Has anyone DOWNgraded to OS9? a.k.a. help out an OS9 newbie!

[hob]

I recently sent my PowerBook in for repair. I got my old iBook 900MHz (i say old, it's a long story) back from a friend who'd be using it on OS X 10.3.

I found the iBook to be struggling somewhat with OS X especially compare to my 1GHz G4 with 768MB of RAM. So I was playing around and decided to check out OS 9! I'd only done this once or twice in the past, but now had a completely fresh install of OS 9. I found it was far more suited to the G3 than OS X... but I'm bugged by scary problems...

Right now, I'm watching The Matrix on DVD in a little window in the top corner and writing this message. The DVD is playing fine in its little window, but in Internet Explorer, my typing is lagging. I find when I start changing round my windows the DVD starts to jitter.

This surprises me because the G3 would handle these two relatively simple operations well in OS X, I guess it's down to the OS.

What are some cool sites for OS 9 Modding and Apps? I know you can do a lot more to OS 9 than to OS X!

Thanks,
Hob

edit: And what the hell is "rebuilding the desktop" supposed to mean?! did i break something?!

 

[Sun Baked]

Right now, I'm watching The Matrix on DVD in a little window in the top corner and writing this message. The DVD is playing fine in its little window, but in Internet Explorer, my typing is lagging. I find when I start changing round my windows the DVD starts to jitter.

This surprises me because the G3 would handle these two relatively simple operations well in OS X, I guess it's down to the OS.

OS 9 is suited real well to doing one thing at a time, it isn't known as being an OS that can chew gum and scratch it's ass at the same time.

Heck try and do two things at once and it has a tendency to do nothing quite well (aka, crash).

That was the nature of that OS beast.

 

[King Cobra]

edit: And what the hell is "rebuilding the desktop" supposed to mean?! did i break something?!

It means changing every icon of every file on your Hard Drive to the original icon, unless you customized it yourself. Sometimes an icon for one of your folders will vanish, or have a different icon, even though you didn't change the icon or want it changed. Rebuilding the Desktop fixes that problem, but it takes a long time.

Also, agreed on Sun Baked's comment that OS 9 performs well when doing one thing at a time.

 

[Horrortaxi]

Holy smoke! If a 900mhz G3 is better suited to OS 9 I'd better tell my 233, 333, and 700mhz G3s so they'll know. They're all groovin' on OS X and thinking they're doing fine.

 

[oingoboingo]

I recently sent my PowerBook in for repair. I got my old iBook 900MHz (i say old, it's a long story) back from a friend who'd be using it on OS X 10.3.

I found the iBook to be struggling somewhat with OS X especially compare to my 1GHz G4 with 768MB of RAM.

How much RAM does your iBook have? A 900MHz G3 should handle OS X without any problem at all, provided it has enough memory. You're not trying to run OS X with only 128MB of RAM, or trying to load up 10 applications at once with only 256MB are you?

My god...I'd go back to my old Dell Inspiron 4100 and Mandrake Linux before I'd use OS 9 on my PowerBook...

 

[Colonel Panik]

This surprises me because the G3 would handle these two relatively simple operations well in OS X, I guess it's down to the OS.

What are some cool sites for OS 9 Modding and Apps? I know you can do a lot more to OS 9 than to OS X!

edit: And what the hell is "rebuilding the desktop" supposed to mean?! did i break something?!

Another thing to know is that in OS9 you have to tell applications how much memory that they can use. It's possible to have a Gig of memory, and 10 applications open, and they are all only using 32MB of memory each. Go to the application icon, and do a Get Info. There you tell the app how much memory it must use, and how much it can use.

OS9 might seem snappier, but when you've got to restart the OS because of some badly written app, it's not so snappy.

Rebuilding the desktop basically rebuilds the Finder's database of what file types belong to what applications, and hence, which icons to display them with, etc.

As for modding, find Kalidescope (or however it's spelt), and for apps, well, Google is your friend.

Personally, I found that my iMac G3 450MHz (with 1GB RAM - very important) was absolutely fine with OS X. I loaned it to a friend who was so impressed that he's just ordered a 1.3GHz Powerbook.

 

[hob]

Yeah, I think it was just the shock of coming back off the G4 - not dissing the iBook but OS 9 was definately written with the G3 in mind (rather than OS X). If I were to be using the iBook long term I'd be buying more RAM for it so it could handle X better but for now, I'll just have to keep an eye on how many apps i have open!!

Cheers guys

Hob

 

[BornAgainMac]

OS X runs the DVD player better than OS 9 ever did.

 

[Horrortaxi]

OS 9 was definately written with the G3 in mind

OS 9 was written with the original Mac in mind! It just wasn't OS 9 back then. 9 wasn't so much written as it was the culmination of years of additions. It was definitely time for OS X when that hit the scene.

 

[MisterMe]

OS 9 was written with the original Mac in mind! It just wasn't OS 9 back then. 9 wasn't so much written as it was the culmination of years of additions. It was definitely time for OS X when that hit the scene.

Not to pick nits or anything, but MacOS 9 was intended as a transition OS from MacOS 8 to MacOS X 10. You are, however, correct in that MacOS 9 has the legacy of every version of the OS going back to the original Mac 128. I also agree that the OS was suffering from a severe case of feature bloat. Having said that, however, MacOS 9 is the second-best OS that Apple ever wrote. MacOS X 10 is the best.

 

[superninjagoat]

OS9 had its problems, but it was a very elegant OS. I never had the stability issues that other users report. I ran a lean system folder with only the extensions I needed for my workflow. I restarted about once a week or when things started getting a little sluggish. The OS would go down about twice a month, and aps would crash out a couple times each week.

I realise that's nothing compared to OSX, as far as stability's concerned; but it was never that big of an issue. Just save and save often.

From an underpinning standpoint, OSX is the best OS Apple's ever created. From a usability perspective, I've gotta give it to OS9. It was simply more evolved.

I have to admit, though, that OSX is gaining the usability features and interface speed necessary to take the usability crown from OS9. I just think it'll be another major dot-release or so away -- perhaps even OSX 2.1 -- before that happens.

But what do I know.

 

[webmatthijs]

what???

i wouldn't dare downgrade to os 9... i use it at college and i think it is totally rubish compared to osx. also it makes the mac seem so old and gray. since i have no interst in os 9 i cant help you, sorry