Seems that OS 9 is far from dead.
From a recent interview with one of the engineers:
Thursday, May 09, 2002
Copland Goes Gold Master.
In a shocking move that has left the Mac community reeling, Apple engineers today announced that the operating system code-named "Copland" has been completed.
Long considered a dead project, its existence was discovered today when a rogue group of engineers emerged from their sequestered work area. Squinting in the bright light of day, they announced that Copland is in the Gold Master phase and claimed it will be ready to ship by month's end.
Boasting that Copland contains new user interface elements like enhanced views, a restructured System Folder and customizable appearances, Coplands Chief Project Engineer, Gary Burke, heralded the beginning of a new era for the Macintosh platform.
And the interface is just the icing on the cake, continued Burke.
The real improvements, Burke claimed, are under the hood. Protected Memory, preemptive multitasking, a new kernel, and innovative new Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) will allow the Mac OS to run on Mac clones that use different hardware controllers.
This is the feature that makes the new Mac OS important. Now we have a stable and native version of the Mac OS for CHrP, or Common Hardware Reference Platform.
Apple executives were at a loss to explain how Copland development was apparently still going on while the company was forging down the path of OS X.
Senior Vice President for Software Development, Avie Tevanian, said "There was apparently a whole department working on this that we didn't realize was there when we came over from NeXT. They were down this hall I thought went to the parking garage. Turns out there are offices and even a little cafeteria down there."
Tevanian said this now explains a strange incident from two years ago when an unidentified engineer burst into a development team meeting, shouting "I got GeoPort transmitting at 256 Kbits!"
Through a series of complex accounting treatments, the department continued to be funded through a period of cost-cutting carried out by Apple in the last five years.
"I think [CFO] Fred [Anderson] has a little 'splainin' to do," Tevanian said.
Asked if hed heard of Mac OS X, a bleary-eyed Burke merely shook his head. "Look, I've got to go get cleaned up for the release party. This has been a long time coming."
Waiting in the wings to explain things gently to Burke, Tevanian indicated Copland would not see the light of day.
"OS X is the future of this company. Mr. Burke will be, uh, rehabilitated."
posted by CARS Staff | 5/9/2002
See if I can find that link again ...
From a recent interview with one of the engineers:
Thursday, May 09, 2002
Copland Goes Gold Master.
In a shocking move that has left the Mac community reeling, Apple engineers today announced that the operating system code-named "Copland" has been completed.
Long considered a dead project, its existence was discovered today when a rogue group of engineers emerged from their sequestered work area. Squinting in the bright light of day, they announced that Copland is in the Gold Master phase and claimed it will be ready to ship by month's end.
Boasting that Copland contains new user interface elements like enhanced views, a restructured System Folder and customizable appearances, Coplands Chief Project Engineer, Gary Burke, heralded the beginning of a new era for the Macintosh platform.
And the interface is just the icing on the cake, continued Burke.
The real improvements, Burke claimed, are under the hood. Protected Memory, preemptive multitasking, a new kernel, and innovative new Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) will allow the Mac OS to run on Mac clones that use different hardware controllers.
This is the feature that makes the new Mac OS important. Now we have a stable and native version of the Mac OS for CHrP, or Common Hardware Reference Platform.
Apple executives were at a loss to explain how Copland development was apparently still going on while the company was forging down the path of OS X.
Senior Vice President for Software Development, Avie Tevanian, said "There was apparently a whole department working on this that we didn't realize was there when we came over from NeXT. They were down this hall I thought went to the parking garage. Turns out there are offices and even a little cafeteria down there."
Tevanian said this now explains a strange incident from two years ago when an unidentified engineer burst into a development team meeting, shouting "I got GeoPort transmitting at 256 Kbits!"
Through a series of complex accounting treatments, the department continued to be funded through a period of cost-cutting carried out by Apple in the last five years.
"I think [CFO] Fred [Anderson] has a little 'splainin' to do," Tevanian said.
Asked if hed heard of Mac OS X, a bleary-eyed Burke merely shook his head. "Look, I've got to go get cleaned up for the release party. This has been a long time coming."
Waiting in the wings to explain things gently to Burke, Tevanian indicated Copland would not see the light of day.
"OS X is the future of this company. Mr. Burke will be, uh, rehabilitated."
posted by CARS Staff | 5/9/2002
See if I can find that link again ...
