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pottymouth wrote:

A new Mac won't boot OS 9 just as a new peecee won't boot older versions of winblows.

Says the dude who doesn't know what he's talking about...

teitoku wrote:

pottymouth wrote:

A new Mac won't boot OS 9 just as a new peecee won't boot older versions of winblows.

Says the dude who doesn't know what he's talking about...

Not to take sides or anything, but how?  OS 9 could be bootable on new Macs, but they choose not to enable it.  Just like Windows.

Mr. T wrote:

OS X and Windows are quite "portable" whereas OS 9 was/is heavily tied to a specific architecture (there's still some 68k code in OS 9).  It would take a significant effort to make OS 9 boot natively on the Intel Macs.  And then, why bother?  All the OS 9 apps are PPC (or 68k) anyway.  They might as well just run the whole thing in emulation - which is actually what my complaint is about.

Okay, so far so good... but then it gets weird.

Mr. T wrote:

I don't want to run OS 9 on my computer (Why would I, OS 9 sucks compared to X).  Rather I want to run apps written for OS 9 in Mac OS X, Tomb Raider 3 for example.  Classic is a special kind of emulator that tightly integrates with the OS X GUI to allow for a relatively transparent experience from the user's perspective. [...]  Unlike OS 9, it would be relatively simple for Apple to port Classic to Intel.

(emphasis added)

Excuse me but... what?
AFAIK (and I could certainly be wrong about this) when you start up "Classic" OS X simply runs OS 9 in a special sort of invisible, integrated window, with clipboard transfer, etc. between the two operating systems. There's no real emulation occurring since they remain as two distinct, and more importantly, native operating systems. As far as OS 9 is concerned it is simply running native code, on native hardware. However, in your post you seem to be talking about two things—OS 9 as a bootable operating system, and OS 9 when running in Classic—as being mutually exclusive of the PPC/68k "specific architecture," when in fact they are quite symbiotic.

To get OS 9 booting on Intel would be a tremendous task and, as you point out, a waste of time. However, to run Classic on Intel would more than likely require the same amount of effort, if not more. It would basically require the Classic environment to be a full-scale emulation environment—like Rosetta. That is, not only would it have to translate the OS 9's "specific architecture" calls into pure Intel instructions, but then integrate the "relatively transparent experience" of PPC Classic into Intel OS X . The reason Classic works fine in PPC OS X is that Classic simply acts like a window not an emulator. I suspect that even if you could get the Classic environment (read: OS 9) running in Rosetta the speed would be unbearable simply because you're not just translating OS X PPC calls into OS X Intel (as with OS X PPC-native software) calls, but rather you're running an entire OS with a completely different codebase in translation and then, on top of everything, hoping to integrate it all back in OS X.

That said, it would be interesting to see if somebody could try copying all the Classic support files, etc. over from a PPC Mac and trying to run it all in Rosetta emulation. My predictions are that (a) it won't work, and (b) if it does work it will be worse, performance-wise than even VPC.

Not to take sides or anything, but how?  OS 9 could be bootable on new Macs, but they choose not to enable it.  Just like Windows.

How do you run older windows versions on modern hardware?   I fail to see the puzzle here....you simply install it and boot up.

There's always MOL

Edit: oops, never mind, didn't see the PPC part.  You'll have to live with vMac, Basilisk, or the like.

Last edited by cosmicosmo (2006-03-02 2:42 am)

MacBoy4139 wrote:

teitoku wrote:

pottymouth wrote:

A new Mac won't boot OS 9 just as a new peecee won't boot older versions of winblows.

Says the dude who doesn't know what he's talking about...

Not to take sides or anything, but how?  OS 9 could be bootable on new Macs, but they choose not to enable it.  Just like Windows.

You can still install Win 3.1 on most PC's.
Won't get USB support etc. - may not be able to use SATA (I don't know) - but generally you can install it.

resedit wrote:

MacBoy4139 wrote:

teitoku wrote:

Says the dude who doesn't know what he's talking about...

Not to take sides or anything, but how?  OS 9 could be bootable on new Macs, but they choose not to enable it.  Just like Windows.

You can still install Win 3.1 on most PC's.
Won't get USB support etc. - may not be able to use SATA (I don't know) - but generally you can install it.

So if the HD is SATA, it won't boot?  What is the point of Windows 3.1 installing if it won't boot then?

The Mac OS is tightly integrated with the hardware.  Always has, probably always will be.  I always saw it as a good thing.

As for Classic working on modern Intel Macs - I can definitely see the argument that some people may need it.  I'm sure there are some legacy apps out there that businesses depend on that are mission critical.

I don't know if it's true or not, but I read somewhere that Apple has to do a lot of work to get an application working in Rosetta.  I'm sure Classic is no different.  I'm positive that it was just a business decision seen as "simply not worth it."

Hell, even Apple still needs MSIE for OS X - some of their internal applications don't work with Safari or even FireFox.

It's a little funny. 

In regards to my previous post, what I wrote is essentially true, however, the special implementation of Classic might require Apple to bolt on a PPC emulator (at the very least) in order to get it working on Mactels.  While not exactly trivial, the necessary modifications would be to Classic itself, rather than OS 9.  For a company like Apple, the human investment would be relatively insignificant.

MacBoy4139 wrote:

Plus, I think the Mac is definitely more stable than Windows.  In my experience, it is.  My partner has a Gateway laptop (he needs it) for work. The thing is so unstable, it isn't even funny.

That's not windows; that's gateway.   They and emachines sort of flip-flopped; now gateway is cheap crap and emachines is a competitor to dell.

MacBoy4139 wrote:

Why "bolt on" a PPC emulator when Rosetta is already there?

Because there's a chance (again, I'm not 100% sure either way since I can't much info on this) that Classic performs many of its duties outside the scope of Rosetta.  I've argued the same point myself, but now I'm not sure anymore.  Either way, porting Classic to Intel still is not an unreasonable request.