weird behaviour for OSX....? old Mac OS9 clock face? huh?

Posted:
in macOS edited January 2014
hey all,

im currently running OS 10.4.1 on a 1.8Ghz G5 iMac with a measly 256mb of RAM (it's so slow! AGHH!). Recently the little coloured loading wheel (you know the one? Little multi-coloured spinning wheel... perhaps those of you on SuperMacs have never seen it?) has become a pretty common occurence. I see it ALL the time now... while the computer changes from one app to another. I cant even run Safari+iTunes together at a great speed.



Anyway, i had iTunes open and playing then i decided to open LimeWire. Five mins later and it STILL hadn't loaded (doesn't usually take that long - 30 secs max usually) so i went to the Apple menu to Force Quit it.

i was expecting my little companion the multi-coloured wheel while the apple bar loaded... but instead i got that old ticking watch from OS 9!



it was weird... ive never seen that before in OSX, i thought the little wheel had simply replaced it. Well that's all. Has anyone else seen this in OSX?



PS. more RAM (1GB chip) is en route

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 14
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by spiers69

    hey all,

    im currently running OS 10.4.1 on a 1.8Ghz G5 iMac with a measly 256mb of RAM (it's so slow! AGHH!). Recently the little coloured loading wheel (you know the one? Little multi-coloured spinning wheel... perhaps those of you on SuperMacs have never seen it?) has become a pretty common occurence. I see it ALL the time now... while the computer changes from one app to another. I cant even run Safari+iTunes together at a great speed.



    Anyway, i had iTunes open and playing then i decided to open LimeWire. Five mins later and it STILL hadn't loaded (doesn't usually take that long - 30 secs max usually) so i went to the Apple menu to Force Quit it.

    i was expecting my little companion the multi-coloured wheel while the apple bar loaded... but instead i got that old ticking watch from OS 9!



    it was weird... ive never seen that before in OSX, i thought the little wheel had simply replaced it. Well that's all. Has anyone else seen this in OSX?



    PS. more RAM (1GB chip) is en route




    Carbon apps that were originally OS 9 apps often display haunting visuals from the past. iTunes is one of those.
  • Reply 2 of 14
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    Carbon apps that were originally OS 9 apps often display haunting visuals from the past. iTunes is one of those.



    I have had that same spinning hands in the black and white watch in safari...
  • Reply 3 of 14
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by spiers69

    I see it ALL the time now... while the computer changes from one app to another. I cant even run Safari+iTunes together at a great speed.



    Something else may be wrong - namely some network glitch. 256 MB shouldn't make it THAT slow.



    Check your pageouts - Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor, click the System Memory tab and look for Page Ins/Outs.



    Do you hear the hard drive reading and writing while this app-switching delay is going on?
  • Reply 4 of 14
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by a_greer

    I have had that same spinning hands in the black and white watch in safari...



    Impossible. A carbon app was probably active or your cursor was hovering over a carbon app window but there's no way Safari can display that watch. No Cocoa apps can without clever hacks.
  • Reply 5 of 14
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    Back ye olden days, a lot of OS 9 apps had their own pointer graphics in the apps, even though the icons were pretty standardized, otherwise, if the system hung, the cursor might not update to show it's busy. A lot of ported Carbon apps still have those resources tucked away deep inside, and whenever the app hangs for a bit, this icon can apparently, somehow, override the rainbow wheel icon that is supplied by the system and all apps are supposed to rely on. Cocoa apps don't have these legacy graphics in them, not even the old NeXT-style spinning MO disk.



    If Safari was showing a wristwatch or something, it might have been the plug-in that supplied it.
  • Reply 6 of 14
    spiers69spiers69 Posts: 418member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by lundy

    Something else may be wrong - namely some network glitch. 256 MB shouldn't make it THAT slow.



    Check your pageouts - Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor, click the System Memory tab and look for Page Ins/Outs.



    Do you hear the hard drive reading and writing while this app-switching delay is going on?




    Sorry i didn't check. It was already 2am when i posted, so i went to bed pretty soon after. Im not running Safari, iTunes and Activity Monitor and all is well. It's just LimeWire that eats up my RAM.

    Also last night i had been using the computer for hours on end.
  • Reply 7 of 14
    spiers69spiers69 Posts: 418member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    Impossible. A carbon app was probably active or your cursor was hovering over a carbon app window but there's no way Safari can display that watch. No Cocoa apps can without clever hacks.



    I only had two apps open. Safari and iTunes 4.9 (which isn't Carbon is it?). And im not making this up. I admit it was late, and i was tired, but i know what i saw. It came up where mouse was (while i was hovering over the task bar), then it went back to the moust cursor and then it returned for a couple of seconds.



    The little B&W watch from OS 9 (i nearly fell off my seat- i hadn't seen that damn watch in so long).
  • Reply 8 of 14
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by spiers69

    I only had two apps open. Safari and iTunes 4.9 (which isn't Carbon is it?). And im not making this up. I admit it was late, and i was tired, but i know what i saw. It came up where mouse was (while i was hovering over the task bar), then it went back to the moust cursor and then it returned for a couple of seconds.



    The little B&W watch from OS 9 (i nearly fell off my seat- i hadn't seen that damn watch in so long).




    iTunes 4.9 most definitely is Carbon and was without a doubt the app giving you a wristwatch cursor.
  • Reply 9 of 14
    How about Photoshop CS 2?



    I'm certainly getting the watch there. Which I find interesting, plus I'm seeing some system slowdowns...



    My new G5 dual 2.0 is running slower than my old single 1.8 (same RAM, same apps) because of an odd video rendering issue that I don't have time to sort out this moment, as I have a mag going on press.



    I don't recall Photoshop CS doing this, but I could be mistaken.
  • Reply 10 of 14
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    Photoshop is the quintessential Carbon port. You will see a lot of formatting, icons and other niceties that are leftovers from OS 9 in any Adobe app.
  • Reply 11 of 14
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by BuonRotto

    Back ye olden days, a lot of OS 9 apps had their own pointer graphics in the apps, even though the icons were pretty standardized, otherwise, if the system hung, the cursor might not update to show it's busy. A lot of ported Carbon apps still have those resources tucked away deep inside, and whenever the app hangs for a bit, this icon can apparently, somehow, override the rainbow wheel icon that is supplied by the system and all apps are supposed to rely on. Cocoa apps don't have these legacy graphics in them, not even the old NeXT-style spinning MO disk.



    If Safari was showing a wristwatch or something, it might have been the plug-in that supplied it.




    PithHelmet is the only plugin I run and since I assume it was made for safari (baced on the name) I assume that it is cocoa
  • Reply 12 of 14
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    iTunes 4.9 most definitely is Carbon and was without a doubt the app giving you a wristwatch cursor.



    Why didnt Apple make it a cocoa app at version 2 (AFAIK ver 1 was the only release for OS9)
  • Reply 13 of 14
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by a_greer

    Why didnt Apple make it a cocoa app at version 2 (AFAIK ver 1 was the only release for OS9)



    Who knows...I wish they had. But then it could have been a bit more difficult to port iTunes to Windows. Now iTunes is a bloated mess that plays movie trailers, music videos, music, podcasts, audio books and syncs photos.



    I heard iTunes 5 will sync with your fridge and upload orange juice and ham to it whenever you run out of those.
  • Reply 14 of 14
    a_greera_greer Posts: 4,594member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    Who knows...I wish they had. But then it could have been a bit more difficult to port iTunes to Windows. Now iTunes is a bloated mess that plays movie trailers, music videos, music, podcasts, audio books and syncs photos.



    I heard iTunes 5 will sync with your fridge and upload orange juice and ham to it whenever you run out of those.




    I wish Winamp had a mac version because for music playback, it is tops since iTunes bloated...
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