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Mac OS 9

macos9.app

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Re: Mac OS 9

#161

Post by Lammy »

johnzim wrote: post #104
hadrien01 wrote: post #93

Question from someone who never used MacOS 9: why does the Sherlock UI look so... OS X like?

Because it was built with the newer design language that Apple was developing - they used it in Quicktime too. I'd hazard a guess that the key difference was that at the time that MacOS 9 came out, you could get something in as long as it appealed to Steve. It's not that Apple didn't experiment in earlier days, but this was a time when the push to the next OS and design was really strong after so many failed efforts…

See also: http://hallofshame.gp.co.at/qtime.htm

Re: Mac OS 9

#162

Post by outworlder »

klodolph wrote: post #44
slowmotarget wrote: post #10

It's a great reminder of how well MacOS 9 UI and UX were designed, and how space efficient the whole OS was on screen. Even the window handle bars were subtly shadowed, the window shadows evolved when they were collapsed. Like Windows 95 at the time, Mac OS 9 was a beautiful work of interaction design.

Sure, but— The fat borders for the windows and the control strip at the bottom left of the screen took up a lot of space on real monitors of the era. Try running at a more modest 800x600 or 640x480 and it will seem less efficient. Modern Mac OS X is actually quite efficient, with zero-pixel window borders on three sides, and narrower scroll bars. Worse, a bunch of applications had code that would set up window locati…

Yes, but also keep in mind that the pointing devices in use were very primitive compared to what we have today and that many users were not as proficient. All contemporary operating systems had thick borders and some had very prominent resizing handles.

Re: Mac OS 9

#163

Post by adolph »

aj7 wrote: post #108

It’s amazing how much more central search is in modern OS’s. This feels more like the original’84 Mac, but gussied up. I like OS6 better. It was 10 years ahead of anything else, except perhaps Amiga, in the hands of a developer. This Mac OS9 actually looks like it came from a low point in Mac’s penetration and power.

Agreed, 6 was the high point, 7 wasn’t bad and 8/9 were skeuomorphic slow lipstick on the core OS pig. Gimme 6 with original iPod any day of the week.

Re: Mac OS 9

#164

Post by emrah »

No matter how good anything is, it has to be resigned every year/major version/etc because it is far more "fashion" based whether we like it or not. And fashion is all about creating novelty by changing stuff not for utility but for the sake of generating a different neural firing pattern in our brains so the item doesn't simply fade into oblivion even if it is designed and works perfectly

Re: Mac OS 9

#165

Post by mihaip »

I'm the creator of the site, thanks for the submission.

This is an in-progress port of the SheepShaver emulator to WebAssembly/Emscripten, https://github.com/mihaip/infinite-mac/issues/34 is tracking the remaining work.

If you're interested in running older Mac software in the browser, the BasiliskII-based sites at https://system7.app/ and https://macos8.app/ may be better bets. They will boot faster and have fewer compatibility issues (especially System 7).

The main thing that Mac OS 9/SheepShaver brings is PowerPC support. There is also a variant of System 7 for PowerPC with more esoteric mid-90s Apple projects like OpenDoc and QuickDraw GX installed available at https://system7.app/?domain=system7-ppc.app.

Re: Mac OS 9

#166

Post by munificent »

dmix wrote: post #60
slowmotarget wrote: post #10

It's a great reminder of how well MacOS 9 UI and UX were designed, and how space efficient the whole OS was on screen. Even the window handle bars were subtly shadowed, the window shadows evolved when they were collapsed. Like Windows 95 at the time, Mac OS 9 was a beautiful work of interaction design.

I love the purple color used in the "Platinum" interface theme in Mac OS 8/9, even the scrollbar is purple: https://i.imgur.com/WwFdpJH.png They even offered a crazy "Memphis" art themed option: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSLWbFUG_ig "High-tech" wasn't very pretty either: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBUgDnPT8Ps https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Appearance_Manage...

I love that color too. Fun trivia that I discovered doing pixel art way back then: That color is blue.

It appears purplish, but it's actually a desaturated blue with hue right at 240°. Something about the lack of saturation and brightness gives it a purplish cast.

Re: Mac OS 9

#167

Post by blonky »

Oh boy. Those extensions loading. So many times I held my breath when adding a new extension. If it doesn’t then you have to restart in Safe mode, or something. I won’t miss the extensions. OS 9 was cool. I used it a lot on my lime-green imac.

Re: Mac OS 9

#168

Post by ubermonkey »

That's the version of Mac I started with, back around the turn of the century, on a 500Mhz G3 Powerbook.

I was in a job that was mostly analysis and presentation and writing, and Win95/98 on a laptop was just a NIGHTMARE of freezes and crashes and excruciatingly long boot times. I had a colleague, though, that was using a Mac (because his background was design), and while OS 9 definitely did crash, too, it was far less frequent -- and boot times were faster. Plus, sleep actually WORKED.

Maybe 18 months later, that firm tanked, OS X came out, and I was keeping the lights on with freelance LAMP work using that same Mac as a dev environment. I'm on OS X to this day.

Re: Mac OS 9

#169

Post by s1k3s »

s1k3s wrote: post #64

Damn what a terrible UX this is, no wonder Windows kicked their ass so hard with ME and XP. This reminded me to keep it simple and stupid proof whenever I want users to actually enjoy what I build, thanks!

I apologize to everyone who got triggered by the above comment. Please remember that Nike makes great shoes, but they also make a lot of crap.

Re: Mac OS 9

#170

Post by realgeniushere »

philistine wrote: post #113
WirelessGigabit wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for the lack of a proper fullscreen function...

Believe it or not, full screen apps are a Windows thing. Apple has added full screen app support only recently, and any Windows convert who has switched to macOS and has problems adapting to its UI has one thing in common: they haven’t let go of the idea that all apps need to use the whole screen at all times.

This is a funny cope.

>Believe it or not, full screen apps are a Windows thing.

Nope. It’s just that maximizing—single action to expand a window the whole screen minus the OS docks/taskbars—is present in every widely used OS except for Mac OS.

>they haven’t let go of the idea that all apps need to use the whole screen at all times

Not sure where you’re getting “at all times” from. Windows and Linux desktops all easily support having windows take up less than the whole screen. In fact, it’s easier than in Mac OS because of window snapping to sides and corners. It’s only that Mac OS makes it very clumsy to get the effect that maximizing has on every other OS.

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