I think that Bluetooth, Firewire 2 and USB 2 are coming. If not in January, 2003, then soon after. Apple seems to have abandoned OS 9 development in any form, which means they aren't going to provide the drivers for OS 9. What marketing purpose in new technologies if the OS does not support them? So, Steve says 'switch to OS X now'.
It's not a big deal for 98% of us since most of apps we use work (better or worse) in Classic. Quark may even never worry to release version 6 because version 5 feels good enough in Classic.
Though CPU upgrades are possible, the instruction set will be backwards-compatible with G4. Though new buses are sure to arrive, they will not affect the instruction set. Apple will just have to update some parts of the OS X kernel and Classic will work fine for some 10 years more.
The only thing is going to be broken: strange proprietary hardware support in certain OS 9-only apps.
So, I'm afraid, there's nothing to write home about. Sorry.
This latest motherboard, with its <a href="http://www.agere.com"; target="_blank">Agere</a> ASIC, includes DDR and ATA-100 support. The latest revision of Tumbler includes 24-bit stereo sound.
When a new CPU is available, the motherboard will be updated to support it. However, I think it's pointless to try to read into the DDR mobo any details about new CPUs becoming available.
It sounds like that the Firmware will include an addition to prevent booting into Mac OS 9. I don't see how a speed bump would break compatibility.
Maybe it's time to mod an interrupt button into my custom Mac <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
UMA-2 is indeed a "mythical beast". In 1996, my main source of excitement was the daily read on the webpage of a certain "investment advisor" who specialized in all things Apple. Actually, he specialized in HINTING at all things Apple - all FUTURE things....
Apple stock had just begun turning north - had I had the money, and heeded his advice, I would have been a rich man today. The money and the heeding came at a later stage, making me a very disappointed man - but I digress.
This nameless advisor, whose hinting Moki couldn't hold a candle to, discussed UMA-1, UMA-2, G3, G4, G5, G6... In his descriptions - as far as looking beyond hinting would allow - the plans were set, the stages discrete, the future bright and here RSN.
Unfortunately, as we know by now, evolution rather than revolution rules. The missing link has moved via the missing links to the barbed wire stage. Thus, all this G4++, UMA-1.77, etc (mercifully, no USB 1.83, G5- or Firewire 7/5). The reason for that is a simple combination of CPU development lag and buyer acceptance of less advanced standards; why produce things, using advanced and expensive components, when there is good profit to be gained from using cheaper parts and there still is a reasonable demand for the technology?
[quote]It's not a big deal for 98% of us since most of apps we use work (better or worse) in Classic. Quark may even never worry to release version 6 because version 5 feels good enough in Classic.[/QB]<hr></blockquote>
Speaking personally the problem in the print shop isn't needing to run Quark but the reliance on software such as ATM Deluxe and other vendor specific software. We have an app that controls our RIP that was built in 1995.
<strong>All of which is beside the point. This all came up because I pointed out that Yikes! only lasted 3 months. Which it did.</strong><hr></blockquote>
For fsck's sake, how can you keep arguing this point when you are wrong, and obviously wrong.
Yikes is just Yosemite with a G4 or on it. Yosemite was introduced January 1999 and effectively deleted December 1999 when all the G4s moved to Sawtooth.
Yikes was a transition in some sense, but the evidence points to it being because Apple didn't have Sawtooth ready in production (ie pretty much as soon as Sawtooth was in production Yikes/Yosemite was deleted).
You're now arguing that the new G4 board is similar, and is going to be a transition board. It's completely different because the new board is just that, a new board, Yikes was just Yosemite, again. There's no way that Apple is going to engineer a completely new board then delete it a few months later - suggesting so is just complete madness.
You want to believe January is going to produce new machines, new boards and new chips - and this hope is just distorting reality.
Relax. I was sitting here wondering where you got the idea that I thought that Yikes! had a changed motherboard. I lookewd back and read what I wrote. I see now as I look back, where you got that impression.
My statement was ambiguous. I meant to suggest that Yikes! was a machine that carried a motherboard that transitioned the chip from a G3 to a G4.
Perhaps Apple would rather not spend resources developing new drivers for an old OS, when those resources could be better used developing software iApps, etc.
How the **** is anyone getting that CURRENT machines will suddenly stop running 9, or that new machines will be purposefully broken so that they run Classic, but not boot into 9?!?
Dear god, people!
It's just this simple:
New hardware is coming out that 9 was never designed to run on.
Apple has decided, as they stated *how* long ago, that they are not writing more MacOS 9 drivers for major new hardware.
9 will not boot on the new hardware for this reason... because it would require development of major changes to the kernel, which isn't going to happen.
9 WILL continue to run IN CLASSIC because Classic provides a hardware abstraction layer that 9 *CAN* run on. It's just that simple. Classic removes 9 from the hardware, and provides, literally, a virtual machine for 9 to run on. Classic is an application that runs on X that provides 9 with a 'ghost machine' to run on. That's it.
That's all there is to it, folks. Don't read into this things that aren't there.
Have a machine that boots into 9 now?
It will *CONTINUE* to do so.
Buy a machine in 2003? It WILL NOT boot 9, but WILL run 9 in Classic.
This isn't a conspiracy on Apple's part, this is *PRECISELY* how it was designed to work *three years ago*. None of this information is new or surprising.
Apple has pulled some fast ones before. It isn't beyond the relm of possibilty that Panther will make you choose between having X and booting 9, to stop people using legacy (ei, accesses the hardware so can't run in Classic) apps.
With Steves "and that includes faster versions of current machines" comment, it sounds like a Firmware update. One which could be applied to pre 2003 machines with Panther.
i was at the keynote and steve said something along the lines of:
"Starting 2003 all new Macs, including faster models of our current machines, will only boot into OS X"
That pretty much confirmed my theory, that the new PowerMac is going to receive a simple speed bump before it's going to be replaced. Dito with the iMac of course.
I don't think the engineering would be that much of an issue. Perhaps the new machines only booting into OSX in 03 is more a marketing ploy. By having this requirement, Apple does two things.
1. Encourages more companies/people to make the migration to OSX. Apple gets money from more Jaguar sales.
2. OS 9 users/shops who won't be upgrading to Jaguar in the forseeable future (i.e. heavy Quark Users) who have been putting off getting a new machine (maybe waiting for a G5), now see that a dual 1.25 G4 is the fastest machine they are going to be able to use with their curent software. They buy lots of high end machines now instead of putting off the purchase. Apple gets lots of money from hardware sales.
<strong>Apple has pulled some fast ones before. It isn't beyond the relm of possibilty that Panther will make you choose between having X and booting 9, to stop people using legacy (ei, accesses the hardware so can't run in Classic) apps.
With Steves "and that includes faster versions of current machines" comment, it sounds like a Firmware update. One which could be applied to pre 2003 machines with Panther.</strong><hr></blockquote>
'New machines' = something we haven't seen yet. Major, major redesign.
So if we see a PowerMac based on the current design, but with a new technology that has no 9 driver, that would be a 'faster version of a current machine', no?
i think people are afraid of a new speed bumped Mac at MWSF that has the same motherboard but with one exception: one of the chips on the board has "OS 9 blocker" printed on it.
I understand *what* they're afraid of, but I don't understand *why*... it's just ridiculous, and the source of this FUD seems to have been people who hadn't a clue as to what the original comment meant, or what the realities of Classic are.
The claim that "If it'll run Classic, it *HAS* to boot into 9" is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Period.
people, why are so many people getting bent out of shape over the whole "os x only boot" thing??? most of my studio is still using 400 mhz g4's, quark, a healthy amount of ram and hard drive space in each. they do the job they were bought for, and unless quark makes version 6 incompatible on these machines, we'll still be using them for a couple more years.
i hate to use the "no one's making you buy new hardware" argument, but it seems valid, unless i am missing the fine print somewhere. if your current hardware and software is working just fine under os 9, why do you feel compelled to upgrade? are there whiz-bang features in some os x-only software that you simply cannot live without? (admittedly, os x is a lot more solid, but i have some lean machines that through various works of voodoo, i have running under os 9 with very few crashes -- the only time that falls apart is when one of my co-workers decides to "update" software without telling me first, or chekcing macfixit, or reading the read me... ) if so, then yes, you'll have to start looking at upgrading, and by my watch, you still have 100+ days to get systems that will still boot in os 9.
maybe i'm just slow to catch on, but i just don't see why people are vowing to never buy apple hardware again (as quoted on macfixit.com, among other places). while apple has been slowly eradicating support for my scsi devices, you know what i do? i KEEP an old machine around for my scsi devices, and network them to my new machines... am i missing something here?
After reading about Steve?s keynote and reviewing this thread I began to wonder about something: Is it possible that the hardware drought of the last few years is as much Apple?s fault as Moto?s.
Bear with me. Based upon my recollection, the original timeline called for the release of OSX by mid 2000 therefore, if you consider 10.2 to be the ?real? OSX release, it was almost 2 years late.
If the next generation of Mac hardware can?t boot on OS9, is it possible that it could have been ready as early as 2 years ago and just waiting for an operating system? It sure would explain a lot. Like why we?ve been milking the G4 forever. It may never have been intended to last this long in its "OS 9" incarnation. If Apple had bet the hardware R&D farm on OSX, it may have been cost/time prohibitive to retroactively engineer a next generation OS9 solution even with the two year delay.
Remember Steve?s ?once we have 10.2 we?ll have options? maybe they?ve had them for a while with nothing to run on them. The huge upside (and therefore, probable failure) of this theory is that some new hardware could be ready to go right now.
Yes, I?ve been reading a few too many conspiracy theories lately, but it is plausible.
<strong>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.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Touché! This is true, but does not mean that a simple firmware update won't be all that's used to lock out Mac OS 9 booting on the machines in question wether they have a new architecture or no.
[ 09-12-2002: Message edited by: Tomb of the Unknown ]</p>
That "investment advisor" wouldn't be Robert Morgan of Apple Recon fame, would it? His obfuscated writings annoyed the hell out of me! He did, however, seem to get the whole digital hub thing a long while before it was annouced. I don't think the site has been updated at least since the original AppleInsider bought the whole Apple & Disney with Jobs as CEO thing, hook, line and sinker. Boy those were dark days for AppleInsider.
Comments
It's not a big deal for 98% of us since most of apps we use work (better or worse) in Classic. Quark may even never worry to release version 6 because version 5 feels good enough in Classic.
Though CPU upgrades are possible, the instruction set will be backwards-compatible with G4. Though new buses are sure to arrive, they will not affect the instruction set. Apple will just have to update some parts of the OS X kernel and Classic will work fine for some 10 years more.
The only thing is going to be broken: strange proprietary hardware support in certain OS 9-only apps.
So, I'm afraid, there's nothing to write home about. Sorry.
This latest motherboard, with its <a href="http://www.agere.com"; target="_blank">Agere</a> ASIC, includes DDR and ATA-100 support. The latest revision of Tumbler includes 24-bit stereo sound.
When a new CPU is available, the motherboard will be updated to support it. However, I think it's pointless to try to read into the DDR mobo any details about new CPUs becoming available.
It sounds like that the Firmware will include an addition to prevent booting into Mac OS 9. I don't see how a speed bump would break compatibility.
Maybe it's time to mod an interrupt button into my custom Mac <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
Barto
[ 09-11-2002: Message edited by: Barto ]</p>
Apple stock had just begun turning north - had I had the money, and heeded his advice, I would have been a rich man today. The money and the heeding came at a later stage, making me a very disappointed man - but I digress.
This nameless advisor, whose hinting Moki couldn't hold a candle to, discussed UMA-1, UMA-2, G3, G4, G5, G6... In his descriptions - as far as looking beyond hinting would allow - the plans were set, the stages discrete, the future bright and here RSN.
Unfortunately, as we know by now, evolution rather than revolution rules. The missing link has moved via the missing links to the barbed wire stage. Thus, all this G4++, UMA-1.77, etc (mercifully, no USB 1.83, G5- or Firewire 7/5). The reason for that is a simple combination of CPU development lag and buyer acceptance of less advanced standards; why produce things, using advanced and expensive components, when there is good profit to be gained from using cheaper parts and there still is a reasonable demand for the technology?
Will the present ever become mythical?
engpjp
Speaking personally the problem in the print shop isn't needing to run Quark but the reliance on software such as ATM Deluxe and other vendor specific software. We have an app that controls our RIP that was built in 1995.
Just a thought: This applies to 'all new Mac models', a quote direct from the <a href="http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2002/sep/10macosx.html"; target="_blank">PR page.</a>
So the G4's could still be produced and sold with the ability to boot OS9 whilst the NEW Macs, or maybe new high-end machines, only boot OSX.
[ 09-11-2002: Message edited by: naderby ]</p>
<strong>All of which is beside the point. This all came up because I pointed out that Yikes! only lasted 3 months. Which it did.</strong><hr></blockquote>
For fsck's sake, how can you keep arguing this point when you are wrong, and obviously wrong.
Yikes is just Yosemite with a G4 or on it. Yosemite was introduced January 1999 and effectively deleted December 1999 when all the G4s moved to Sawtooth.
Yikes was a transition in some sense, but the evidence points to it being because Apple didn't have Sawtooth ready in production (ie pretty much as soon as Sawtooth was in production Yikes/Yosemite was deleted).
You're now arguing that the new G4 board is similar, and is going to be a transition board. It's completely different because the new board is just that, a new board, Yikes was just Yosemite, again. There's no way that Apple is going to engineer a completely new board then delete it a few months later - suggesting so is just complete madness.
You want to believe January is going to produce new machines, new boards and new chips - and this hope is just distorting reality.
Relax. I was sitting here wondering where you got the idea that I thought that Yikes! had a changed motherboard. I lookewd back and read what I wrote. I see now as I look back, where you got that impression.
My statement was ambiguous. I meant to suggest that Yikes! was a machine that carried a motherboard that transitioned the chip from a G3 to a G4.
[ 09-11-2002: Message edited by: wormboy ]</p>
Dear god, people!
It's just this simple:
New hardware is coming out that 9 was never designed to run on.
Apple has decided, as they stated *how* long ago, that they are not writing more MacOS 9 drivers for major new hardware.
9 will not boot on the new hardware for this reason... because it would require development of major changes to the kernel, which isn't going to happen.
9 WILL continue to run IN CLASSIC because Classic provides a hardware abstraction layer that 9 *CAN* run on. It's just that simple. Classic removes 9 from the hardware, and provides, literally, a virtual machine for 9 to run on. Classic is an application that runs on X that provides 9 with a 'ghost machine' to run on. That's it.
That's all there is to it, folks. Don't read into this things that aren't there.
Have a machine that boots into 9 now?
It will *CONTINUE* to do so.
Buy a machine in 2003? It WILL NOT boot 9, but WILL run 9 in Classic.
This isn't a conspiracy on Apple's part, this is *PRECISELY* how it was designed to work *three years ago*. None of this information is new or surprising.
With Steves "and that includes faster versions of current machines" comment, it sounds like a Firmware update. One which could be applied to pre 2003 machines with Panther.
Keep the Mac legacy free!
Barto
[ 09-12-2002: Message edited by: Barto ]</p>
"Starting 2003 all new Macs, including faster models of our current machines, will only boot into OS X"
That pretty much confirmed my theory, that the new PowerMac is going to receive a simple speed bump before it's going to be replaced. Dito with the iMac of course.
G-News
1. Encourages more companies/people to make the migration to OSX. Apple gets money from more Jaguar sales.
2. OS 9 users/shops who won't be upgrading to Jaguar in the forseeable future (i.e. heavy Quark Users) who have been putting off getting a new machine (maybe waiting for a G5), now see that a dual 1.25 G4 is the fastest machine they are going to be able to use with their curent software. They buy lots of high end machines now instead of putting off the purchase. Apple gets lots of money from hardware sales.
Just my 2 cents.
<strong>
. . . a dual 1.25 G4 is the fastest machine they are going to be able to use with their curent software. . . .
</strong><hr></blockquote>
An interesting way to clear out inventory when new models do arrive.
<strong>Apple has pulled some fast ones before. It isn't beyond the relm of possibilty that Panther will make you choose between having X and booting 9, to stop people using legacy (ei, accesses the hardware so can't run in Classic) apps.
With Steves "and that includes faster versions of current machines" comment, it sounds like a Firmware update. One which could be applied to pre 2003 machines with Panther.</strong><hr></blockquote>
See, I don't read it that way at all.
'Current machines' = iMac, PowerMac, eMac, iBook, TiBook.
'New machines' = something we haven't seen yet. Major, major redesign.
So if we see a PowerMac based on the current design, but with a new technology that has no 9 driver, that would be a 'faster version of a current machine', no?
I guess I'm just not paranoid enough.
The claim that "If it'll run Classic, it *HAS* to boot into 9" is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Period.
i hate to use the "no one's making you buy new hardware" argument, but it seems valid, unless i am missing the fine print somewhere. if your current hardware and software is working just fine under os 9, why do you feel compelled to upgrade? are there whiz-bang features in some os x-only software that you simply cannot live without? (admittedly, os x is a lot more solid, but i have some lean machines that through various works of voodoo, i have running under os 9 with very few crashes -- the only time that falls apart is when one of my co-workers decides to "update" software without telling me first, or chekcing macfixit, or reading the read me... ) if so, then yes, you'll have to start looking at upgrading, and by my watch, you still have 100+ days to get systems that will still boot in os 9.
maybe i'm just slow to catch on, but i just don't see why people are vowing to never buy apple hardware again (as quoted on macfixit.com, among other places). while apple has been slowly eradicating support for my scsi devices, you know what i do? i KEEP an old machine around for my scsi devices, and network them to my new machines... am i missing something here?
<img src="confused.gif" border="0">
[ 09-12-2002: Message edited by: rok ]</p>
Bear with me. Based upon my recollection, the original timeline called for the release of OSX by mid 2000 therefore, if you consider 10.2 to be the ?real? OSX release, it was almost 2 years late.
If the next generation of Mac hardware can?t boot on OS9, is it possible that it could have been ready as early as 2 years ago and just waiting for an operating system? It sure would explain a lot. Like why we?ve been milking the G4 forever. It may never have been intended to last this long in its "OS 9" incarnation. If Apple had bet the hardware R&D farm on OSX, it may have been cost/time prohibitive to retroactively engineer a next generation OS9 solution even with the two year delay.
Remember Steve?s ?once we have 10.2 we?ll have options? maybe they?ve had them for a while with nothing to run on them. The huge upside (and therefore, probable failure) of this theory is that some new hardware could be ready to go right now.
Yes, I?ve been reading a few too many conspiracy theories lately, but it is plausible.
<strong>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.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Touché! This is true, but does not mean that a simple firmware update won't be all that's used to lock out Mac OS 9 booting on the machines in question wether they have a new architecture or no.
[ 09-12-2002: Message edited by: Tomb of the Unknown ]</p>
<hr></blockquote>
Shhhh. You're making too much sense. There won't be anything to talk about.
That "investment advisor" wouldn't be Robert Morgan of Apple Recon fame, would it? His obfuscated writings annoyed the hell out of me! He did, however, seem to get the whole digital hub thing a long while before it was annouced. I don't think the site has been updated at least since the original AppleInsider bought the whole Apple & Disney with Jobs as CEO thing, hook, line and sinker. Boy those were dark days for AppleInsider.
--Mike