Apple and Philips TV - Apple branded home entertainment system?

[oldMac]

I agree on two points...

BECAUSE JAGUAR IS NOT AS RELIABLE, FLEXIBLE, COMPATIBLE AND FRIENDLY THAN OS 9 !!! [/B]

I agree with MyMemory that Jaguar is not:

1) As compatible
2) As friendly
3) As fast (I added this one)

... as Mac OS 9

HOWEVER, it's certainly more reliable and flexible. This is especially true from a developer's standpoint.

Given the maturity of OS 9's interface, it's not at all surprising that OS X is lagging a bit on the usability front. The devil is in the details and any programmer knows how much complexity actually goes into the details.

But, the fact is that OS 9 was a dead end for Apple. There are only so many hacks you can get away with before they start to catch up with you. While OS X lags a bit now, it will progress much faster than anything built on 9 could and we will all be better off a year or so down the road.

 

[peterjhill]

Re: I agree on two points...

Originally posted by oldMac

I agree with MyMemory that Jaguar is not:

1) As compatible

compatible with what? ancient programs?
Here is my take on compatibility:
Jaguar is POSIX compliant, os 9 is not
Jaguar comes with a nice samba implementation, os 9, pay for DAVE
Jaguar, IMHO, is fare more compatible than OS 9, it is much more useful to me. YMMV. I do not need Quark, not only that, but I think Quark is an awful program.

2) As friendly

yes, OS 9 was so friendly when it crashed all the time. Jaguar is different from OS9, but it is also a better system. Expand on what you mean by this, please.

3) As fast (I added this one)

Try to do as much as you can do on jaguar under OS 9 while keeping your system up and running all day. I have 11 applications happily running at this moment. I never have to reboot my system to fix a problem application. Hell, I can restart the finder and things will most always continue happily. Sure, sometimes applications have problems, but that isn't apples fault, unless it is one of their applications, but it is usually trivial to kill an application. Not to mention that with the console, you can usually figure out why an application broke. Much better than cryptic error codes.

Given the maturity of OS 9's interface, it's not at all surprising that OS X is lagging a bit on the usability front. The devil is in the details and any programmer knows how much complexity actually goes into the details.

I disagree. At the end of the old os, it was getting quite ugly. I think that, though it was much better than windows 3.1 and 95, it was getting quite dated. Anytime I see an OS 9 screenshot, I feel like I am in the dark ages of computing. I am very pleased with the current OS.

But, the fact is that OS 9 was a dead end for Apple. There are only so many hacks you can get away with before they start to catch up with you. While OS X lags a bit now, it will progress much faster than anything built on 9 could and we will all be better off a year or so down the road.

I hope that OS X is able to fulfill all of the shortcomings that you see and feel now. Let me just say, I am not denying that you are not happy with the OS. Heck, some people prefer Windows. You use your computer differently than I do. It is understandable that there are going to be people that will miss the old finder. I am just not one of them. OS 9 does not exist anywhere on my computer. It is dead to me.

 

[gopher]

Despite the fact I love working in Mac OS X, in one way Mac OS 9 was always more friendly. Most applications just let you drag and drop them to and from anywhere you wanted as long as it wasn't one of the parts of the system folder (except Launcher). Now I have to worry about taking stuff out of my Library, bin, pub, Documents, and Home folder, and the whole system is scattered between a Library folder at root, a Library folder in the System Folder, and a Library folder in the users folder. Not to mention Eudora, Appleworks, and Office like to use the Users's Documents folder to store items. Still better than the System Folder where Eudora stored things in the past, but I can't tell Eudora to use another stored folder. The free folder structure of Mac OS 9 was better in the respect, you could think differently and scattered. Now is it System/Library/Sounds or Users/user/Library/Sounds? It gets crazy. Give me one place to store my preferences, and any place to store my documents, and let me put my applications where I want! Still I'll take X's stability any day over 9.

 

[RogueLdr]

gopher:

The single largest issue that we encounter with instability in OS 9 at work (IT department, medium circulation newspaper) is with things being scattered throughout the hard drive. I was also guilty of this myself before moving to OS X, and experienced a bit of culture shock when the OS insisted on things being in certain places. However, I now find that I have very little reason to concern myself with the inner workings of the system. For me, both at home and at work, I find the stability that this architecture provides is more than adequate compensation for the loss of freedom in how my computer is organized. It sure is different, but it seems to have some very real benefits.

RL