get his fat backside into the bath, I don't care what anyone wants to name their operating system [currently running Ubuntu 'Perverted Parrot', 'Pederastic Possum', and 'Pedophiliac Prawn' on various rigs, as well as MacOS 'Tired Lion', 'Prolapsed Panther', and "Masturbatory Mastodon' on various Mac boxes], what I DO care about is whether they get the MAX possible out of each machine, and as Sorbet Leopard and Siberian Tiger have injected such a lot of life into several totally moribund machines of mine I will be forever grateful.