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OS 9 Businesses Operating Systems Apple

Apple To Prevent Booting Into Mac OS 9? 202

Posted by pudge from the from-pig-to-man-and-from-man-to-pig dept.
A user writes that eWeek reports "A tweak to new models in its Macintosh line of desktop and portable computers will prevent booting into Mac OS 9, sources said, leaving the Unix-based Mac OS X as the sole operating system." That's a great idea, if they want to prevent people from upgrading their hardware, and to future versions of Mac OS X. I hope it's merely a rumor; there's apparently no technical reason for it, so if true, I imagine it is just to force more people to adopt the Mac OS X.
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Apple To Prevent Booting Into Mac OS 9? More

Apple To Prevent Booting Into Mac OS 9?

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  • That was inflamatory. (Score:5, Informative)

    by jkujawa ( 56195 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @02:34PM (#4000298) Homepage
    Every new version of Mac hardware has traditionally shipped with a bumped version of MacOS, that includes device drivers specific to the new hardware.

    They have EOLed MacOS 9, and are focusing development on X. They're not breaking compatibility deliberately. They're just not devoting resources to make a dead operating system run on the new hardware.

    You'll still be able to use OS 9 from Classic mode. They're just not providing device drivers to boot it.

    Chill.
    • Which is great, but Classic can't talk to the hardware. So you can't run:
      • a program with a hardware dongle that isn't recognized in Classic (many older 3D and music programs especially have this as a limitation, and artists that still use them do so because they cannot recreate the specific artistic effects elsewhere)
      • a favorite video game that tries to draw directly to the screen
      • Any peripheral that doesn't yet have an OS X driver (an issue with many scanners and even a few video and SCSI cards, along with the more obscure add-ons)
      • Any other custom software, critical to your workflow, that for whatever reason is not happy in Classic.
      Of course, I suppose, you could keep an older machine around to do any of that, but...

      • Re:That was inflamatory. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by BitGeek ( 19506 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @03:36PM (#4000902) Homepage


        Yeah, you CAN"T run software that violated apple's programming guides going back to 1984!

        Any software written for the Mac that does those things is software that violates the programming guides.

        Software that doesn't runs great on Classic. And I've had a fun time finding the oldest piece of software I can and trying it out. I have software written in 1987 that runs under classic.

        • Actually, in the case of audio and MIDI programs, there are many things that you can't do without going to the hardware.

          For example, Apple hasn't supported any MIDI IO since they pulled the plug on MIDI Manager in the early nineties. Any software that wanted to do MIDI IO needed to use some third party drivers which reprogrammed the serial chips to the peculiarities of MIDI (e.g. OMS, FreeMIDI).


          • OS X has native support for Midi. In Jaguar there's a Midi configuration application in the box.

            I know people that use midi now, so I don't see how apple is preventing it.

  • Why is this so terrible? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dephex Twin ( 416238 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @02:36PM (#4000318) Homepage
    First of all, this will accomplish something... namely it gets the message across to developers that when you're developing for Mac, you're developing for OS X, get on the ball.

    Why is this bad? OS 9 development has stopped. New computers won't be able to boot into 9. If you are currently running OS 9 on your computer, who is taking that away from you? This isn't a retroactive declaration that Apple is coming in and removing OS 9 from your computers.

    If you are running OS 9 and like it, then you're all set. If you want to run some OS 9 apps still, classic mode isn't going anywhere. And if your favorite software can't run in classic mode and doesn't have an OS X version, then this action might be just the nudge needed to get your OS X version.

    mark
    • Even if they have EOL's OS 9, that's no reason to prevent future hardware from booting it. Windows 95 has been EOLed, but you could still boot it on your new PC if you wanted to.

      I'm not sure how Apple is going to implement this. They could hack OpenFirmware to not boot OS9, or they could modify the Startup Disk control panel to not display OS 9 devices. Or they could simply not make the OS 9 cds bootable.

      But you could still probably use Yaboot/Ybin (the open-source bootloaded used to boot Linux/PPC) to boot into OS 9. I wonder how much Apple would like the Open Source community then? :)

      • Re:Why is this so terrible? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by eXtro ( 258933 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @02:42PM (#4000393) Homepage
        I don't think that Apple cares if you can boot MacOS 9 via a third party application. What Apple cares about is that they don't have to support MacOS 9 running natively on new hardware. I'm thinking back to the various Macs and operating systems versions I've run on them, and often an enabler would be required to run on the newest systems.

        If Apple can make modern hardware look like a generic Mac under MacOS X then they only have to port MacOS 9 once and never spend engineering resources on enablers. They'll still do this for MacOS X, but thats where they plan to make money and gain market share.
      • Even if they have EOL's OS 9, that's no reason to prevent future hardware from booting it.
        Yes there is. Perhaps MacOS 9 does some stupid checks which could actually damage future hardware. Maybe apple is going to change some aspect of the hardware that could be toasted by the ignorant OS 9. The difference with windows is that the bios does a lot of hardware setup so that windows doesn't fry anything.

        t.

        • That is an absurd argument.

          This is really about Apple forcing people to upgrade . If OS 9 lacks a driver for a newer piece of hardware, so be it. But I highly doubt that OS 9 could actually damage your hardware.

          • Re:Why is this so terrible? (Score:3, Interesting)

            by t ( 8386 )
            The thought that software cannot damage your hardware is a naive assumption. Go ahead and set your refresh rate on your vid card to the highest damn thing you got. Chances are you'll hear a pop and see a puff of smoke as your high voltage capacitor blows up.

            In fact I am right now listening to the scsi [sf.net] session of the OSDN/Usenix Kernel Summit [sourceforge.net] and they are talking about their concern of spinning too many scsi devices up at once since it could spike your power supply and fry it.

            t.

      • Even if they have EOL's OS 9, that's no reason to prevent future hardware from booting it. Windows 95 has been EOLed, but you could still boot it on your new PC if you wanted to.

        That's not entirely true: Windows 95 refuses to load on my AMD Athlon 1700+ on a motherboard with VIA chipsets while it works perfectly on an Intel Pentium MMX 166 on a motherboard with Intel chipsets.

        I assume that the VIA chipsets are causing Windows 95 to crash since it has very limited support for non-Intel chipsets.

        - James

    • Re:Why is this so terrible? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The problem is that if I go buy an x86 system today, I can run any of the following on it:
      • MS-DOS
      • DR-DOS
      • OS/2
      • Windows 3.1
      • Windows 95
      • Windows 98 /98se
      • Windows NT
      • Windows ME
      • Windows 2000 (SP3 released today, btw)
      • Windows XP
      Sure, many of these are not supported by their vendors, but I can still install them if I want. Windows 98 was released in 1997?, XP in 2001? and MS has not yet EOL'd W98. OS X was released in 2001 and in 2002 they're going to EOL its predecessor? Not only EOL it, but make it nonfunctional??? If microsoft EOL'd Windows 2000 today you people would be ALL OVER THEM. You damn hypocrites. If this story is true, Apple is being pretty draconian and screwing their own customers.
      • Actually, there is a good chance that many of those OS's would not boot on a brand new machine. Some of them would have problems with that amount of memory, but in most cases they simply wouldn't have the drivers needed to use the motherboard. This is exactly what Apple announced, that they are not going to be making the newer versions of MacOS 9 that would be required to drive newer motherboards.
    • And if your favorite software can't run in classic mode and doesn't have an OS X version, then this action might be just the nudge needed to get your OS X version.

      You're missing a very real likelihood here which is that some older software that people still use, rely on, or enjoy may no longer be supported by its developers. I can think of lots of older games that have no chance of being ported to OS X because the companies that made them have since moved on. Specifically, in my case, I can cite Marathon which I still love playing from time-to-time. Bungie, now permanently attached to the Evil Empire, has no plans to carbonize Marathon. Last thing I heard was that applications couldn't access hardware directly via Classic, so unless Apple figures out some brilliant way to get around that, then users of older software that do access hardware directly (like many games) are out in the cold. Given that Apple has traditionally allowed for compatibility going way back, this would be an uncharacteristic move on their part.

      I have a feeling that some changes will be made to the Classic mode to allow for these kinds of things (or I hope.) I can't possibly imagine that someone at Apple would think cutting off access to OS 9 completely like this would be a good idea. If they did that, effectively rendering any given company's software investment virtually worthless, they would open the door for people to jump to Windows (hell, if you have to re-purchase all your software anyway... why not?) Think people won't jump to Windows if Apple fucks them over? I don't think it's a gamble Apple wants to take, and I hope they wouldn't be unwise enough to force customers into such an undesireable position.

      • As far as your Marathon comment, check out http://source.bungie.org/_news/news.shtml

        While I don't know if it has been carbonized, it satisfies my OS X'thon needs. *grin*

        As far as the original topic, I know way too many people that aren't willing to go to OS X until EVERYTHING they need for it works perfectly, without having to open classic. I too hope Apple doesn't do this. (Yes, i do see the message it sends to developers, by the way) :)
      • "Think people won't jump to Windows if Apple fucks them over? I don't think it's a gamble Apple wants to take..."

        Well, with all the Windows people switching [apple.com] to Macs, it'll probably be a wash anyhow ;-)

      • Re:Why is this so terrible? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by DavidRavenMoon ( 515513 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @08:21PM (#4002585) Homepage
        You're missing a very real likelihood here which is that some older software that people still use, rely on, or enjoy may no longer be supported by its developers. I can think of lots of older games that have no chance of being ported to OS X because the companies that made them have since moved on.

        I have a LOT of software back from when I first got a PowerMac 6100 running System 7.5.5 that wont run in OS 9... it wouldn't even run in OS 8!

        We have an old PowerMac 7100 at work with a 266G3 upgrade. We installed Mac OS 9.1 on that machine, but 9.2 wont install. And this is no different than if I tried to install OS 8.0 in this G4... I'm sure it wouldn't run, and I couldn't even boot it from a CD. I've tried it.

        At some point you have to give up on old software. Every OS upgrade breaks something, and unless the software developer fixes it you are out of luck.

        If someone really needs to run OS 9, keep the machine you have ... this is why I still have my old Mac Clone (and also to run LinuxPPC, and it used to run BeOS... but what's the point?).

        The only time I run 9 on my G4 is for CubaseVST, and sometimes if Quark is acting up in Classic. As soon as CubaseSX is out, that's it for 9!

        • I have a LOT of software back from when I first got a PowerMac 6100 running System 7.5.5 that wont run in OS 9... it wouldn't even run in OS 8!

          i'm in the same boat, i have software the only barely runs in OS 8 and refuses to run in 9. about a month ago i was feeling dangourus, and i opened it under classic. it works FINE, i was pleasantly surprised :D

      • Re:Why is this so terrible? (Score:3, Informative)

        by stux ( 1934 )
        I believe Bungie released the source to the marathon trilogy, and there is an effort to port it to OpenGL...

        Aleph One

        So, you can run that on almost any modern OS, as long as you have the original marathon data files

        http://source.bungie.org/ [bungie.org]

        (OSX version is available!)
  • I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to OS X.

    My understanding is that applications have to be recompiled (and possibly modified) to run natively under OS X. Most major applications now have native OS X versions, but there are a lot of older programs that don't. To run those applications, you have to run OS 9, which is why OS 9 is included when you buy OS X. Now what I don't follow completely is whether you can somehow run OS 9 and OS X at the same time, or if you have to reboot to switch between native and legacy applications.

    Can someone enlighten me?
    • My understanding is that applications have to be recompiled (and possibly modified) to run natively under OS X.
      They all have to be modified. In order to be fully OS X native, they need to be re-written. In order to be a hybrid (can't use some of the extra niceties), you need to modify the program to use the "carbon" library and eliminate a bunch of obsolete ones you may be using.
      To run those applications, you have to run OS 9, which is why OS 9 is included when you buy OS X. Now what I don't follow completely is whether you can somehow run OS 9 and OS X at the same time, or if you have to reboot to switch between native and legacy applications.
      To run OS 9 apps in OS X, there is something called "classic" that basically means OS 9 boots up but is completely contained within OS X. The program behaves like an OS 9 app, and if an OS 9 app crashes, it can take the other OS 9 apps down with it. Right now, it is also possible to boot into OS 9 and run things the old way, without OS X at all (and a small number of special OS 9 apps don't work in OS X classic mode), and this is what Apple wants to get rid of, because OS 9 is obsolete.

      mark
      • They all have to be modified. In order to be fully OS X native, they need to be re-written.

        You're overstating the situation. The Carbon API is a subset of the ancient (in computer terms) Mac OS Toolbox APIs. You don't have to "re-write" applications, but you may need to modify them if you were using Toolbox APIs that are not included in Carbon.

        There have been many cases of Classic applications being Carbonized without changing any code at all. Granted, those were some fairly small applications, but the point holds just the same.
        • You're overstating the situation. The Carbon API is a subset of the ancient (in computer terms) Mac OS Toolbox APIs. You don't have to "re-write" applications, but you may need to modify them if you were using Toolbox APIs that are not included in Carbon.
          Huh? Didn't you continue reading? You're talking about Carbon and that sentence was about Cocoa. For Cocoa (totally OS X native), you have to rewrite the app. For Carbon (almost native but not all the extra goodies), you have to get rid of certain old libraries and use carbonlib. Carbon was Apple's way of making the transition a lot easier, but it isn't the final goal.

          mark
          • I apologize for not understanding that you were talking about Cocoa there. But it's an overstatement to say that Carbon is just a transition. Carbon apps are first-class citizens in OS X. Cocoa and Carbon are peer APIs.
          • Please give an example of something that the Cocoa APIs can do that the Carbon APIs cannot. According to this article [realbasic.com], Cocoa and Carbon are functionally equivalent. Cocoa is the Objective C API. Carbon is the C/C++ API.

            Is Cocoa Better than Carbon?

            The short answer is no. The Cocoa and Carbon APIs both call functions in the Application Services and Core Services layers of Mac OS X. Contrary to what some people think, Carbon APIs do not call Cocoa APIs. There is no more overhead in calling Carbon APIs than there is in calling Cocoa APIs. The long answer is that if you were going to start writing a new application in a language such as C or Java, and you were only concerned with your application running on Mac OS X, you might choose to learn the Cocoa APIs because they are a higher level API than Carbon. Most Mac developers want to utilize the large base of code they have written over the years as well as their knowledge of C or C++ so they are likely to stick with Carbon rather than learn Objective-C and rewrite their code using the Cocoa APIs.

            Can applications that use Cocoa do more things than applications that use Carbon?

            The short answer is no. The Cocoa and Carbon APIs both call into the same parts of Mac OS X. However, there is a small set of functions that Apple has not yet made available to Carbon simply because they weren't needed for Mac applications to be made native on Mac OS X. The reverse is also true. There is a small set of functions that Carbon applications can access on Mac OS X that Cocoa-based applications can't simply because Cocoa applications didn't need them because they weren't used to having those functions anyway. Apple is working to reduce these differences to zero.

            Are Cocoa-based applications "more native" than Carbon-based applications?

            No. Both Cocoa and Carbon call into the same parts of Mac OS X. Cocoa applications are no more or less native than Carbon applications. The Carbon APIs are newer to Mac OS X than the Cocoa APIs and as a result there may be more problems with them in the short term than there are with Cocoa but that is a problem that Apple will solve.
            • Some of the newer things like the services menu and the font panel, goodies like that.

              I haven't done any Cocoa programming, but it sounds like writing a Cocoa app is way easier with Objective-C (or can be done in Java as well) and the tools provided than Carbon apps.

              Of course the Real Basic page doesn't mention the Cocoa programming advantages because they claim their own product that they want to sell you is the easiest.

              Not Earth-shattering stuff, but I feel like Cocoa is the best place to end up for any program at some point down the road.

              mark

            • Re:Stupid user: Explain to me (Score:5, Interesting)

              by BitGeek ( 19506 ) on Saturday August 03, 2002 @12:14AM (#4003272) Homepage


              This article is just plane wrong.

              Yes, you can do things with cocoa that you can't with carbon. Carbon has sufficient aaccess to the machine to do all the important things you want to do-- but cocoa is a whole different way of working, and it is much superior to carbon.

              Yes, Cocoa applications are MORE NATIVE than carbon. Cocoa is the development environemtn Next made... .carbon is based on the old MAc OS.

              Use Cocoa. They are not equivilent. Carbon is great if you need to move a lot of old mac os code over, but otherwise, you should use cocoa. In the areas where you need to call carbon apis (because apple moved the stuff over rather than rewriting it, like quicktime) you can... no problemo. But cocoa is a lot better.

              And more native.

              And provides things you cannot do in carbon, no way, no how. (Like delegation, protocols, nibs, and categories are glorious.)

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
              Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • Please give an example of something that the Cocoa APIs can do that the Carbon APIs cannot.

              Probably nothing, but that's not the point; you can do anything computable with any Turing-complete language, but nobody's advocating writing all software in assembly. In terms of developer productivity, Cocoa is *much* better than Carbon, as well as every other API I've seen.

              That article is written by the CEO of RealBasic, a Carbon-based RAD tool, so he naturally sees Cocoa as a threat and is hardly going to be an impartial source of information.



          • Carbon is around for the long haul, but its not the preferred platform.

            New stuff should and will be developed in cocoa-unless you're a diehard fanatic of the toolbox. Even for diehard fanatics, cocoa is a much faster development environment.

            Cocoa, and specifically, Objective-C based cocoa is the preferred platform. Java/cocoa when you need cross platform, or carbon when you're porting an older mac app.

            You can access carbon apis from cocoa, no problem.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • OS X can run the entire Mac OS 9 OS inside of itself, much like OS/2 can run Windows 3.1. That is, if you want to run a Mac app that does not run natively under OS X, you need to launch "OS 9 Classic Mode", and then run your OS 9 app inside that mode. It's almost like an emulator.

  • I can understand this, (Score:3, Informative)

    by eXtro ( 258933 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @02:39PM (#4000354) Homepage
    though I'm not sure that I agree with it. First, MacOS X adoption is essential for Apple. The adoption rate directly influences what software gets ported to MacOS X. Look at Microsoft's recent comments ahout OfficeX. From their point of view their lack of sales is attributable to poor adoption of MacOS X. This is probably false, more likely its due to Office X not being worth the money, but facts don't matter.

    Second, it will in the long run cut down on their support costs. "Officially" supporting two operating systems is more expensive than supporting one. In the short term they will have to do this, but at some point they'll be able to cut back on MacOS Classic support.

    Third, it may allow them more freedom in hardware design. MacOS Classic has often required enabler extensions to run on new hardware. MacOS X obviously needs some level of tweaking as well. If they can relegate Classic to running in a stable virtual Mac running under MacOS X its a win for Apple. They can concentrate on making MacOS X, their actual breadwinner, run better and halt development on MacOS Classic.

  • Mac OS 9 is Dead... So who cares? (Score:3, Informative)

    by gabe ( 6734 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @02:39PM (#4000356) Homepage Journal
    Mac OS 9 is no longer being actively developed by Apple, therefore there will be no drivers for new hardware, therefore it will not boot.

    Just like Mac OS 7/8 will not boot on current Mac hardware. I know, I've tried. I use a much older Mac (Quadra 700) to play some really old games (Pax Imperia) that no longer work properly in Mac OS 9.

    So, what's the big deal?
    • The reports that MacOS 9 is dead has been largely exagerated. Alot of software that is still being sold (in Apple stores might I add) still will only run in OS9 (not classic). For example, this happened just last week, my wife bought qbert for her computer. We couldn't get it to work in OS X. It would get to a certain point and then bomb. When we asked the Apple store about it they said you have to boot OS 9 to get games to work. They won't work in Classic.

      This to me says they didn't do a good enough job on Classic for what it is supposed to do, which is to transition consumers to OS X while they wait for software makers to update their software to OS X native.

      • Yeah, Apple should really make sure their stores (real and virtual) are only stocked with software that can either run natively in X or work in Classic. It's a bit odd for Jobs to talk about the death of MacOS 9 and then visit a store in Soho that has 9-only titles in it.

      • There are some programs that do have problems with Classic- specifically those that try and access the hardware directly- which is something that is not allowed from within the Classic environment. It's not that they did not do a good job with classic, it's a matter of applications being written correctly. Classic was only meant to be a transition to X- something to tide over users until their applications were fully carbonized or rewritten in Cocoa.
        While it is certainly true that a lot of software is still being sold that is OS 9 only, that number is shrinking every day. We see more and more Carbon apps that are 9/X as well as X-only applications every day. The most recent version of MS Office _only_ runs in X.
        Regardless of when you bought it, that version of qbert was probably written so that it'll run on OS 8 or 9... and was probably originally written before X was releasd to the public (or developers). There are some games that do not run in Classic or X, but that's because they try and access the hardware directly... which occasionallly leads to problems. Conversely, there are many games that are carbonized and X-native.
        I almost wish that the "press' had never reported on Apple's announcement that "OS 9 is Dead"... it's dead as far as developers are concerned. As time goes on, it will be dead for consumers as well.

  • Apple knows one thing: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ClaraBow ( 212734 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @02:46PM (#4000438)
    Poeple don't like to change their habits, so Apple helps them do it. Remember all the slack that Apple got for removing the Floppy Drive? Getting rid of legacy serial ports and going with USB only? People grumbled for a little while and realized, hey, Apple made the right move for me. In the end most people will be glad that they switch to OS X , or should I say, that Apple made them switch. You can always buy an older Mac on E-bay and run OS 1.0 - 9.0 until the end of time as you know it. I love change bring it on......

    • Poeple don't like to change their habits, so Apple helps them do it

      No, Apple forces them to change, which is just not right. Perhaps if Apple examined the reason that people haven't been upgrading, they might clue into whether or not this is a good thing.

      My personal suspicion is that most people haven't upgraded because they're very happy with the way things work right now, except for the speed (speed is always good). Most of the OS9 apps are very stable and don't require much in the way of upgrading.

      Forcing change on the users is not a good thing. Let them come to the realization themselves, give them all the incentive in the world to do so, but never force.
      • I might have missed something here but I don't see where anybody is being forced to do anything.
        I.e. if you have to be able to boot to OS9 then don't buy a new machine! (Or if you do then keep your old one around as well).
        QED
      • I am going to disagree with you here... I don't think that this should be considered "forcing" the users to change. As other posters have pointed out, it is and has been common practice for Apple to only support the most recent version of the MacOS on their hardware.... you can't boot a currently--shipping G4 with MacOS 8... typically the machine will only boot with whatever version of the MacOS that was shipping at the time.
        It's also not uncommon for minor changes in OS 9 to break certain applications or drivers. I've got some older software that will not run in anything newer than System 7.6, and I've got a couple of things that worked in the first releasse of 9 but don't work well under 9.1 or 9.2.
        Removing the ability of new machines to boot into OS 9 is a logical progression in the "coming out" process of MacOS X. At some point in the future, the classic ennvironment will likely disappear altogether. MacOS X is only going to get better as time goes on... look at the improvements that have been made since the Public Beta was released.
        All in all, if this is true, it's a good thing for the Macintosh community. It will encourage developers to finish porting their applications to X .

        I have not booted my PowerBook into OS 9 in well over a year and that was only for a few minutes. I've been running OS X since the Public Beta and have been running it fulll time since March 24, 2001 or whenever the full version came out. I've got a 2000 Series PB G3 (the one with the bronze keyboard and dual firewire ports and a 400 Mhz processor). I've experienced a few glitches here and there, but nothing to make me want to go back to OS 9.
    • Getting rid of legacy serial ports and going with USB only? People grumbled for a little while and realized, hey, Apple made the right move for me.

      I agree with this and I'll explain why I feel this was a good move.

      Before I bought my G4 I had a PowerCenter clone, and an old Apple StyleWriter Pro printer. Part of the reason I still had that printer was the fact that it was getting hard to find Mac compatible (serial) printers. Also they cost more! I also wanted a new MS Intellimouse Optical, because my old Logitec Wireless Mouseman wouldn't work with OS 9.

      So I bought a $50 USB card and got an Epson USB printer.

      When I got my new G4 all this stuff worked. It made me realize that now we have more choices in peripherals than before ... just get almost any USB printer or mouse.

    • ... Remember all the slack that Apple got for removing the Floppy Drive? ... People grumbled for a little while and realized, hey, Apple made the right move for me ...

      Not quite. The flack Apple received was not really over the floppy itslef, it was over the complete lack of writable removable media in the early iMacs. People did not eventually agree with Apple, Apple reversed itself and eventually equipped some iMacs with removable writable media, CD-R, and later CD-RW. The original Apple line that all people need is ethernet was a cover story for the fact that rev A iMacs with CD-R would have been too expensive.
  • Okay, let's compare these comments with the ones about the end-of-life plans for Windows 2000 [slashdot.org] and Windows 95 [slashdot.org]. Executive summary: It's the right business and technical decision for Apple, but it's heavy-handed tactics by Microsoft. Most OS 9 apps run under OS X using classic mode, and this is why Apple is justified in killing OS 9. Most Windows 95 apps run under Windows XP, either out of the box or using compatibilty mode, but it's part of Microsoft's plan to make us use the license-enforced XP scourge. This is not contradictory logic because Apple is an underdog and Microsoft is a monopoly.
    • But Microsoft isn't stopping anyone from running Win95 on new hardware if they so choose.
    • Uhh no. A lot of Microsoft licenses prevent you from transferring your licenses. That coupled with the inability to buy windows95 means there is no legal means to install windows95 on new hardware.

      And also, Apple has to support the warranty on the new hardware on the off chance that an untested old version of MacOS fries the hardware or nukes the hard drive. Do you honestly expect them to continually make sure that MacOS 9 is compatible with every new release of hardware? Do you think Microsoft tests Windows XP on your 5 year old Dell?

      And also, the Windows 95 link you have there is a different situation, that's about microsoft no longer making their most current libraries available for windows 95. A completely sensible thing to do, but assine to do without ample warning time of the change.

      t.

  • Painful for VARs (Score:2, Interesting)

    by DavidOster ( 90339 )
    I work with a firm that takes a Mac, a bunch of third party PCI cards, and some custom hardware and software, and sells the whole thing as a bundled system to run one application. The PCI cards are manufactured by vendors that don't like supporting the Mac at all, and do it poorly. So, we use a mix of their libraries, and our own driver code.

    To stay in bisiness, we need to buy components to build our systems.

    If we can't boot into OS 9, we can't get at the hardware. Sure, we can re-write our drivers for OS X, but it is going to be a pain to reverse engineer our card vendors' libraries.

  • ok, so here's the real question... if they're going to be rolling out the next version of os x (pinot) in january, are we all going to be expected to pay another $130? or have they started code naming point point releases now? another full point release so soon after the 10.2 pricing fiasco is just going to leave a very, VERY bitter taste in many people's mouths.
    • 10.1 was code-named Puma so you can't necessarily infer that because it has a code name that it will be a pay for release.

      I don't think Apple is so stupid as to release full upgrades on a 4 or five month release schedule.
    • ok, so here's the real question... if they're going to be rolling out the next version of os x (pinot) in january, are we all going to be expected to pay another $130?

      I doubt it. Apple usually releases a new OS once a year and an update six months later for free.

      So it was like 8.0-8.1, 8.5-8.6, 9.0-9.1, 10.0-10.1, 10.2-10.x

      You pay for the first one, and get the next one either free, or for $19.95 with a coupon (like I did with 9.1)

  • This isn't really news. (Score:3, Informative)

    by pi radians ( 170660 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @03:19PM (#4000740)
    Apple has always done this. I have a beige G3 300 at home. It is from 1998. I tried to install System 7 on it for kicks, and it reported that my computer can't run that OS. Get a newer Mac and try to install OS 8 and it won't let you. If a computer is shipped with a certain OS, you cannot install the generation below it. Recent computers are shipped with both OS 9 and X.

    This is not news. It is how it has always been.
    • This is a bit more than that. Right now, if I want to play even recent games like Diablo II or Warcraft III at decent speed and without freezes, that means booting directly into 9.22.(though the freezing part may be due to third party memory that doesn't totally get along with X) Unreal Tournament isn't properly Carbonized yet(preview release 3), and a ton of older games never will. (Deus Ex?) This includes old titles like X-Wing , TIE Fighter, or Terminus, since joystick support under Classic mode doesn't seem possible.(I'd prefer newer space combat sims from LucasArts, but that's as likely as Peace in the Middle East).

      Of course, this is just from the viewpoint of a Mac Gamer, and this lockout won't affect currently shipping machines, but it sounds like a machine bought next year won't run any old game that isn't Classic compatible, which would likely include most 3D games.


      • Warcraft three runs perfectly fine under OS X.

        Hell, I switched to X full time over a year ago and haven't missed it. All the games I care about, Quake 2, 3, Wolfenstein, Warcraft, run fine under it... so does everything else I need to use.

        I can understand people who are taking their time upgrading older macs to OS X. but you buy a new mac and you get os x, you shouldn't complain-- you're getting a much better computer. IF your game doesn't work in X, keep your old mac around, to run the game.

      • I actually know exactly how you feel. But like I said, it isn't news.

        When System 7 was released all of the new Macs couldn't run System 6 (including the LC 475 I bought). Police Quest won't run properly in 7, so I had to keep my old Mac Plus.

        This may suck, but its nothing new.

  • This article is moronic. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by akgunkel ( 567825 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @03:19PM (#4000745) Homepage Journal
    This article has it bass akwards.
    For the non-expert mac users, let me explain.

    MacOS only boots motherbords it was designed to support. Mac Mobos aren't like PCs, they change (sometimes significantly) with each model. Virtually everytime a new mac comes out, Apple has to tweek the OS to run on it correctly. That's why new macs always ship with the brandspankingest new version of MacOS: because that's the only thing that will boot on it.

    All this really means is that Apple isn't going to continue tweeking MacOS 9 for new hardware.
    That's no surprise, they said they were stopping development on it months ago.

    Since every Mac knows in it's ROMs what the lowest version of MacOS it can boot is, these new macs will refuse to boot MacOS 9. Just like how you can't run System 7.5.5 on a classic iMac, but you can run OS X.

  • terrible! (Score:4, Funny)

    by tps12 ( 105590 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @03:28PM (#4000831) Homepage Journal
    I was so angry when my new dual G4 wouldn't boot under my OS of choice, System 4.1. Grudgingly, I upgraded to 6.0.8 (ugh, I just hate the inefficiency of MultiFinder!). If Apple tries to force me to use even later operating systems, I'm through with them. I'll just get a Pentium 4 and a copy of Windows 3.11.

  • No dual boot? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by Picass0 ( 147474 )
    This looks like a shot at Yellow Dog Linux users as well.

    • Re:No dual boot? (Score:2, Informative)

      by foo12 ( 585116 )
      No, you're missing the point --- Apple is no longer updating Mac OS 9 as a bootable OS on new systems. You can run Mac OS 9 in the Classic Compatibility mode, where any low level calls are passed up to Mac OS X which then talks to the hardware (eventually). This doesn't affect any of the PPC Linux distros.

  • Some points. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BitGeek ( 19506 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @03:46PM (#4000987) Homepage

    First off this story's premise flat out WRONG. Apple is not going tweak the hardware to prevent OS 9 from running. Apple doesn't work that way-- hell they went out of their way to make OS X work on machines that aren't officially supported (like my 9500) by providing drivers for hardware they haven't shipped yet.

    OS 9-- and OS's 8 all the way back to the original Macintosh contain hardware specific code. Whenever Apple released a new version of the hardware, they'd release an extention to the OS to support it. So, it was very common to have hardware that couldn't run some versions of the OS without extensions.

    All apple is doing is that going forward, they are not going to constrain their hardware by the design assumptions of OS 9. OS 9 is 1984 technology and assumes its in control of the hardware. Under OS X the hardware is far more abstracted.

    So, Apple is going to design its hardware to run OS X and not *worry* about OS 9. Given the way Apple migrates its computers, if there's some controller chip for which 9 is not compatible, it will still take a year before the whole line is refreshed and os 9 will likely run on those new machines that don't yet have the controller chip, while it doesn't run on other new machines with the newer controller chip-- even though none of them are "officially supported"

    The reason windows 95 runs on current hardware is that there has been no innovation in PC hardware. Clock rates have gone up, but nothing new has been done.

    Finally this article is full of errors large and small (the coffin was not rolled onto stage-- why include a detail like that to make us think you were there and not making it up, and then get it WRONG?)

    That a newspaper publisher in florida is stuck on 9 is NOT news. Check out "Crazy Apple Rumors Site" for a great parody of this kind of reporting.

    It will take time for all the applications to migrate, but OS X is clearly moving in the right direction.

    To characterize this as apple "tweaking" teh software so it won't run on hardware is to flat out lie about what's going on, and is unfair as well.

    This is the kind of bullshit reporting that mac users have to deal with-- if its not claiming that apple is bankrupt when they have $5 billion in the bank, its claiming that apple or steve jobs go out of their way to annoy people, when in fact there's a much more plausible business decision behind it. This is a great example of the idiots at eWeek not understanging anything about how OS 9 works and how hardware is designed and integrated with the OS.


    • Where by "havent shipped yet" I meant "haven't shipped for a long time".

      Doh!
    • As much as this has been debated to *death* in various Apple forums (including /.) -- and as much as I still think that it is unlikely to happen -- this move doesn't look so dumb if Andrew Neff (no, I'd never head of him either) is to be believed. [com.com] The more Apple can force users and ISVs over to OSX the less technical problems they might/will have if they port Classic over to x86 to retain some sort of backwards compatibility (a'la 68k to PPC).

      Man, this latest "Apple will use x86 chips eventually" sure has some legs.

    • Re:Some points. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by g4dget ( 579145 )
      The reason windows 95 runs on current hardware is that there has been no innovation in PC hardware.

      PC hardware today ships with USB2, FireWire, AGP, much improved disk controllers, 100Mb and Gigabit Ethernet, graphics accelerators, new power management hardware, accelerated audio hardware, and lots of other stuff. Windows 95 knows nothing about most of these.

      The reason why you may be able to install Windows 95 on new PC hardware is because, for better or for worse, a lot of that hardware has backwards compatibility modes and because Microsoft does, in fact, support their software for many years beyond when it is discontinued.

      Apple evidently doesn't worry as much about backwards compatibility in their hardware. That may be fine, too, for Apple's market. I am glad to see Mac OS 9 go, which was an antiquated and unreliable system that should have been retired a decade ago, and it's the first thing I removed from my OSX-based Mac.

      But your assertion that the PC hasn't innovated except for faster clock speeds is just completely off the mark. Quite to the contrary, a lot of the PC innovations have been picked up by Apple--much of the Macintosh platform is now a well-designed, high-end PC that happens to have a PowerPC for its processor. As a Mac user myself, I often feel that one of the worst things about the Mac is the large number of zealous but uninformed users that hang on to it.

  • My guess is that they have no plans to limit booting into OS X so soon. As the eweak article pointed out, too many of Apple's core market-base RELY on OS 9 only products. Encouraging people to switch to OS X is one thing, eliminating half your customer base is another. But if a "rumor" gets out implying that they just might do such a thing, how many developers do you think just might make the extra push to get their products compatible with OS X that much sooner? Another rumor recently surfaced that Apple may start requiring unique serial numbers for OS X due to piracy (although of course Apple makes no official comment). Then Amazon offers a $50 rebate on OS X and it quickly becomes their best-selling product.. no doubt a few of those users being people concerned that they wouldn't be able to just "bum" a copy from one of their friends come August 24th. Amazon has since discontinued the rebate due to "overwhelming response" (as if we're supposed to believe they were losing money on that deal?), but during that time Apple picked up quite a few users who probably had no original intention of buying OS X (but every intention of getting a copy). Although Apple claims to despise the rumor mill, I think they know its power quite well, and use it effectively more often than people realize. Only time will tell, of course.
  • This makes perfect sense, as booting into 9 allows access to just all of the personal user folders and the like. If you can't boot into 9 you get rid of a whopping security hole.
    -an
    • You overlook a few of OS X's current security measures. If you want, you can lock the System Preferences for the startup disk, and then it can only be changed by an admin. This eliminates the ability of normal users to go into OS 9 to get into folders that they do not have the file permissions for under OS X. You may argue that people who admin abilites on a machine could just switch to OS 9 to view locked files, but this is pointless because anyone with admin powers can change file permissions in OS X if they know a few basic UNIX commands.
  • The biggest problem with not being able to boot into OS 9 is for diagnosing problems. If the hard drive is hosed (can't be booted from) and I want to run tools on it, I'll boot from an OS 9 CD. If I can't do that, what the hell am I going to do? Boot from an OS X CD that has carbon/cocoa utilities on it? Yeah right, OS X takes up most of the 650MB all by itself. (BTW, Drive X sucks)

    For this reason, I don't think Apple will *keep* new machines from booting into OS 9. They may de-bundle OS 9, so it doesn't come with the machine. But sure as hell hope they let it boot into OS 9.

    Of course, I could just pull the hard drive out and pop it into an older machine to run utilites... =P

    Mr. Spleen
    • The biggest problem with not being able to boot into OS 9 is for diagnosing problems. If the hard drive is hosed (can't be booted from) and I want to run tools on it, I'll boot from an OS 9 CD. If I can't do that, what the hell am I going to do? Boot from an OS X CD that has carbon/cocoa utilities on it? Yeah right, OS X takes up most of the 650MB all by itself. (BTW, Drive X sucks)

      The OS X install CD has DriveUtility on it, you can boot and run that, or if the Mac boots at all from the hard drive, boot into single user mode and run fsck.

      Also for diagnostics, most new Macs come with the hardware check CD

      But this is nothing new. The Norton 5 CD wont boot, or fix my G4, and even some of the newer NUM CDs wont boot some newer machines.

      I suppose by that time new bootable utility CDs will be out.

    • Re:What about us techs? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by anwnn ( 246920 )

      If you're going to be working on a new machine such as these much ballyhooed ones, then why not just use an external firewire device? These new machines are most certainly going to have the ports to do so.

      Install OS X onto an external drive, put your favorite utilities on there, and have at it.

      As a tech now, I look forward to the day when I can eliminate my CDs from my toolkit, and use strictly an external drive. Easier to update the software, and much quicker than running from CD.

  • oh what a bunch of crap.
    apple isn't going to tweak the hardware just to prevent people from booting into classic. it's not that kind of company.

    silly pudge, I'll bet he just wanted to make use of that OS 9 category he made for this [slashdot.org] article =P

  • Hmmm.. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Did any of you stop and think it might be because the new Apple computers will feature hardware that OS9 does not support, and would waste many man hours to add? I personally don't want the company that makes my Hardware and OS to waste time and money bringing OS9 up to a point that it can support DDR ram and other such hardware. Also, perhaps OS9 instructions in the OFW are causing problems.

  • System Security? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kris_lang ( 466170 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @08:06PM (#4002534)
    Could the real reason be that booting up in OS X necessitates password entry and systel level protection of files under BSD whereas booting up in System 9 allows any user to trash ANY part of the hard drive without any permissions checking at all?

    Currently, dual boot OS X and 9 systems can be trashed by booting up in 9. Single boot OS X systems can be "rooted" instead by booting up with a CD that boots up on System 9 with the right key sequence at powerup. I don't deny that not having to support older software on newer hardware may play a role, but the security issue may also be a big part for Admins who want to lock down publicly accesible systems.
    • Currently, dual boot OS X and 9 systems can be trashed by booting up in 9. Single boot OS X systems can be "rooted" instead by booting up with a CD that boots up on System 9 with the right key sequence at powerup.

      If you have physical access to any machine enough to boot it up from a drive of your choice, you have the ability to control that machine no matter what OS is running on it.

  • That really throws a wrench into it. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Decimal Dave ( 411182 ) on Friday August 02, 2002 @08:50PM (#4002697)
    I work at a newspaper where all of the layout and printing is done from systems running OS 9. It's not because we don't want to run OS X, but because a lot of our software just isn't available for it. If we buy a new system without OS 9 support we'll suddenly lose the ability to natively run QuarkXPress with its numerous 3rd-party XTensions, all of our custom Associated Press applications break, we can no longer connect to our all-important Tandem server (not to mention the Exchange system too), and there's no telling what havoc will be wrought upon our OPI, RIPs, and imagesetters with the new OS X printing services...those things aren't exactly free to replace!

  • Apple, please, no! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by m3573 ( 595099 )


    OSX has already won.

    Software developers are forced to make the OSX transition because the competition is doing the same in most software categories.

    Most Mac users are learning to appreciate the features and look of OSX, and use OS9 because they need to for hardware, software compatibility. As an OS9 user i don't expect new drivers for an OS which will eventually be abandoned, nor i demand support from Apple for issues with old OS9 software. If i needed to change machine and the new ones couldn't boot OS9 i'd settle for an used mac, would it be healthy for Apple sales?

    If letting OS9 boot on newer machines has a big cost for Apple, please open the project up as it has been done for darwin (and Mac on Linux, in a different way) and let the community do the work, but please don't limit the possibilities for new Macs.

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