Look how long it took to get OS9 up to it's speed that you're comparing... I mean, yes... OS 8 was a departure from 7.x, but the underlying technology was still essentially the same and has been tweaked & refined over the years... PLUS the hardware it was running-on was outpacing the OS... so by the time G4's were available... the 'earlier' Mac OS was (dare I say?) instantaneous feedback in the Finder...
Now... along comes a NEW OS that utilizes hardware in a NEW way and uses a LOT of resources to do it... but as the hardware curve keeps pushing (as it will) I'm sure that within a year or two... the Mac OS based on BSD might possibly be as responsive and "snappy" as OS9 feels to you right now.
Just my opinion... but I think that they were coding this new OS to be ahead of the hardware curve.. rather than to pare-it-down to be snappy on CURRENT hardware. I'm confident that the hardware will "soon" be able to provide the same response and quite possibly SURPASS it in the not-too-distant future.
Case-in-point: OS 8 (the latter releases) ran pretty quick and responsive on my G3... when I ran it on my older Mac IIvx... it was like watching paint dry:
1) Click a menu
2) wait
3) Menu box draws to screen
4) menu items fill the box slow-enough to see...
5) click a menu item
6) wait
7) it blinks... pauses a split second
8) menu-box disappears.
What was the difference...? slower hardware. The hardware will most definately outpace the enhancements to Jag (or whatever names they use) and will eventually catch-up and surpass.
Would replacing Aqua with Apple Platinum make OS X snappier? I know that there's a huge difference between OS 9 and OS X on my computer (233MHz G3). OS 9 is super fast; it was made for this computer. But OS X is very slow.
Sometimes I've considered ditching most of my computer stuff and just getting a IIfx with a 20" grayscale monitor (or maybe a color one, they're not too expensive), and running system 6 on it (maybe 7.1 for compatability, but anything higher than that wouldn't be quite fast enough). The speed would just be insane. I don't really want to get rid of my iPod or instant messaging or fast web browsing, though, so for now I think I'll stick with my current setup. But it would be cool to get a IIfx or a Quadra 840av. Machines will always stay as fast as they were the day they were released, you just need to use the right software with them.
If you mean, would skinning the GUI to look like Platinum speed things up, the answer is yes, slightly (with QE, negligibly if at all), simply because all windows would be opaque.
If you mean getting rid of Quartz and reverting to OS 9's windowing model, yes it would be blazing fast. It would also put the work of window management back in the laps of Mac programmers, bring back the big white squares, and eliminate enough functionality to not only scare off a number of casual users, but altogether shatter Apple's goal of becoming a workstation-grade video and 3d platform, and trickling that power down to the consumer. It would leave Apple with ca. 1986 technology running on 2002 hardware: Very fast, and very limited.
Anyone who thinks that Quartz is just about eye candy is either deluding themselves or not doing anything taxing with their machines. It's extremely powerful, it enables things that were simply impossible before, and considering what it does it's blazing fast.
As for Finder, I haven't seen the 10.2 Finder yet; I'll see it when 10.2.1 appears. But again, in some ways the new Finder is much faster than the old one. Start a bunch of file copies in OS 9, and try to use the Finder then. Or, try to call the Finder from AppleScript and watch the call time out more often than not. In OS X the windows might be a bit sluggish, but no matter what else the Finder is doing they don't get any more sluggish. Calls to Finder from AppleScript return promptly, even when it's being used interactively, because it's modular and threaded (and because threading in OS X doesn't suck like it does in OS 9). Multiple file copies are not only faster, they bog the windowing down much less. Now, certainly, there's a lot of work to be done with the 10.1 Finder at least. But it's not as totally bad as some people seem to think it is.
I don't know what machine takes 1 second to open a menu in OS X. I get a delay on mine (450MHz/1GB PC100/60GB@7200RPM running 10.1.5), but it's a tenth of a second or less.
As for OS 9's speed: Yes, it's snappy when you're not doing much of anything. As soon as you start doing something, responsiveness veers wildly from instantaneous to freezing for 10 seconds with the hard drive grinding and half the UI whited out. OS X is reasonably responsive on my machine, and it's consistently responsive. Its snappiness is something that will improve over time - 10.2.1 is widely rumored to make QE significantly more effective, and of course it will get better with every hardware upgrade - while OS 9 is hamstrung by its primitive tasking model.
<strong>Machines will always stay as fast as they were the day they were released, you just need to use the right software with them.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Unless, of course, you start monkeying around with the internals and putting stupid amounts of RAM, newer video cards and faster processors in them.
Is OSX a little slow on current hardware? Well, maybe. But I think Apple designed a system for future hardware. OSX rocks on my dual gig'er, so imagine what it will be like in two years. The fundamentals are there, and it will only continue to get better. I suspect that Apple made it so that it ran on current hardware, but had an eye towards the future when processor and networks are faster. This OS is amazing, and the future is very bright indeed.
Comments
Now... along comes a NEW OS that utilizes hardware in a NEW way and uses a LOT of resources to do it... but as the hardware curve keeps pushing (as it will) I'm sure that within a year or two... the Mac OS based on BSD might possibly be as responsive and "snappy" as OS9 feels to you right now.
Just my opinion... but I think that they were coding this new OS to be ahead of the hardware curve.. rather than to pare-it-down to be snappy on CURRENT hardware. I'm confident that the hardware will "soon" be able to provide the same response and quite possibly SURPASS it in the not-too-distant future.
Case-in-point: OS 8 (the latter releases) ran pretty quick and responsive on my G3... when I ran it on my older Mac IIvx... it was like watching paint dry:
1) Click a menu
2) wait
3) Menu box draws to screen
4) menu items fill the box slow-enough to see...
5) click a menu item
6) wait
7) it blinks... pauses a split second
8) menu-box disappears.
What was the difference...? slower hardware. The hardware will most definately outpace the enhancements to Jag (or whatever names they use) and will eventually catch-up and surpass.
Sometimes I've considered ditching most of my computer stuff and just getting a IIfx with a 20" grayscale monitor (or maybe a color one, they're not too expensive), and running system 6 on it (maybe 7.1 for compatability, but anything higher than that wouldn't be quite fast enough). The speed would just be insane. I don't really want to get rid of my iPod or instant messaging or fast web browsing, though, so for now I think I'll stick with my current setup. But it would be cool to get a IIfx or a Quadra 840av. Machines will always stay as fast as they were the day they were released, you just need to use the right software with them.
If you mean getting rid of Quartz and reverting to OS 9's windowing model, yes it would be blazing fast. It would also put the work of window management back in the laps of Mac programmers, bring back the big white squares, and eliminate enough functionality to not only scare off a number of casual users, but altogether shatter Apple's goal of becoming a workstation-grade video and 3d platform, and trickling that power down to the consumer. It would leave Apple with ca. 1986 technology running on 2002 hardware: Very fast, and very limited.
Anyone who thinks that Quartz is just about eye candy is either deluding themselves or not doing anything taxing with their machines. It's extremely powerful, it enables things that were simply impossible before, and considering what it does it's blazing fast.
As for Finder, I haven't seen the 10.2 Finder yet; I'll see it when 10.2.1 appears.
I don't know what machine takes 1 second to open a menu in OS X. I get a delay on mine (450MHz/1GB PC100/60GB@7200RPM running 10.1.5), but it's a tenth of a second or less.
As for OS 9's speed: Yes, it's snappy when you're not doing much of anything. As soon as you start doing something, responsiveness veers wildly from instantaneous to freezing for 10 seconds with the hard drive grinding and half the UI whited out. OS X is reasonably responsive on my machine, and it's consistently responsive. Its snappiness is something that will improve over time - 10.2.1 is widely rumored to make QE significantly more effective, and of course it will get better with every hardware upgrade - while OS 9 is hamstrung by its primitive tasking model.
[ 09-14-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
<strong>Machines will always stay as fast as they were the day they were released, you just need to use the right software with them.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Unless, of course, you start monkeying around with the internals and putting stupid amounts of RAM, newer video cards and faster processors in them.