Mac OS X 10.4 Info?

[michaelrjohnson]

Seems people who've used pre-X Mac OS (not me) miss its Apple menu more than people who've only used X (me) want it. What really makes it so special that some people can't seem to live without it or find alternatives (maybe even superior ones) for it? I can understand why WindowShade functionality might be missed since (AFAIK) there's no non-haxie replacement for it. And spring-loaded folders, before those returned. But, seriously, what's such a big deal with the old Apple menu? Whenever I tried using it while helping fix a friend's iMac a few years ago it looked like a bloated clutter magnet.

somehow it never occured to me that there are now people out there who never used classic mac OS... people who start their mac experiences on OS X. wow... that not only makes me feel old, it makes me think we might have to start explaining ourselves when we talk about OS 6-9... wow..

 

[MacBandit]

GARFIELD

Or Heathcliff.

 

[wdlove]

somehow it never occured to me that there are now people out there who never used classic mac OS... people who start their mac experiences on OS X. wow... that not only makes me feel old, it makes me think we might have to start explaining ourselves when we talk about OS 6-9... wow..

For now we are still a majority. I have used Mac OS since 1983. My experience with Classic was only a matter of weeks though!

 

[michaelrjohnson]

For now we are still a majority.

true, but now i forsee a future of youngins who never knew the joy and frustration in transitioning... the development... extensions, control panels, system folders, etc. {sigh} the memories...

 

[MacBandit]

true, but now i forsee a future of youngins who never knew the joy and frustration in transitioning... the development... extensions, control panels, system folders, etc. {sigh} the memories...

Some are memories, some are joyous ones, yet many are horrible frightening nightmares. Oh how I love Mac OSX.

 

[sjk]

somehow it never occured to me that there are now people out there who never used classic mac OS... people who start their mac experiences on OS X.

I used to play Dark Castle (its sound effects still haunt me) on a friend's Mac II* systems and let him impress me doing cool things with MacsBug. Classic Mac OS was too modal and single-task-oriented for me in comparison with the Unix (work) and Amiga (home) systems I was using at the time. And being so GUI-centric made it more of a black box from a sysadmin perspective. Anyway, I certainly don't have the experience of using it "productively" enough to have any reason to miss or want something from it in OS X.

 

[Fukui]

I used to play Dark Castle (its sound effects still haunt me) on a friend's Mac II* systems and let him impress me doing cool things with MacsBug. Classic Mac OS was too modal and single-task-oriented for me in comparison with the Unix (work) and Amiga (home) systems I was using at the time. And being so GUI-centric made it more of a black box from a sysadmin perspective. Anyway, I certainly don't have the experience of using it "productively" enough to have any reason to miss or want something from it in OS X.

I remember the first time I really used a mac was at school when some friends were playing this game, I think it was marathon...they really loved it...I hated it...thought macs were OK, but didn't understand them then...of course SJ changed all that...

 

[Cap'n Hector]

For now we are still a majority. I have used Mac OS since 1983. My experience with Classic was only a matter of weeks though!

'83? It wasn't released until '84!

If you were on a Lisa…that was similar but not the Mac OS…and back then it was System $Version.

And on Tiger, I will have to quote Apple:

"Beyond the rumor sites. Way beyond."

 

[wdlove]

true, but now i forsee a future of youngins who never knew the joy and frustration in transitioning... the development... extensions, control panels, system folders, etc. {sigh} the memories...

I just happens to be a part of the growing process. To the "youngins" it's history. For those that lived it, our memories. At least we get to actually realize how great the improvements are!

 

[MacBandit]

I just happens to be a part of the growing process. To the "youngins" it's history. For those that lived it, our memories. At least we get to actually realize how great the improvements are!

I was going through this a couple months ago thinking about the kids who have never used a text only interface who didn't or had to enter a program that they received in the mail (snail mail) into the computer manually because you couldn't send it over the internet and floppies where unheard of and tape drives were uncommon.

 

[ingenious]

I remember the first time I really used a mac was at school when some friends were playing this game, I think it was marathon...they really loved it...I hated it...thought macs were OK, but didn't understand them then...of course SJ changed all that...

same here. i first used an original PowerPC... was in 2nd grade and had no idea what the diff was between windows and mac.. altho i did notice that the mac was easier to use and it didnt have to be turned off as often. i thot it was made by magnavox tho, cuz of the "ma." id never really heard of windows or mac or apple or m$.

 

[sjk]

Reminds me of someone on the Mulberry discussion list who mentioned that some students (of his?) had never heard of desktop e-mail clients because all they'd ever used or seen webmail. It's a bit disturbing to imagine if those were computer science students (I'm not sure)...

Anyone remember a video (produced by Sun Microsystems?) where kids would make a bold statements about things they had/hadn't ever seen or used? Most of it would seem startling to anyone older, in an "I can't be *that* old and things can't have changed *that* much" kind of way. Wish I could think of a specific example... it was something like "we are the children of this generation" ... "we've never listened to the radio". I only saw it once so my memory is vague but it definitely relates to this off-topic theme and I'd sure like to see it again.

 

[ingenious]

Some are memories, some are joyous ones, yet many are horrible frightening nightmares. Oh how I love Mac OSX.

those were horrid nightmares.... not as bad as windoze tho.... definitely.

i do love mac os x... a lot

 

[killmoms]

Actually Apple hired the BeFS engineer. BeOS is a dead product while Mac OS X is currently growing both in features and adoption. Would you rather they ignore what was done elsewhere and never caught fire in the marketplace?

I'm confused. Are you damning Apple for yoinking BeOS features or praising them? Keep in mind that BeOS in 1995 was doing some amazing things that MacOS X STILL doesn't do well. BeOS failed in the marketplace, but for reasons completely unrelated to technical prowess.

--Cless

 

[MacBandit]

I'm confused. Are you damning Apple for yoinking BeOS features or praising them? Keep in mind that BeOS in 1995 was doing some amazing things that MacOS X STILL doesn't do well. BeOS failed in the marketplace, but for reasons completely unrelated to technical prowess.

--Cless

The way I read it you're basically repeating exactly what he/she was saying.

 

[newamiga]

Suns Java Desktop views give possible preview of Tiger Functions

No inside info.. just watching some streaming video from Sun's latest quarterly meeting in China. The demo of some of the Java desktop functionality gave some interesting ideas for extensions to the current expose functionality. Sun is experimenting with some unique ways of interacting with a 3D desktop. This is not some radical 3D fly through, but rather the ability to flip windows on their edges to fit more open documents on their sides.. kind of a real fancy version of the proposed stacks capability previously hypothesized. If you go to Sun's web site and check out this link it has some cool demos.. wonder if we might see something like this from Apple later this month?

http://wwws.sun.com/software/looking_glass/

 

[Dom]

The memories...

I just happens to be a part of the growing process. To the "youngins" it's history. For those that lived it, our memories. At least we get to actually realize how great the improvements are!

I started using Macs in '88. After '92 I was forced into the Windows world, and I can tell you that it was a joyous day when I finally got back to Apple.

It was OS 8.6 I returned to, and for all its flaws, I can honestly say it was a lot less frustrating, a lot more reliable, and a lot more pleasant to use than the alternative of Windows.

Yes OS X has raised the bar. But I still prefer to think as 'classic' as an old friend I worked with rather than an old piece of software that I toiled with.

 

[Montserrat]

One of the unfortunate Youngin's

First time I used a Mac was whe my 12" G4 PB arrived. (Kinda toyed with them in shops beforehand, but didn't know what I was letting myself in for). I've uninstalled Classic, cos I simply don't use it. I had to live through years of M$ crap, but now am happy with a great machine and excellent OS.

I've seen the improvement from Jaguar to Panther, but it would have been more exciting to have seen development from 9 or earlier to X. Now I'm Apple for good - waiting for something else to buy from them. Maybe an iPod, maybe a G5. Or even one of those new APExp things. I'd buy anything with the logo

Seriously I wish I'd had the opportunity to use macs earlier, but better late than never

 

[jap4n]

yeah - i also dont like M$ products.

turned me to apple since all my years of dealing with crappy errors, corruptions, vireees and spywares/adwares.

hope the tiger likes DPG4 as much as G5.

you guys reckon apple will get rid of that ghastly metal finder in x.4? i'm using a trial of Unsanity's ShapeShifter - thinks i might gets it.. its so dope to use, and look at.

Also that annoying browse Network/network problems :\

 

[osprey76]

The file system is already a database. It knows where to find your files. Something sorely missed is metadata from OS 9. That's half the reason we get to see .xls, etc. on our files now; so, the OS 10 Finder knows what to call to open a given file type rather than the creator code in 9. Someone mentioned Be attached the metadata to the file, just like OS 9 did. If not, I don't see how the metadata is terribly useful since it is not portable off the source machine. That's half of what I'm wondering is what would this metadatabase do? Perhaps it would be essentially a cache file of all the metadata for files on the computer. That would make searching through it much faster. To be useful, it still seems to me that the metadata must physically reside in the file. In Apple's adoption of open standards, it seems like XML would be a good fit. XML doesn't say anything about what sort of database might be under the hood for searches, etc.

This thread is growing faster than I can read it, so here is my 2 cents.

 

[osprey76]

Well, you could say i'm a classic veteran (using it since 6.0.8 or something). At first, i was absolutely against X. but the first time i tried it, i was in love As for the AppleMenu, it did have it's charm. Being able to put anyhing in it you like. I don't need it these days.
I'm still uncertain about windowshading, sometimes it feels like i could use it, but then again, i don't miss it for most of the time, same goes for window-tabs
But for me, it's not a big deal, for i use Mac OS X

I actually like the setup with hierarchy to the left-most menus. It's very logical. I understand folks missing the Apple menu, but it's fairly easy to replicate with the Dock. I have a folder of aliases in my Dock that has all of my commonly used apps in various folders (Utilities, Internet, Games, etc.) The physical folder resides in my ~/ directory, but I just right-click (control-click) on the folder in the Dock and launch what I need to, just like what you could do in the Classic Apple menu.

 

[iKwak]

I know I won't be upgrading to 10.4.

 

[GregA]

I know I won't be upgrading to 10.4.

I guess they wouldn't want to market it to you then! (market to the people who are undecided and can be swayed)

For you, what would make upgrading to 10.4 worthwhile? (I assume you have a Mac etc)

 

[rendezvouscp]

I started using Macs in '88. After '92 I was forced into the Windows world, and I can tell you that it was a joyous day when I finally got back to Apple.

It was OS 8.6 I returned to, and for all its flaws, I can honestly say it was a lot less frustrating, a lot more reliable, and a lot more pleasant to use than the alternative of Windows.

Yes OS X has raised the bar. But I still prefer to think as 'classic' as an old friend I worked with rather than an old piece of software that I toiled with.

Makes me remember of my first Mac, an LCIII. System 7 I think, but I was only 5. To think that 10 years later, the Mac is so much different, as is all technology.
–Chase

 

[wdlove]

I know I won't be upgrading to 10.4.

I'm very sorry to hear that, it's sad. Maybe you will change your mind after WWDC. The wow fact might make all the difference.