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Mac OS 9

macos9.app

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Re: Mac OS 9

#221

Post by asveikau »

Joeri wrote: post #192
asveikau wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As amazing as OSX seemed when it was launched This reminds me: There was pretty interesting community of Linux users customizing X11 desktops in the late 90s and the very early 2000s... When the first screenshots and demos of OS X and Aqua came out, almost immediately, people tried to imitate that.

The frustrating part is that OS X was NeXTStep under the covers, and that had the late 90’s look down better than any OS. http://toastytech.com/guis/ns332.html I ran windowmaker on my linux systems around 2000 to get that same look, but I had serious NeXT envy.

I liked NeXT and GNUstep in those days too.

I'm not sure they had it literally "better" than everybody else, but they certainly had something unique, well executed, etc.

You can still recognize NeXT patterns in modern Mac GUIs. They're usually not surface level anymore.

Re: Mac OS 9

#222

Post by philwelch »

truetraveller wrote: post #182
philwelch wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you live without a simple maximize button? Classic Mac OS apps did not put the entire application UI in a single full screen window. Instead, it was typical for an application to contain multiple windows that could all be visible at once. > To add to this, the "top" menu bar is lame. This is related. In Windows, the entire UI of the app is contained in a single window, which you would typically maximize to f…

I understand all of that. And that is precisely my point. Isolate everything concerning an app to its own window, and allow that to be maximized. If an app has multiple windows, contain them within the main app window. Don't pollute the "global" window space with app-specific windows.

The tradeoff to that being the lack of UI consistency between applications.

Re: Mac OS 9

#223

Post by projektfu »

retrac wrote: post #99
toasteros wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any decent implementations of this UI for Linux?

You could theme some window manager, but it's not the same. It'd be a tough project! The Mac UI was holistic. Early on, it didn't even make much of a distinction between application and operating system. Just getting the menu bar right (shared between OS and application) when every program has its own idea on how to present a menu would be a major challenge. Applications really do need to be designed for the classic…

Yeah, apps were responsible for drawing the menu bar and handling its mouse events (delegated to toolbox libraries). They also used to ask the OS to put in the menu items for the apple menu, and were responsible for delegating those mouse clicks to the OS as well. Background tasks required the foreground app to release the processor (or interrupts like vertical blank). Everything depended on proper cooperation.

Re: Mac OS 9

#224

Post by acdha »

cogman10 wrote: post #32
sph wrote: post #23

Look at that subtle off-grey colouring, the tasteful thickness of it... What the hell happened to modern GUIs, man. We peaked in the 1990s.

And why is everything just so slow! That's what always annoys me. I have a computer that's easily 100x or 1000x more powerful than my 1995 desktop yet so many actions have noticeable lag. Like, try it, resize outlook right now (just stretch the side left and right). You'll see so much jank and jitter. How is something like that not instantaneous?

> Like, try it, resize outlook right now (just stretch the side left and right). You'll see so much jank and jitter. How is something like that not instantaneous?

Outlook is old, old code and still does things network I/O in the same thread as window repainting. I wouldn't treat it as a reference of anything other than how much Microsoft has struggled with the baggage from a bunch of mistakes they made in the 90s.

If you use Safari, Apple Mail, or almost any other macOS app, it is instantaneous — and unlike the older Mac apps like the Finder which did the rubber-band overlay until you released the mouse button, that means things like Safari seamlessly reflowing the entire Mac OS 9 emulator the whole time.

Re: Mac OS 9

#225

Post by ace2358 »

dieulot wrote: post #146
ace2358 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this sounds right based on my experience. Wondering which model you have? Is it fanless? I’ve never used until o got my 2022 m2 air. It’s the best computer I’ve ever used. Before that, 10 years of Mac Pro, and they’ve all been old (2010 models) and fast.

MacBook Air early 2020 base model. The 2010 Mac Pro doesn’t run macOS 11+, that might be its X factor.

Is that a fanless intel machine?

The Mac Pro can run newer os with the help of open core. I can do many things with it like run Mac osX 10.6 using my modern amd rx570.

I can also run macos 12+ which I do. It runs great!

Re: Mac OS 9

#226

Post by dylan604 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #215
mihaip wrote: post #165

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 c…

Awesome, this is so cool! I remember MacOS 9 with a mix of fondness, hatred, and nostaglia. OS X was definitely a big improvement when it came out (I remember OS 9 having so many crashes), but some of the charm was definitely lost. And these .app domain names you're all using in this space are great and totally apt. I love to see great usages of my work in the wild like this.

OS9 always seemed like little improvement over OS8. The biggest thing I remember was this was when they introduced the Applications folder. It's like they were trying to get you to get used to how the structure in OS X was going to be, but with no explanation.

Re: Mac OS 9

#227

Post by lprd »

genewitch wrote: post #145
lprd wrote: post #57

Wow, what a blast from the past. I was only 9 at the time this was released and every bit enamored with the world of computers. My dad owned a data recovery business that also developed software. I was home-schooled and would visit his office frequently after class as I loved looking at all the hard drives and also loved the "computer room smell". There was also the office tradition of playing a game of Bungie's Mara…

the smell being dust, or ozone? Working in a computer repair place when i was ~19 ruined my sinuses forever. I have a lot of old hardware kind of sorted in cabinets, and whenever someone needs some old hardware i have to either dust mask or take an antihistamine. So asking me for something to fix a broken old thing usually involves me making a cross face, handing you whatever it is, and then taking a nap after washin…

> the smell being dust, or ozone?

I'm not exactly sure the origin of the smell. Perhaps its the silicon/plastic they use on the electronics? Maybe even the heat combined with all the rest of the components produces that unique smell that I love so much.

Re: Mac OS 9

#228

Post by scelerat »

I was stoked to see Apeiron in the Games folder. One of the best Centipede clones ever.

Too bad it doesn't work -- hope that's a temporary thing.

Re: Mac OS 9

#229

Post by fzzzy »

azinman2 wrote: post #219
eyesee wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting: my recollection of that period was I rarely stored anything on the desktop. The file system was so much smaller and easier to handle that I stored things in folders and didn’t have trouble finding them again. Not until OS X did I pick up the desktop-as-staging-area habit because navigation was so painful.

But then how do you easily navigate / launch apps? Dig thru your folder trees each time in Finder? Most apps I’m finding have folder structures with a bunch of aux files. It’s not so seemless as a dock or even a start menu. Back even then I used my desktop heavily too.

DragThing

Re: Mac OS 9

#230

Post by acdha »

amelius wrote: post #46
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.

Apple isn't so great. For example why aren't Copy and Paste separate or specifically marked keys and do we have to use Cmd+C and Cmd+V? Same for Undo/Redo, etc. This is stuff any UX student can figure out.

Separate keys have challenges: in addition to the extra cost, you need to find physical space and train people to look for and use them. The original designers wanted to make it efficient for people who were already typing and as you might have noticed those keys are all close together and convenient for one-handed use:

> Why the Z X C V keys? — They were close on the keyboard. We did X because it was a cross out (CUT). We did V because it pointed down like this [he makes a ‘V’ shape with his hands], and you were inserting; it was like an upside-down caret (PASTE). And Z was the closest one, because we figured you’d UNDO a lot. And C for COPY — that was easy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW-atKrg0T4 via http://morrick.me/archives/8432

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