Death Of Classic == Change In Processor?

overtoastyovertoasty
Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
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?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 18
    g-newsg-news Posts: 1,107member
    Internesting idea, but consider this:

    You can put your "OS X on x86" ideas right besides OS 9: In a coffin 20 feet under.



    G-News
  • Reply 2 of 18
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    Steve said death of OS 9... not classic. They are 2 different beasts. Someday Clssic may just be come kextensions.
  • Reply 3 of 18
    yevgenyyevgeny Posts: 1,148member
    Just because Classic is gone (good riddance) does not mean that you can switch to some new exotic processor. Apple can switch to any new processor they like, so long as it is a PPC that supports Altivec. The reason for this is that Apple has been putting an enormous effort into coding for Altivec and encouraging software vendors to write for Altivec. If you switched to some non Altivec CPU, then you would have to throw away all the Altivec specific code (and all the time you put into it). Developers would break out the rope and pitchforks.



    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.
  • Reply 4 of 18
    cliveclive Posts: 720member
    [quote]Originally posted by Yevgeny:

    <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.
  • Reply 5 of 18
    blackcatblackcat Posts: 697member
    It's an interesting theory, but what processor? Jobs already ruled out x86 (thank god) which means either POWER4 or Transmeta code morphing.



    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...
  • Reply 6 of 18
    posterboyposterboy Posts: 147member
    [quote]I think Jobs is just saying only develop for X because halting development on 9 will save a great deal of cash.<hr></blockquote>



    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
  • Reply 7 of 18
    *l++*l++ Posts: 129member
    A server blade could very well run OS X on x86 (or even Darwin x86, with no display, but remote graphical management from a Mac).



    The question becomes, what do you gain running OS X vs Linux on the blade.
  • Reply 8 of 18
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    [quote]Originally posted by PosterBoy:

    <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.
  • Reply 9 of 18
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    When Jobs said classic his dead, he said that there will not be new developpement of classic. It still be a 9,2 version forever. But we still need Classic to run the old applications. And not everybody is ready to upgrade all his software.
  • Reply 10 of 18
    overtoastyovertoasty Posts: 439member
    [quote]Originally posted by powerdoc:

    <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.
  • Reply 11 of 18
    overtoastyovertoasty Posts: 439member
    [quote]Originally posted by powerdoc:

    <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.
  • Reply 12 of 18
    junkyard dawgjunkyard dawg Posts: 2,801member
    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.



    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.
  • Reply 12 of 18
    willywalloowillywalloo Posts: 408member
    windows is not as good as OS 9.



    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
  • Reply 14 of 18
    berbercarpetberbercarpet Posts: 242member
    [quote]Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg:

    <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
  • Reply 15 of 18
    junkyard dawgjunkyard dawg Posts: 2,801member
    Oh, BC, your right! DOeh!! I must have had a brain fart..sorry.



    Nevermind.
  • Reply 16 of 18
    cliveclive Posts: 720member
    [quote]Originally posted by willywalloo:

    <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.
  • Reply 17 of 18
    wmfwmf Posts: 1,164member
    The number of OS X users is the number of copies of OS X sold plus the number of Macs sold with OS X preloaded. Simple.



    (Yes, I know this isn't 100% correct.)
  • Reply 18 of 18
    nebrienebrie Posts: 483member
    [quote]Originally posted by Clive:

    <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.
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