Death Of Classic == Change In Processor?
It's a question we have to ask ourselves ... the big thing holding back Apple from any radical departures from the standard Moto PPC was Classic ... it simply wouldn't run on anything else, and it wasn't worth it to migrate both it and OSX to whatever new platform Apple may have had in mind. Yet Apple couldn't ditch it any earlier because of all that legacy Classic productivity app code out there ... so OSX was tethered to Classic in a very frustrating three legged race.
Did anybody else out there catch Steve's expression as he waved goodbye to Classic as it sank with the coffin back beneath the dry ice?
I got the distinct impression he's been waiting to do this for a very very long time.
And now, we've got new Rackmounts coming (read: no legacy productivity apps, therefore no Classic required) ... I'm wondering if we might finally see something new processor wise ... something ... wonderful ...
Thoughts?
Did anybody else out there catch Steve's expression as he waved goodbye to Classic as it sank with the coffin back beneath the dry ice?
I got the distinct impression he's been waiting to do this for a very very long time.
And now, we've got new Rackmounts coming (read: no legacy productivity apps, therefore no Classic required) ... I'm wondering if we might finally see something new processor wise ... something ... wonderful ...
Thoughts?
Comments
You can put your "OS X on x86" ideas right besides OS 9: In a coffin 20 feet under.
G-News
Further, even though Steve said that OS 9 is dead, you need to remember that it is not dead for most users. Developers live in a world where time is usually 1-2 years ahead of users. For developers OS 9 is dead, but users won't get to where developers are for some time. Steve saying that classic is dead means that in a year or so, you will probably be able to trash the classic app.
<strong>Further, even though Steve said that OS 9 is dead, you need to remember that it is not dead for most users.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Spot on, and Jobs said as much.
Neither of those are really suitable - POWER4 isn't really a desktop cpu, and Transmeta is scaling worse than the G4!
I think Jobs is just saying only develop for X because halting development on 9 will save a great deal of cash.
But maybe Apple has produced a new G5 cpu? We'll know by MWNY...
Not only that, but since OS X is now he default OS it only makes sense to develop for it, and not for an OS that has been in the process of being phased out for the last 14 months.
Another factor is that Cocoa Apps perform better than Carbon Apps because the code is more optimised, so Apps will work better if you program for OS X only.
--PB
The question becomes, what do you gain running OS X vs Linux on the blade.
<strong>Another factor is that Cocoa Apps perform better than Carbon Apps because the code is more optimised, so Apps will work better if you program for OS X only.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Actually, the issue is that Carbon apps will be much better citizens if they're targeted primarily at OS X, rather than being OS 9 apps that are tweaked to straddle both platforms.
<strong> But we still need Classic to run the old applications. And not everybody is ready to upgrade all his software.</strong><hr></blockquote>
True ... and if you're running a rack server which isn't running old productivity applications, that might be the best place to try something new.
<strong> But we still need Classic to run the old applications. And not everybody is ready to upgrade all his software.</strong><hr></blockquote>
True ... and if you're running a rack server which isn't running old productivity applications, that might be the best place to try something new.
I don't see this as evidence of a shift to x86, rather, a shift to the G5. If Apple updated OS 9 to boot on a G5, that would be TWICE as much work and testing as updating OS X alone.
But then again, this may have nothing to do with new processors....but it's a good speculation nevertheless.
But OS X is a few (if not generations) better than XP on a 1Ghz + system.
I should mention that I run OS X on a 233Mhz Bondi iMac with only 64MB's of RAM and 2MB's of SDRAM.
Windows Users:stick w/ 98.
Mac Users : go all out, get OS X: because you can.
Windows really hasn't taken the new and improved route with XP(although a lotta work went into it), but the more compatibility and bloat-ware route...and that so far hasn't proved a good one to follow.
Bloatware: too many files present to ever consciously manage.
-walloo
<strong>OverToasty has a good point. OS X runs OS 9 in emulation, thus, all Apple needs to do is adapt OS X to a new CPU and 9 follows (in the form of classic). Such a Mac wouldn't be able to boot into Classic, but I suspect that is the idea. </strong><hr></blockquote>
But....
Classic is not "Emulation" the way that, say, Virtual PC is.
Classic is simply letting the OS 9 code "take over" a lot of what's going on on-screen. And it is running on its native processor.
OS X is not "emulating" OS 9 when you're in Classic--it is actually *running* OS 9.
Someone else can surely explain this better than I, if it becomes important.
- me
Nevermind.
<strong>Mac Users : go all out, get OS X: because you can.</strong><hr></blockquote>
In part of the keynote Jobs said there were 1 million X users at the beginning of 2002, he estimates 5 million by the end of 2002.
Do you want the bad news? I reckon there are in excess of 30 million Mac users - at the beginning of the year - by Apple's figures - around 1 in 30 Mac users was an X user. 3.3 per cent - that's pitiful.
And what do they base these figures on, the number of downloads of updaters? That's hardly going to be accurate.
(Yes, I know this isn't 100% correct.)
<strong>
In part of the keynote Jobs said there were 1 million X users at the beginning of 2002, he estimates 5 million by the end of 2002.
Do you want the bad news? I reckon there are in excess of 30 million Mac users - at the beginning of the year - by Apple's figures - around 1 in 30 Mac users was an X user. 3.3 per cent - that's pitiful.
And what do they base these figures on, the number of downloads of updaters? That's hardly going to be accurate.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This slow adoption rate is not surprising considering that a good chunk of that 30 million is using hardware that couldn't run OS X if it wanted to (mostly schools who can't afford to upgrade either anyways). Windows NT 4.0 still has a good installed base for example.