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Run Mac OS System 7 in your browser

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Re: Run Mac OS System 7 in your browser

#81

Post by Samuel_Michon »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #69
Samuel_Michon wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrary to what you seem to be suggesting, in 1996 Macs ran full color 3D games, could use large screens, and they were known for its graphics – remember that MYST was made on Macs. System 7.5 was a great OS, it just didn’t have the modern features that Win95 had (protected memory, preemptive multitasking.) Also, let’s not forget that before the release of Windows95, the Mac’s OS was way more advanced. We’re talking…

>We’re talking about a rough patch of 3 years. Which is an eternity in the computer game. Also, we're ignoring the price difference. A PC that could play Duke Nuke'em in 1996 cost less than the Mac you'd need for same performance.

> [3 years is] an eternity in the computer game.

Microsoft didn’t release a new OS for 6 years (between XP and Vista) and even when it did, Vista flopped miserably. Yet, Microsoft is still around.

Re: Run Mac OS System 7 in your browser

#82

Post by oso2k »

vondur wrote: post #67
Samuel_Michon wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contrary to what you seem to be suggesting, in 1996 Macs ran full color 3D games, could use large screens, and they were known for its graphics – remember that MYST was made on Macs. System 7.5 was a great OS, it just didn’t have the modern features that Win95 had (protected memory, preemptive multitasking.) Also, let’s not forget that before the release of Windows95, the Mac’s OS was way more advanced. We’re talking…

I don't believe that Windows 95 have protected memory or preemptive multitasking. That came in with the NT versions of Windows. I switched to Windows in 97 when NT 4 came out. The Mac OS was definitely lagging behind NT around that time period.

Windows 95 definitely had Protected Memory (386 style, not NX bit) and Pre-emptive Multitasking [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_95

Re: Run Mac OS System 7 in your browser

#83

Post by smacktoward »

mietek wrote: post #59
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's insane to me. While people were using Win95 in 1996, full color, 3D games (Duke Nukem 3D), etc Macs were still in the dark ages with 7.5 and 8. This was around the time I was in college. I went to a big ugly state school and a close friend went to a fancy private school. In my school, we only had PCs available for general student use. At his school, it was Mac-only with everyone got their own Mac in their dorm…

Tiny screens weren't a requirement. 14", 16", and 21" color displays were available since 1992, with resolutions of 640x480, 832x624, and 1152x870. A 1987 Mac II supported up to 6 displays, forming a single desktop. Not too shabby, eh? However, the OS was behind the times, lacking memory protection and preemptive multitasking. It is incredible how much wasted effort went into Pink, Taligent, and Copland...

> It is incredible how much wasted effort went into Pink, Taligent, and Copland...

Indeed. I remember reading Robert X. Cringely's book "Accidental Empires" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accidental_Empires) back at that time, and in one chapter he looked over the Pink/Taligent/Copland debacle and predicted that no company would ever write a general-purpose operating system from scratch again, because doing so had just become too complicated.

That seemed pretty far-fetched to me at the time, but it turned out he was more or less right. OS X is NeXTSTEP is Mach/BSD; Windows is NT; Android is Linux/Java. Every major OS project these days starts by picking up some earlier project and using it as a base. And those who tried to defy the prediction (cough Be cough) found out that it was true the hard way.

Re: Run Mac OS System 7 in your browser

#85

Post by rbanffy »

It would be interesting to see it running System 3. This machine is almost as old as the Windows 1.0 emulator we saw the other day, but System 7 is a much more recent version of the OS, IIRC, from the same period as Windows 3.

Re: Run Mac OS System 7 in your browser

#86

Post by drzaiusapelord »

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #81
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We’re talking about a rough patch of 3 years. Which is an eternity in the computer game. Also, we're ignoring the price difference. A PC that could play Duke Nuke'em in 1996 cost less than the Mac you'd need for same performance.

> [3 years is] an eternity in the computer game. Microsoft didn’t release a new OS for 6 years (between XP and Vista) and even when it did, Vista flopped miserably. Yet, Microsoft is still around.

Because XP was feature competitive and there wasn't much market pressure to do so, unlike OS7,8 from that era.

This is quickly becoming a OS war, but I think its uncontroversial to say that the few years before OSX showed us an Apple that couldn't compete and was selling products that were substandard and overpriced. 95-99 was pretty rough.

Re: Run Mac OS System 7 in your browser

#87

Post by rbanffy »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #52
Samuel_Michon wrote: post #49

This shows a Macintosh Plus running System 7.0.1. The computer could actually run versions up to 7.5.5 – an OS that came out in 1996. That’s quite amazing, given the Plus was released in 1986. Try running Windows 8 or OS X Mavericks on a 10 year old computer.

That's insane to me. While people were using Win95 in 1996, full color, 3D games (Duke Nukem 3D), etc Macs were still in the dark ages with 7.5 and 8. This was around the time I was in college. I went to a big ugly state school and a close friend went to a fancy private school. In my school, we only had PCs available for general student use. At his school, it was Mac-only with everyone got their own Mac in their dorm…

In 1994, IIRC, I used a Mac IIfx with a 21" Radius CRT monitor with 24-bit color. It probably also had a 34010 graphics processor (we didn't call them GPU's back then). The machine was perfectly capable of supporting multiple monitors, seamlessly extending the desktop. Preemptive multitasking excepted, it was easily on the same league as Sun 3 or HP/Apollo 400 workstations.

Re: Run Mac OS System 7 in your browser

#88

Post by nwh »

Samuel_Michon wrote: post #49

This shows a Macintosh Plus running System 7.0.1. The computer could actually run versions up to 7.5.5 – an OS that came out in 1996. That’s quite amazing, given the Plus was released in 1986. Try running Windows 8 or OS X Mavericks on a 10 year old computer.

My G4 Cube ran everything from OS9.0 to 10.5. That's a fairly big stretch too.

Re: Run Mac OS System 7 in your browser

#89

Post by Samuel_Michon »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #86
Samuel_Michon wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [3 years is] an eternity in the computer game. Microsoft didn’t release a new OS for 6 years (between XP and Vista) and even when it did, Vista flopped miserably. Yet, Microsoft is still around.

Because XP was feature competitive and there wasn't much market pressure to do so, unlike OS7,8 from that era. This is quickly becoming a OS war, but I think its uncontroversial to say that the few years before OSX showed us an Apple that couldn't compete and was selling products that were substandard and overpriced. 95-99 was pretty rough.

I would say 1995 to 1997 were the dark days. Not because MacOS wasn’t working well (even though its aging architecture did mean it needed to be replaced someday.) Apple’s problem was one of focus. They had too many product lines, too many managers, and too many mediocre sales locations.

Steve Jobs’ return to the company changed all that. He killed most projects and fired a lot of people (after Gil Amelio had already done his fair share of firing.) Apple released great products again far before Mac OS X came out. The iMac was introduced in May 1998.

Re: Run Mac OS System 7 in your browser

#90

Post by Samuel_Michon »

rbanffy wrote: post #87
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's insane to me. While people were using Win95 in 1996, full color, 3D games (Duke Nukem 3D), etc Macs were still in the dark ages with 7.5 and 8. This was around the time I was in college. I went to a big ugly state school and a close friend went to a fancy private school. In my school, we only had PCs available for general student use. At his school, it was Mac-only with everyone got their own Mac in their dorm…

In 1994, IIRC, I used a Mac IIfx with a 21" Radius CRT monitor with 24-bit color. It probably also had a 34010 graphics processor (we didn't call them GPU's back then). The machine was perfectly capable of supporting multiple monitors, seamlessly extending the desktop. Preemptive multitasking excepted, it was easily on the same league as Sun 3 or HP/Apollo 400 workstations.

The IIfx was released in 1990, but yeah, it was an amazing machine. Using expansion cards, it could drive 6 monitors!

By 1996, the time GP was talking about, Apple had released dual processor PowerMacs.

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