Wondering "what would have been" if I'd gone with OS X twenty years ago...

[WriteNow]

I was a dedicated Mac user back in the Classic MacOS days, but I never made the transition to OS X, let alone macOS. It's a long, boring story--but basically it came down to Classic MacOS was good enough for my productivity tasks. And for various reasons, I wasn't sure I'd be as happy with OS X (or, more accurately, the software available for it at the time). So, when the time I got Internet came (relatively late), I went with generic PC with Linux...and kept the increasingly out-of-date Mac for real work for several years. About 10 years ago, I started using the Linux system for productivity. It's handier having one computer for everything--and application software had evolved enough that I was able to live with it.

Recently, I've been playing with an old Power Macintosh G4 I have, which has Jaguar installed (which has been cited as the first version of OS X that was actually usable--although that point is undoubtedly debatable, as is everything else in computers). It's been a nice experience. Indeed, this version of OS X might be "first usable"--but it seems very usable to me today, and its even hard to believe at times that it's nearly 20 years old. And, of course, from all I hear, things only got better with Panther and Tiger.

And oddly, I find myself wondering after all the fuss I had years back if I couldn't have adapted to using OS X for productivity--at least well enough to get by on. Although I may be be able to say that now in 2021 because the standard of comparison I have is current applications. Twenty years ago, the comparison was Classic MacOS applications--some of which I really, really liked. (Of course, one could run stuff in Classic mode back then--but I remember one application was questionable under OS 9.)

I keep wondering what might have been? had I gone a different path in the 2000s? Or, more accurately, stayed on the same path as an Apple user?

 

[Tratkazir_the_1st]

It's handier having one computer for everything

"All eggs in 1 basket" adherent detected .

 

[MysticCow]

Recently, I've been playing with an old Power Macintosh G4 I have, which has Jaguar installed (which has been cited as the first version of OS X that was actually usable--although that point is undoubtedly debatable, as is everything else in computers).

10.0 and 10.1 really WERE that painful to use. It would always stick at detecting the network, expecting an ethernet plug in there...when people were still on phone modems. Thankfully, the internet still worked in OS 9, so I wound up staying there sometimes.

10.2 really was the first "usable" version of OS X. 10.3 was just insanely fast, even faster than 10.4 was. 10.4 was a good all-around update also, but nothing was as fast as 10.3 was.

 

[eyoungren]

OS9 was 'good enough' for me as well until about 2003-2004. That's when Jaguar and later Panther became sufficient to me to move on to OS X. Lots of people seem to have fond memories of OS9. I do not.

There are some things about OS9 I like and some features that never got moved to OS X that I miss. But overall the problems I had with OS9 do not make me miss it. ATM Deluxe is a specific target of my OS9 hate.

OS X gave app developers more room and better tools to do things that they could not do with OS9 or that they were limited in doing. It's one of the reasons OS X eventually took off. Especially once Adobe embraced it.

I don't know what could have been for you, but I can tell you that working in QuarkXPress 6, Photoshop 7, Illustrator 10, Acrobat 5 and Suitcase X was a much more pleasant experience than trying to make older versions on OS9 work. QXP 6 was also lightyears ahead of QXP 4.11.

 

[WriteNow]

Lots of people seem to have fond memories of OS9. I do not.

I can't say I have particularly fond memories of OS 9, either.

I recall hearing a story that Steve Jobs refused to use a Mac after he returned to Apple, until OS X actually shipped. He apparently stuck with NeXT. If true, he was promoting operating systems that he, himself, didn't use for a few years! But, by that point, the Mac OS was showing its age. NeXT was better. And then one supposes Jobs might also not have wanted to use MacOS, since, by that point, it largely a product of the era when he was in exile from Apple.

 

[eyoungren]

I can't say I have particularly fond memories of OS 9, either.

I recall hearing a story that Steve Jobs refused to use a Mac after he returned to Apple, until OS X actually shipped. He apparently stuck with NeXT. If true, he was promoting operating systems that he, himself, didn't use for a few years! But, by that point, the Mac OS was showing its age. NeXT was better. And then one supposes Jobs might also not have wanted to use MacOS, since, by that point, it largely a product of the era when he was in exile from Apple.

There was also one of his Apple events where he held a funeral for OS9.

 

[Amethyst1]

There was also one of his Apple events where he held a funeral for OS9.

Didn’t he do this when OS X was finally (deemed) good enough to use full-time?

 

[m1maverick]

I was an early adopter of OS X as I was very interested in operating system capabilities at that time. I welcomed the stability and capabilities of OX x 10.0 (yes, really!)

However, as with a lot of technology at that time, performance was slower than what it was replacing and native software selection was weak. But it was obvious OS X was the future and I embraced it 100% (using it wherever I could). I wasn't making my living using my Mac so I had the luxury of being able to use it where I could and switch back to MacOS where I couldn't.

I still prefer the way I interacted with MacOS and wish they could have combined the interaction of MacOS with the under pinnings of OS X. OS X isn't bad but when I use MacOS I remember what made it so special from a UI perspective.

 

[B S Magnet]

I can't say I have particularly fond memories of OS 9, either.

I recall hearing a story that Steve Jobs refused to use a Mac after he returned to Apple, until OS X actually shipped. He apparently stuck with NeXT. If true, he was promoting operating systems that he, himself, didn't use for a few years! But, by that point, the Mac OS was showing its age. NeXT was better. And then one supposes Jobs might also not have wanted to use MacOS, since, by that point, it largely a product of the era when he was in exile from Apple.

I concur by and large with @eyoungren insofar as frustrations of working in OS9 (and feverishly Cmd-S’ing every minute or two whilst working on a major project in the event the bomb or an Error -9472761239847 showed up). I stayed with OS9 until December ’03, at which time I installed directly to a just-released Panther, skipping even Jaguar. (The Public Beta experience in 2000, coupled with the slow roll-out of applications for OS X, is why I waited almost three years.) Later, I tinkered a bit on other Macs running 10.2.8 and found it to be the most stable experience of that first Aqua UX I tested with the Public Beta, which was kind of nice but it actually felt quaint by 2005.

In a nutshell, Panther marked the start of OS X’s UI’s maturation and overall familiarity still evident even in Monterey. This UI’s UX reached its apex with Snow Leopard, and I will always die on that hill. To wit, I still use Snow Leopard on three of the Macs in my signature list because it runs flawlessly, it’s OS X at its most intuitive, and it’s incredibly versatile by design for a mess of subtle reasons. And we also have a completely different community forum focussed on just the earlier Intel Macs which are capable of running Tiger, Leopard, and Snow Leopard, as well as later OS X/macOS builds

I mean, if you want to capture what you worried you missed the first go-round, grab a Core 2 Duo or pre-Ivy Bridge Intel Mac i5 or i7 on the cheap and throw 10.6.8 onto a partition. You might find it a welcome surprise just how usable and intuitive it remains even now.

 

[eyoungren]

This UI’s UX reached its apex with Snow Leopard, and I will always die on that hill. To wit, I still use Snow Leopard on three of the Macs in my signature list because it runs flawlessly, it’s OS X at its most intuitive, and it’s incredibly versatile by design for a mess of subtle reasons.

I once spoke with a designer who was getting info from us (former job) about advertising specifications. During the phone call she mentioned the various apps she was using, one of those being QuarkXPress 4.11. She was fairly happy that I would take a PDF and was not requiring native docs. This was probably around 2009 or so. At the end of the call she told me she would never give up using QXP 4.11 for all her design work.

We all form attachments, particularly when whatever it is meets a specific or complicated need/desire in a positive way. Sometimes it's just that whatever it is performs well for us.

In my case, that's Panther. Boring as hell, but oh SO stable and reliable.

 

[Macbookprodude]

I have EXCELLENT memory of OS 9 as that is what got me interested in Apple and also caused me to quit my job due to the anti-apple reps with whom I worked with.

 

[WriteNow]

Didn’t he do this when OS X was finally (deemed) good enough to use full-time?

Yes, I think so. I know I've seen a video on YouTube showing the funeral. It's worth seeing.

 

[WriteNow]

In a nutshell, Panther marked the start of OS X’s UI’s maturation and overall familiarity still evident even in Monterey. This UI’s UX reached its apex with Snow Leopard, and I will always die on that hill.

I've had a limited bit of experience with Snow Leopard, but I liked it. I definitely know it is one of the ones I keep hearing mentioned as one of the best versions ever.

I mean, if you want to capture what you worried you missed the first go-round, grab a Core 2 Duo or pre-Ivy Bridge Intel Mac i5 or i7 on the cheap and throw 10.6.8 onto a partition. You might find it a welcome surprise just how usable and intuitive it remains even now.

I'm tempted off and on to go back to model of having a second computer for certain productivity tasks. And I've thought older OS X system might be a nice choice for this.

 

[m1maverick]

I mean, if you want to capture what you worried you missed the first go-round, grab a Core 2 Duo or pre-Ivy Bridge Intel Mac i5 or i7 on the cheap and throw 10.6.8 onto a partition. You might find it a welcome surprise just how usable and intuitive it remains even now.

IMO all of the UI changes from one version of OS X to another (or Windows or Linux) has done almost nothing to improve productivity. They all operate essentially the same and moving things around or changing the appearance and moving things around is a nuisance and not a benefit.

 

[alex_free]

10.0 and 10.1 really WERE that painful to use. It would always stick at detecting the network, expecting an ethernet plug in there...when people were still on phone modems. Thankfully, the internet still worked in OS 9, so I wound up staying there sometimes.

10.2 really was the first "usable" version of OS X. 10.3 was just insanely fast, even faster than 10.4 was. 10.4 was a good all-around update also, but nothing was as fast as 10.3 was.

10.3 is definitely faster on every hardware ive tried it on. If more software was compatible with it, it would be pretty close to Tiger in regards to the most popular legacy Mac OS X OS versions.

 

[B S Magnet]

10.3 is definitely faster on every hardware ive tried it on. If more software was compatible with it, it would be pretty close to Tiger in regards to the most popular legacy Mac OS X OS versions.

Despite Tiger’s overall longevity (both as the active/current OS X of its day and in continuing community support during the years since), it felt like a more refined iteration of Panther (with a lot more under the bonnet being fleshed out versus its predecessor) — not terribly unlike the incremental refinement of Snow Leopard following Leopard. Borrowing from a 3D graphics reference, Panther felt like the framework for Tiger’s shading and texture.

 

[Amethyst1]

I still prefer the way I interacted with MacOS and wish they could have combined the interaction of MacOS with the under pinnings of OS X. OS X isn't bad but when I use MacOS I remember what made it so special from a UI perspective.

So would a modern version of Rhapsody/Mac OS X Server 1.x, with the Platinum UI of Mac OS 8 plus the Darwin/BSD underpinnings of current "macOS", be your OS of choice then?

I occasionally wonder if it would have been feasible to ship OS X 10.x with both the Platinum and the Aqua UI (like Developer Preview 3 did... sort of), with the former being a fall-back option for those users who absolutely wanted it or for machines not up to Aqua's graphically intensive eye-candy.

 

[mmphosis]

I did go with Mac OS X twenty years ago! Inspired by this post, I am typing from my very tired iBook G3 that I bought 20 years ago. The flying saucer power adapter is from another iBook G3, the trackpad isn't responding so I have a mouse plugged in, it says no batteries available, and I had to set the clock to the correct date/time. It feels comparably slow but it works!

I should run some builds while I have this running.

 

[mode11]

I have EXCELLENT memory of OS 9 as that is what got me interested in Apple and also caused me to quit my job due to the anti-apple reps with whom I worked with.

Me too. I discovered the Mac at uni in the OS 8 era, and always loved it's friendly and thoughtful UI. It was pretty free and easy about where stuff was put (e.g. applications can run from anywhere), whereas OS X was more restrictive (though admittedly for good reason). Using Photoshop on it was a fun time, though developing a Cmd-S reflex was mandatory.

Early OS X was grindingly slow on my PCI G4, whereas OS 9 ran like lightning. I remember downloading GM versions of OS X off eMule before they'd even been officially released, I was that desperate for the speed increases (whereas these days I'll wait 6-12 months). Despite still being an Apple fan, I moved to Windows XP and a Pentium 4 in the early 2000's, only returning to the Mac with Leopard and a C2D MBP. A hopped-up G4, or G5, is a pretty decent machine, but would have cost a fortune at the time, whereas PC's were rapidly getting cheaper and faster. And XP's multitasking made OS 9 look prehistoric.

 

[WriteNow]

It was pretty free and easy about where stuff was put (e.g. applications can run from anywhere), whereas OS X was more restrictive (though admittedly for good reason).

I liked that flexibility as well.

It's a small thing, but it was strange when a Documents folder became a normal thing. I'm guessing System 7 era. I'd gotten so used to organizing stuff my own way--and suddenly there is hint that my documents should all be in one place! (For a long time, I ignored this suggestion, and continued doing things my own way!)

 

[retta283]

I have hazy memories of my time using OS 9 (and 8 for that matter) but I always respected certain aspects of it, how I could bend it whatever which way I pleased and it would play nice with the changes I made. OS X feels more restricted for sure, especially the newer versions.

I didn't use OS 9 so much, I was developing on Windows NT from 1997 onwards, so Macs were just personal machines. I jumped to X primarily once Panther and Tiger were out, but my Power Mac was always running 9. Just neglected it. As a result of this I'm not as familiar with 9 as I should be.

I find personally to this day I feel most productive under Panther and Tiger. I am one of those that does not generally agree that Snow Leopard was the peak of OS X; although it is still a solid OS and highly superior to all of its successors. If you add Quick Look and a few minor features to Tiger, it would be perfect.

Having just delved into a Quicksilver, OS 9 was one of the first things I tried and it runs great on this. Running it at 1920x1200 is a treat. I plan to spend some more time with 9 going forward, as I quite like what I am seeing. Work will remain on my Tiger systems though. Just too bad TFF is becoming more irrelevant with time.

 

[MacFoxG4]

I didn't use Mac OS 9 and earlier back in the day. I was a Windows 98 kid back then, but I was aware that Mac OS 8/9 was a thing thanks to the system requirements sections I would see in the manuals of my games. I also remember seeing the fruit colored iMacs on TV back then. I briefly used either Jaguar or Panther in elementary school, but wouldn't get to use another Mac until the Intel era during high school and college in various computer labs and I think it had to be either Leopard or Snow Leopard during that time and maybe Mountain Lion later on. About a year or so after that is when I started buying vintage Macs on eBay and the rest is history.

I love both classic Mac OS and OS X. If it is one thing I have learned over the years is that one person's absolute favorite OS can be another person's worst OS ever. For example, I greatly dislike Windows 10 due to bad experiences I had in the past, but I know someone who thinks it is the best Windows ever made. On the PPC side of things, my preferred classic OS is either 8.6 or 9.2.2 and my preferred OS X is Leopard. I greatly prefer it over the versions that came before it due to the 3D dock and the UI overall (the downloads folder is also really convenient), though I do kind of like Jaguar for its UI. On Intel, I prefer Snow Leopard and Mavericks, though I do also like High Sierra and Mojave.

I do sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had grown up with Mac OS 8/9 instead of Windows 98 and while I think I would have loved classic Mac OS back then, I think I would have been a tad disappointed missing out on games that were exclusive to Windows.