Booting in OS 9

How many years has OS X been out now?

Any reputable company who wishes to continue supporting the Mac platform should surely have OS X versions of their software by now. Why should we have to boot into OS 9 ?

They aren't developing OS 9 anymore and so it can't be made to work on new system architecture. Think about it.

Can you boot an OS 9-capable G4 into OS 8?

Can you boot a Rev A. iMac into OS 7?

Can you boot a Quadra into System 6?

Think about it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the children's software market is mostly not OSX native. And don't tell me about Finding Nemo. I'm trying not to buy anything new unless it IS updated but at the moment that means we don't buy much.

I have three kids at different ages and a wide range of software, some of which won't install or run in Classic and requires rebooting.

I know kids' software is not on the minds of most of you guys but it's a major computer usage area which isn't being updated very aggressively.

Very different situation, there.

OS X is a complete rewrite, with totally new foundations.

Most System 7 apps work in 8 or 9 regardless; or have been updated to do so. Etc.

Not so for OS X.

I've rebooted five or six times in the last few days, back to OS9, to play Korea or UT or something similar.

Pfft. In a perfect world, maybe; but the fact that companies SHOULD have updated software out doesn't help the fact that many do NOT, so when it comes down to it, the end user gets ****ed over.

I understand why Apple did it, but I'd like to be able to boot into 9 with my G5. I have customers who have files that were created on pre-OS X machines and to get any work done on those files, OS 9 is much faster. Classic is just too slow. So when I bought my G5, I kept my old G4 because it still dual boots. And, like Cipher said, there are still games that haven't been optimized for X, like UT (I actually like the TacOps mod for UT).

I haven't booted to OS 9 since last week... I still prefer UT in 9, and some older games just don't work in X. Also a 3D program I use on the occasion used to work in pre-10.2.8, now it doesn't, and my SCSI UMAX scanner doesn't work in X either. I'm a big SCSI fan BTW.

Not being able to boot into 9 is the only reason why I haven't bought a new G5, and likely won't for a year or so. A new Powerlook III is expensive, plus all the other software I need would double the cost of a G5 system. I'm not complaining, because I'm quite happy with my setup. But having a dual boot option would be wonderful.

Happy New Year everyone!

If you need a machine that runs Windows, buy a PC.

If you need a machine that runs OS X, but a late model Mac.

If you need a machine that runs OS 9, buy one that runs OS 9.

Just don't expect one machine to do all of the above well.

Chris

I have a G4 and still running Mac OS 9.2.2. All of my software compatable with 9.

It wasn't something that was 'taken away' - it was just something that wasn't added.

Each new machine model uses different hardware (or else why would you want a new machine?) Each new machine had to have parts of OS 9 re-written in order to be able to boot on the new machine.

Apple has decided that devoting development dollars and manpower to OS 9 is a losing proposition, and has straddled supporting two very different OS releases for long enough.

OS X is far more flexible in addressing the hardware it can run on. This means that each new release of hardware won't require a specific OS X cd for that model unless it's something as huge as the processor changeover in G5, which required 10.2.7 while everyone else used 10.2.6.

If you could make a dollar-value case that Apple will make X hundreds of thousands of dollars by continuing to update OS 9 to boot on new machines, I'm sure they'd be happy to consider devoting one or two developers to the task, but unless you can come up with a way to pay the developers salaries and show a profit, it just no longer makes sense to devote that effort. If you truly need OS 9, get one of the last top of the line powermacs that ran it, or pick up a gigabit ethernet or newer machine and upgrade it's processor and enjoy all the blazing fast OS 9 you like.

Wanting the machine I just spent $1500 on to run both OS 9 and X is NOT an unreasonable request. You can't possibly compare it to running OS X and Windows on one machine. All the later Power Mac G4's and many other Macs from the last few years were dual-boot, so it can be done.

And I also agree with Cipher - just because software companies SHOULD be rewriting software for OS X, doesn't mean they all are. I would like to run UT and Descent 3 on my PowerBook in OS 9 and I can't. I can run them in classic but there is a clear speed penalty. On my 1 GHz 12-inch, UT runs about as well as it did on my old Pismo 400 MHz.

I'm sorry, but I won't listen to any of the apologists in here saying that Apple shouldn't need to include OS 9 boot capability. They do - there is a lot of great software out there that will never be made OS X-native. And don't tell me to buy a second new computer to run the stuff.

Rubbish. My current G4 and iBook 900 can do it just fine. Heh.



Semantic rubbish, again.

It most certainly was taken away, given the previous generations had the capability.

Victor - I hear you, and this is a much more reasonable argument than those before you. However, Apple would not be the first company to have legacy obligations. I say it's all part of the business. If you are going to sell computers and you want to have loyal customers, sometimes you have to spend some money to keep them happy. This includes writing sofware for older machines, developing upgrades, etc. I am disappointed that Apple hasn't spent the time and money to keep new machines bootable is OS 9.

EDIT: There is one guy in here who said that the only thing keeping him from buying a G5 is that it's not bootable in OS 9. Sure, this is not a statistical random sample, but if there is one guy in here, then perhaps there are more elsewhere. Apple might lose some money doing it, but I doubt it would be as much as you think.

baloney!

apple did it to nudge [force] people to migrate to os x faster and developers to upgrade their products to x.

os 9 is still very usable and as long as machines could boot into it people were inclined to stick with it because they were familiar with it.

"Taken away" vs "not added" is, perhaps debateable for the G4 machines. For the G5s, I don't think it is. Would any of those loudly decrying the lack of OS9 bootability like to volunteer to root through the OS9 source code, and locate all the points where assumptions were made about four byte addresses and registers? And has the fact that your new machine doesn't run Descent 3 as well as your older machine stopped your older machine working?

I'm guessing you haven't been around long enough to remember the System 6 -> System 7 transition then.

System 7 broke nearly everything. Close to none of the System 6 software worked on it, especially games. System 7 broke apps left and right. And it didn't even have a Classic environment to keep the old stuff working like X does.

It was a much worse situation than OS 9 -> OS X. But Apple didn't waste manpower then by continuing to support System 6 for all eternity.

Heh.

Cipher would have been about six at the time.

IIRC, Apple even brought out a compatibility checker that would scan your entire hard drive and give you page-long lists of all the software that *definitely* needed updating, and a somewhat shorter one of the software it wasn't sure about, and about two lines of software that were (remember the stickers?) "System 7 Savvy".

PLUS, I had to pay a couple hundred dollars to upgrade my Mac SE to 2.5 MB RAM to run it!

-s*

What if Apple released all the OS9 source code to the public so users could try to make their machines boot OS9? Or made OS9 free?

They did it with System 7.5.3 and should do it with OS8, 8.5, and probably even OS9.

There are plenty of programmers working to keep OS9 around. Instead, they could be working to move to OSX. Either way, the end result is the same.

What are we gonna say when Apple moves to OS11?

I doubt that those with the technical skills to do that (assuming it is possible - see my comment above) would be interested in doing it.
Personally, I'm probably going to be pleased with myself for taking the extra bit of trouble to ensure that all my important work is fully portable between Solaris, IRIX, Linux, OSX....

Then why the **** did you start this topic? You are just another looney ranter. The world moves forwards, get over yourself.

I just wonder when this move to Mac OS 11 will occur. Is it possibly with the release of the G6?

There is no Mac OS 11. The current OS should last indefinitely into the future. The OS 9 foundation couldn't support modern features. But the foundation of OS X can.

Chris

I don't agree. Consumers are stupid and will get confused if they don't differentiate between future releases of OS X. I don't know what the naming scheme will be but it has to change at some point. Even if I was wrong about that they only have 6 more revisions of the operating system left before they will be out of .1 increments.

Not true. Version numbers only look decimal, but they don't have to be. So we can have 10.4, 10.5 ... 10.9, 10.10, 10.11 etc.

Not only that, but Apple has distinguished major version of the OS more by the cat name than by the version number. Thus we refer to Puma, Jaguar, Panther, etc...

Chris

I hope not. It would be a bit of tragedy if UNIX is the best OS the human race can think up.

Good post and good point. I was doing pre-press at the time with all the Aldus, Adobe and Quark apps and all our extra DAs that we needed for font management, RIP checkers, file organisation etc broke with System 7 until they came in a new box with the little "System 7 Savy" sticker on it. Being pre-press, we were quite conservative about the whole thing and it took us more than a year before we had finally moved everything over to System 7.

What people also forget is that Apple's marketshare was much bigger then, around 15% IIRC, and there was much more incentive for developers to speedily update apps. Today though, I think it is only due to OSX that Apple is still here.

Well, they would probably still be here, but without the glimmer of hope that OSX (and now the G5) gave them. Apple has needed a substantially new OS since the release of the PowerMacs back in 1994(?).

Intelligent and reasonable response, as always... I'd expect no less.



The first system I had ran 6.0.4, so yes, I was present for that. Yes, System 7 screwed up a lot of ****. Yes, I'm probably too young to really remember the effect it had on things, but as far as I'm aware, MOST things were updated very swiftly, as opposed to the 9 -> X change, whereby most things have not been at all. Why, I don't know, but the point remains.



Seven, actually.

An interesting thing that Apple could do is to make their excellent Classic environment "retroactive": i.e., to also include previous systems support - as in Basilisk II (68k support), for example.

Why would they want to do that? Not certainly for utilitarian, "economic" reasons, but just for the ideal (and the fun!) of giving users a full support of almost all past, Classic Mac OS implementations (Steve, are you listening?).

OK, maybe an odd idea - but anyway...

I try to respond in kind with the original.
Five reasons I see:

1. *very* few things actually b0rked to the point where they didn't work in Classic (this doesn't include games)

2. For those that did break even in Classic, re-booting into OS9 has remained an option on every single Mac sold before January 2003

3. Rewriting something for OS X is probably quite a bit more work than rewriting something for System 6 --> System 7

4. Apple has a smaller marketshare these days.

5. Free alternatives being ported over from other *nixes reducing pressure and incentive on commercial developers to port.

As it is, I believe the number of applications now being ported to OS X from *other* OSen is probably quite a bit higher than the number of applications *not* being (or not yet) ported from Mac OS 9.

-s*

The difference being I had a point...




Depends on how you define usable. Classic is terrible, IMO... I don't use it for even the most basic things, because it's just a mess. And games can't just be discounted, they're a big part of it all.

Either way, the lack of support for hardware under Classic is another killer that has yet to be addressed.



That doesn't help those who need to upgrade, but still need (or desire) Classic compatibility on a usable scale.



Even with Carbon? I have no idea, I'm not a developer. You're probably right. That's not our problem, though. Nor should it be.



So angering it probably isn't the best idea.



No doubt... but that's no good when I want to play Descent 3, for example.

I know this is kind of a null point, as I guess my oppinion is not as revered here as many of the more 'regulars' on the board, but here is my quids worth...

OS 9 was good. I agree. But it can't come close to the foundations and features OS X can offer. I upgraded to OS X almost as soon as it was released, coming in at the 10.0.4 days. I loved it from the start. Sure, back then I heavily relied on Classic to help me out when some things didn't work under X, and yes, occasionally I even booted back into 9. This changed when 10.1 came out. I have not booted back into OS 9 since I upgraded, and since 10.2 I have not even used Classic under X.

It was nice to know my Mac could still boot into 9 if I needed it to though, something of a fail safe. However, this September I bought a Power Mac G4 (FW800), and so with that came the worry that I could no longer boot into 9. However, this has not been a problem. Infact, I have deleted most of the OS 9 apps that classic installed on the comp, booted classic once to make sure it was still working, and never seen it since.

Why should Apple have to continue to support an outdated standard? As one poster suggested, if you need OS 9 get one of the 1.25Ghz Power Mac G4s from the Apple Store that still support it. OS 9 will never need more powerful hardware, because there are never going to be any new hardware intensive features added to the OS. It will last forever. And for those of us happy living in the 21st century, then everything is good by us as it stands.

Col

Use an old machine for an old OS. You're not going to buy a new mac to run OS 9 on, it wouldn't make sense.

I have a couple of games that only run well in native OS 9. One of them is being ported to OS X, but the other will likely not be . I'd like to have (and with an original FP iMac, still have) the ability to boot to OS 9, but I can understand why Apple is dropping it on new machines (too much extra work for legacy stuff).

I'm selling my old machine.

Oh yeah, "just buy another machine!" for OS9.

You're paying, are you?

Forgive me - I misspoke. I will listen to what you have to say, but I meant that no one can convince me that I don't want to run my OS 9 software on my new computer. I do.

Rather: just keep the one you're using.

You've paid, haven't you?

If it still does things you need it to do, isn't that rather stupid? And if your new machine can't do anything your old one can't, why buy a new machine?

You're wrong, it was taken away. know why I know this?
The G4s that are not "dual boot" can boot into OS 9 with a little hacking. they also came with a boot disk to boot into OS 9. they copied a file on the OS 9 boot disk to the system folder on the hdd, to get it to work, forgot which one it was...




So, devoting development dollars and manpower to disable OS 9 was a better idea? this was done.


agreed.
however, the only reason why you can't run system 7 on a new world mac(iMac and everything after that) is because of the new world ROM. The ROM in the older macs not only had instructions to boot the computer but also, had some of the MacToolbox. which also had some instructions that were used after the comp booted up. But the new world Macs did not have. if it wasn't for changing over to the new world ROM, you could run System 7, if you really wanted to, on an iMac. But because they split the ROM and put most of it in a ROM file in the system folder, you can't. which BTW, is the reason you claim thats why you cant boot into OS 9 on the G4s(new hardware, have to update system to get it to work) as I have proven is un-true.



Can you come up with a dollar-value case as to how much profit they gaind by paying developers to NOT make it work on the newer G4s? it did take time and effort.

OS X is the fastest OS switchover in history, everything was going good. why spend money on something that would make people mad? we were doing what they wanted usyou could not really make the switchover any faster then it was.

that being the case, its over with now. its all in the past. I cant remember the last time I booted into 9, not even to play UT...

Well, you yourself just said above that they can.... Apple just chose not to make it obviously possible. And yes, there is a possible reason - being able to EOL OS9 a few months earlier, saving on support costs (plus any extra savings from not taking the QA time to ensure that OS9 worked).

Link please.

Your manpower point is moot without it.

-s*

Most OS 9 apps work in X regardless; it's called Classic.

It's doubtful that "users" that would care would be bothered. Not to mention, OS 9 contains substantial amounts of IP, both Apple's and others', so it may not be possible.

No, they didn't.

Really... try running System 7.1.2 on a beige G3 (Old World) and let me know how well it works.

Or for that matter, try System 6 on a Quadra. Or 10.1.5 on a G5. Or System 2.0/Finder 4.1 on a IIci. Have fun, because the only one that even has a chance of even booting is the System 2.0/Finder 4.1 on the IIci, and it will be so unstable that you won't be using it for long! Apple has always done this, because the classic OS has always been very dependent on hardware, and if it's not updated for new systems, it doesn't work very well at all.

Ever noticed how with the classic OS, especially in the System 7.x days, the System Folder usually has a few files named "System Enabler XYZ" where XYZ is replaced by some three-digit number? Those files were to update the OS to accommodate hardware that was released after the OS. I used to have it memorized which enablers were needed for which Mac models (I still remember one - The Quadra 605 needed System Enabler 065 in order to work with 7.1). In order to get the classic OS to work with new hardware, they either have to update the OS or develop a new System Enabler. You can try hacking things to get OS 9 to run on a new machine, but I wouldn't want to be using that system...

I'm willing to bet that OS11 will be Apples first true 64bit clean OS, but I'd also bet it's a long ways off....