Hardware Implications of OS X Only Boot
Starting January 2003, all new Macs will lose the ability to boot into OS 9. Classic will still be available of course. The official PR here:
<a href="http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/sep/10macosx.html"; target="_blank">Apple Announces Mac OS X Only Booting For 2003</a>
So what does this mean for hardware announcements at MWSF 2003? If we get new iMacs and eMacs in January simple enough, but what about lines that won't be updated? I see a nasty situation were people ask for remaining stock of "OS 9" Power Macs, etc. What about music pros and Quark users? They'll be locked out of upgrading? Or will MWSF see massive hardware and/or software announcements to address these issues?
Mods, this is my first thread and I'm trying to keep the discussion to the specific Future Hardware implications of this announcement.
<a href="http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/sep/10macosx.html"; target="_blank">Apple Announces Mac OS X Only Booting For 2003</a>
So what does this mean for hardware announcements at MWSF 2003? If we get new iMacs and eMacs in January simple enough, but what about lines that won't be updated? I see a nasty situation were people ask for remaining stock of "OS 9" Power Macs, etc. What about music pros and Quark users? They'll be locked out of upgrading? Or will MWSF see massive hardware and/or software announcements to address these issues?
Mods, this is my first thread and I'm trying to keep the discussion to the specific Future Hardware implications of this announcement.
Comments
:-p
[ 09-10-2002: Message edited by: Stoo ]</p>
<strong>
So what does this mean for hardware announcements at MWSF 2003? If we get new iMacs and eMacs in January simple enough, but what about lines that won't be updated? I see a nasty situation were people ask for remaining stock of "OS 9" Power Macs, etc. What about music pros and Quark users? They'll be locked out of upgrading? Or will MWSF see massive hardware and/or software announcements to address these issues?
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As far as I know, most developers are working on Carbon applications. The Carbon API is set and at most experiencing minor revisions. Carbon applications can run on pre-OS X OS's , I think back to OS 8.5 as long as they have the latest Carbon extension loaded.
You mention Quark, and they are one of the last Hold-Outs from the OS X bandwagon. From what I have heard it is coming. I have read that Quark operates fine in Clasic as well. InDesign works fine on 9 as well, and I dont see Adobe doing anything to break that soon.
The large publishing industry moves slow in adopting new technology. A book could be in reprints for years, and if it is revised rather than rewritten then you can easily get 6-8 years out of one set of files. This illustrates part of the slow migrations to OS X in part of the graphics field (we are still doing a job or 2 in Quark 3.32). I know that the industry is seriously looking at InDesign and InCopy right now, and in the Educational market workflows for incorperating XML. These are BIG changes in the way buisness will be done for the next decade. Adobe is agressive at taking this market away from Quark right now.
As to the move to OS X, and hardware? This year my company bought at least a hundred seats of OS 9.2, and replaced a bunch of G3's with G4's. Unfortunatly they bought the licensing a little late, and couldnt get in the Up to Date program without spending extra money. This being a slow year economically, management wouldnt let go of the money, so we are stuck with OS 9 till next year. Apple is right to kill off OS 9 booting, this will allow them to concentrate on X, and help to push developers to concentrate on X, which is much more versatile in the hardware arena than 9 is, and will give Apple more options IF Moto cant come up with a modern processor for Apple.
<strong>Rumor has it that the new IBM chip cannot boot OS 9....
That's as funny as the one saying AltiVec cannot work with a chip based on the Power4.
Not if the machine has a radically different architecture, like NUMA & RIO or HT. Drivers would have to be written for OS9 for it to run on the new hardware. I'm not saying this is the only reason for OS 9 not booting on new hardware, but it is a possible reason.
I doubt there will be any real hardware change to make this happen -- a simple firmware change which could be applied to existing hardware should be enough. It'll be interesting to see when the first new version of MacOS X comes along that requires a firmware update that will render your existing Mac unable to boot MacOS 9.x. Boy, that'll get people screaming.
If someone is that demented, that they wish to continue using OS 9 because they love POS developers like Quark, use pre-2003 hardware. I have a hard time believing Apple will force a firmware change with say OS 10.3, but even if they did I certainly wouldn't care. It's called InDesign. Get used to it, folks.
*shrug*
[ 09-10-2002: Message edited by: Moogs ]</p>
<strong>Not if the machine has a radically different architecture, like NUMA & RIO or HT. Drivers would have to be written for OS9 for it to run on the new hardware. I'm not saying this is the only reason for OS 9 not booting on new hardware, but it is a possible reason.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Except then "classic" wouldn't run either. If you can RUN the OS, the only thing preventing you from booting it would be a deliberate change to the firmware preventing you from recognizing it as a startup volume.
This is not true - there are situations where the OSX OS layer would have drivers/kernel modifications necessary to use new hardware, and the "nano-kernel" in OS9 would not. Classic does not use OS9's "nano-kernel" : meaning 2003 macs could use classic, but not OS9.
Looking at the last times different products were updated, it would not be inconceivable for the whole line to be updated then, making MWSF woth any hype they could throw at it.
<strong>It will be interesting to see the nature of this block...will people come up with a way to reverse it?
Looking at the last times different products were updated, it would not be inconceivable for the whole line to be updated then, making MWSF woth any hype they could throw at it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple could still update the iMac/iBook/PowerBook by the end of the year, stating that they are OS X boot only. They could also have a slightly different install disk which will only install OS X as the bootable system. With printer companies jumping onto the Rondevue wagon, and Apples anouncement there shouldnt be much of a reason to actually boot in OS 9 soon.
That said, I realize that there are many people who need to boot from OS 9 for some bit of software that hasnt been updated which needs to access hardware. That is the software and or hardware manufacturers job to update, not Apples. Should Apple still support OS 7? or build an OS which will boot on a pre Power PC system? There comes a time when they need to move on. One day classic will be gone from the OS, just as legacy 68K code has slowly been eleminated since the move to the Power PC chips.
<strong>
The large publishing industry moves slow in adopting new technology...</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is crux of it. Maybe Apple doesn't care about that market any more, but it's effectively going to cause a lot of grief in those businesses.
I don't see people switching to Windows, as other's have said - that just isn't logical. I suppose it could push a few to make that switch if they've already pretty much decided.
What I do think will happen is that Apple will see a lot of sales leading up to the end of the year - and a real crash in sales for the first half of 2003.
I've been using X for close to two years now, on and off, it's still not ready for me (or at least I'm still not ready for it), and I don't think it's ready for my clients either. And, I really don't think Jaguar improves much on that.
How can you sell it to someone when the main interface, the Finder, is such a slug compared to 9.x!? "Look, I'm clicking alright, nothing's happening...!"
For the same reason my Quicksilver can't boot System 7 or earlier, these new 2003 machines won't be able to boot OS 9. You don't see me asking for hacks to allow System 7 booting.
Classic will still work, and possibly even updated a bit. If you still require OS 9 booting, any existing machine can still boot into OS 9, and will be able to do so forever.
It's not like we couldn't see this coming, I mean, come on. How long did you expect Apple to be duel booting OSes. Lets see, OS X came out on March 24th 2001, yes? So at 2003, it has been nearly 2 years of duel bootage. Time to let it go.
...which will be completely washed out by the pent up demand for new powermacs in the prosumer/science-engineering/ and gaming markets; markets that are not only ready for OSX, but need OSX like air. Sometimes I think that the creative-publishing market overestimates its impact on Apple sales. It is undoubtably important, but it's not be all and end all of sales.