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Mac OS 9

macos9.app

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Re: Mac OS 9

#301

Post by Cyphase »

Naracion wrote: post #285
CydeWeys wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I love to see great usages of my work in the wild like this. Out of curiosity and ignorance--what is the work you're referring to here which is being used for the project / website? The comment makes me feel it's the (dot)app TLD, in which case--fascinating! But also what does it even mean to work on something like that?

I believe GP is the lead engineer of Google Registry. .app is owned and run by Google.

Re: Mac OS 9

#302

Post by Lammy »

Mogzol wrote: post #103
bovermyer wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two questions: 1. Are you being serious, or are you being sarcastic? 2. If you're being serious, what about it is terrible?

I don't know if they were being serious, but as someone who never used a mac back then, I really struggled with this UI. Why do folders all open in a new window? Why can't I maximize a window by double-clicking the title bar? Why can I only resize windows with the little handle in the bottom corner? What is the point of the settings dock in the bottom left of the screen? Do I really need to change resolution and colo…

> Why do folders all open in a new window?

Windows 95 was like this too unless the Internet Explorer 4.0 Desktop Update was installed: http://toastytech.com/guis/win95desktop3.png

Re: Mac OS 9

#303

Post by azinman2 »

bitwize wrote: post #282
azinman2 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> But then how do you easily navigate / launch apps? Dig thru your folder trees each time in Finder? Back in the day, Finder used to remember whether folders were open on the desktop or "put away". It was a direct , one-to-one mapping between your spatial awareness of objects in the real world and the representation of objects in the computer. Meaning that things were left exactly where you put them on-screen, just l…

I think the whole spatial desktop metaphor is overhyped. Rather than go point by point on this, I encourage you to use OS 9 for a week or two to actually do work in. Relive using it versus just from memory. Then I’m curious to see if you still feel that way. My guess is you’ll realize it’s actually not all that.

Re: Mac OS 9

#304

Post by sandgiant »

I love projects like these! I don't have anything to add to what others have already said about nostalgia and simpler times, except I watched the Civilization intro and almost started a play-through. The original Civilization tile set is so pleasant to look at.

Re: Mac OS 9

#305

Post by oaiey »

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 came here to say the opposite: The folder icons ... a mess. Dynamic spacing depending how long the folder name is, free style sorting, "arranging", ... that is a lot of things but not a folder system ;) .. maybe a "desktop" folder ... but not a structural archiving system.

I was a macOS 9 user before I switched to Windows ... and I have to say: I had a fonder memory of it than what I see in this emulation. All operating systems came a long way since. But hey, it is 20 years, is not it.

Re: Mac OS 9

#307

Post by heavyset_go »

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…

Having worked with it extensively, how would you say the performance of SheepShaver compiled to WASM compares to a natively compiled VM binary?

Re: Mac OS 9

#308

Post by rifty »

truetraveller wrote: post #183
deergomoo wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you live without a simple maximize button? Why would I want a webpage which stops showing additional content after ~1200 pixels wide to take up the entire of my 2560px wide monitor?

Because it removes the clutter of your desktop + other windows. I think many would agree. Sure, there are times you need to see windows side-by-side, and there is affordance for that. But mostly, a person is doing one task at a time.

I feel like the expected pattern to deal with clutter in MacOS is by hiding rather than just covering. This is often forgotten about but you can alt+click on an app to hide all other apps but the one you clicked. This is even in possible in Mac OS 9. In modern macOS you can invert the behaviour by turning on single-app mode through the terminal. It's then alt+click to show multiple apps and just click to hide all but the app.

Re: Mac OS 9

#310

Post by rifty »

wmf wrote: post #275
truetraveller wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Distinct control/option/command Way too much cognitive load. Just have a single "ctrl". Coupled with shift, that's more than enough for most hotkeys.

The way I remember it, command was used for commands, option was mostly for typing accented characters, and ctrl was only used within terminal windows (which means most Mac users would have never touched it).

ctrl+click was used to show the context menu with a single button mouse. At least some probably used it!

https://www.wired.com/2000/10/eek-a-two-button-mac-mouse/

"In recent years, the company has added "contextual menus" to the Macintosh operating system. But to activate them, users must hold down the control key while pressing down the mouse button, which more or less defeats the purpose."

Oct 31, 2000

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