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Mojave: The last great mac OS

nickdalzell1

nickdalzell1

macrumors 68030
Dec 8, 2019
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My needs are simpler I guess. I use the eMachines as a standard Office PC, for email, ordering on Amazon, and quick searches. I sometimes use it to browse MacRumors or other forums. Works fine.

This Toshiba Laptop is even better, running Linux and having a lot of bloat taken out. Runs an older build of Chrome and Firefox and still works fine. I'd love if they both had disk access LEDs or made sound I could hear, since they can be frozen or busy doing intensive tasks sometimes and I have no clue if they're still busy or frozen or done. There's literally no visual cue on Windows 10 or Linux to tell anymore. I'd give a lot of $$$ to have an old MFM drive in there just to know if it's busy or not. I miss the actual sound of those especially at POST, with the memory counts and all. If they can make an MFM-to-SSD converter, why not the reverse for those of us who miss that classic PC sound?

SSDs are faster sure, but don't they suffer from a limited number of writes before they're EOL? Given how much indexing and write cycles are in modern OSs today, wouldn't that reduce the lifespan far more than even the worst 80s hard drive?

The only way I knew something was hung on my MacBook Pro was when the fans ran full hilt and got too hot to touch.
 
InuNacho

InuNacho

macrumors 68000
Apr 24, 2008
1,998
1,249
In that one place
I've had bad sectors on a 12ish year old SSD that was in my old Mac Pro for years and in that same 12 years I've had standard HDDs slow to a crawl or just out right fail.
I've rebuilt maybe a dozen of PC laptops for friends and family using used SSDs I used to take from the ITAD warehouse I worked at. Never had the SSD fail, other parts of the laptops sure but not the SSD.
 
nickdalzell1

nickdalzell1

macrumors 68030
Dec 8, 2019
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There are still working drives from the 1980s around. Seagate ST-225s, even old Kalok Octagons (not the most reliable 80's drive either). I highly doubt any SSD or NVME drive wll make 30 plus years, or even get to vintage status.

Even old vacuum tube TVs and radios still work today, unlike a lot of the ones reliant on germanium transistors and so on. 'modern' tech is too disposable for me. If it works for you, then enjoy. There's a Zenith TV in my garage that was purchased new in 1989. It has never had the warranty seal on the rear cover broken. It's well over 30 years old, still works. I don't think any LCD TV will even make it past 20. No one seems the least bit concerned over the e-waste that modern tech creates. I mean come on, what does a TV even do that you need a new one to do? Display a picture and make sound. That's it. What's a radio do? receive from FM/AM and make sound. Does one truly need a modern one to do that?

Heck, I'm using a smartphone that's ten years old. A Galaxy Note II. Still works fine. I don't do much besides listen to music stored on it, text folks, browse the web and read ebooks. I sometimes take photos of my pet rabbit to send my girlfriend, and that's it. It really creeps me out when I go out on hikes and EVERYONE on the trail has their phone either in their face or in their hand. They can't put them away for a second. Mine is in my pocket while I got a headset for music and smart watch on my wrist for any notifications. My phone only comes out at home to be used as a remote control. Maybe I'm lucky that social media made no sense to me to begin with. Sometimes I feel our survival is being affected. Imagine, if you will, two folks being pursued by a hungry lion. One without a phone and one with. The one without likely knows how to avoid the lion, while the other is probably Googling on their phone 'how to get away from a lion'

It's a scary thing.
 
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saudor

macrumors 68000
Jul 18, 2011
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nickdalzell1 said:
SSDs are faster sure, but don't they suffer from a limited number of writes before they're EOL? Given how much indexing and write cycles are in modern OSs today, wouldn't that reduce the lifespan far more than even the worst 80s hard drive?
Click to expand...
A decade old 256gb SSD could write almost 2 PB of data before dying. At the average 20gb per day, that's 273 years. Even if you write 100gb a day, that's still over 50 years. Write cycles won't be an issue for sure but rather capacity

In the 90s/00s I was upgrading my hard drives way more often than now because the OS alone would increase exponentially with each new version
 
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MBAir2010

MBAir2010

macrumors 603
May 30, 2018
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there
yes Mojave was the last great OS and still works today!
the weird thing is the Mac mini Safari does not show some website aspect as the MacBook air?
is this a java script update thingee?
-Viva Los Mojavians!
 
nickdalzell1

nickdalzell1

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Dec 8, 2019
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There are times when I break out my MBP running the latest version (well, it was when last I used it, which was Monterey) and Safari couldn't load a lot of sites that I feel it should without them complaining about 'unsupported browser' or breaking visually somehow (try to use classic Reddit on Safari, the text wraps in such a way that it's impossible, and YouTube has been broken since Big Sur, showing a page of animated squares that never show anything. Google calls it a 'skeleton page') I feel Google created that problem, pushing many website devs to design for Chrome. Firefox also suffers some of this. It's Netscape vs. IE all over again. Only without the cutesy animated 'this site made for IE' or 'Netscape NOW!' stuff from 1999.
 
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sgtaylor5

sgtaylor5

Contributor
Aug 6, 2017
658
391
Cheney, WA, USA
Monterey runs fine on my 2017 MBA, but I'm installing Mojave on a SSD to build it up from scratch with my software. I had one blocking software (KeepIt wanted Catalina minimum) and now I don't.

None of the special features added to Monterey will work on this laptop. And I'd like to do some customization.

EDIT: I'm going back to Monterey. I can see I need Live Text for model/serial number grabbing for work, and I can't see any difference in performance, either, which is amazing.

2022-08-07 EDIT: Monterey, in extended use, was hotter and the fans ran more, than I expected even with my fairly light usage. Back to Mojave again.
 
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Matty_TypeR

Matty_TypeR

macrumors 6502a
Oct 1, 2016
638
548
UK
Mojave is the best OSX in my eyes, its like snow leopard for intel mac's. yes safari is useless, but i have found M/S Edge works perfectly and has no issues with any sites i visit. Apple will develop all future OSX variants towards the M1 M2 chips and intel based machines will be left to suffer.

My Mac pro 5.1 with upgraded B/tooth and USB 3 and USB C Pcie card does all i need via Mojave. booting dual M2 Pcie cards and its fast in all it does. I think some times people get obsessed with having the latest OSX like it's a status symbol.

Mojave the best OSX to date.
 
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katbel

katbel

macrumors 68040
Aug 19, 2009
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I was thinking to jump to Monterey from Mojave but reading what you guys are writing
it's not worth on an iMac 2017. I have an external ssd disk with BigSur that works as fast as Mojave, when I need some program updated just for newer systems.
 
nickdalzell1

nickdalzell1

macrumors 68030
Dec 8, 2019
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I still think it's crazy that you can downgrade a Mac but not an iPhone or iPad. I got an old iPhone 4 lying around (found disposed of at a junkyard) that I'd love to restore back to iOS 5 or 6, but I tried and it's not possible. iTunes complains. It's currently got iOS 7 which I have always hated.

I'd also love to find a way (if the T2 chip doesn't stop me) to get Mac OS X Mountain Lion on my MBP. It's an Intel Mac so it should be possible, but the T2 crap stopped me from even running Linux natively even via Boot camp.
 
sgtaylor5

sgtaylor5

Contributor
Aug 6, 2017
658
391
Cheney, WA, USA
nickdalzell1 said:
I still think it's crazy that you can downgrade a Mac but not an iPhone or iPad. I got an old iPhone 4 lying around (found disposed of at a junkyard) that I'd love to restore back to iOS 5 or 6, but I tried and it's not possible. iTunes complains. It's currently got iOS 7 which I have always hated.

I'd also love to find a way (if the T2 chip doesn't stop me) to get Mac OS X Mountain Lion on my MBP. It's an Intel Mac so it should be possible, but the T2 crap stopped me from even running Linux natively even via Boot camp.
Click to expand...
The one rule I know is that no apple device can run any OS older than when it was first produced. No driver support is the likely reason. T2 chips can have their security reduced (I don't have that kind of Mac, so I can't write those directions up), and if you look around here, you can find how to do it.

You might need to source an older Mac to run Mountain Lion; there is an Early Intel Mac forum here.
 
nickdalzell1

nickdalzell1

macrumors 68030
Dec 8, 2019
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What would stop a Mac from allowing an older OS X version other than T2 chip? Technically there should be nothing to stop me from installing it and just dealing with driver issues later. I can install Vista on newer hardware. I just hate flat UI design that much. Ever since Yosemite it's been ugly and uglier.
 
sgtaylor5

sgtaylor5

Contributor
Aug 6, 2017
658
391
Cheney, WA, USA
nickdalzell1 said:
What would stop a Mac from allowing an older OS X version other than T2 chip? Technically there should be nothing to stop me from installing it and just dealing with driver issues later. I can install Vista on newer hardware. I just hate flat UI design that much. Ever since Yosemite it's been ugly and uglier.
Click to expand...
macOS installers have a list of supported systems (boardID) that they can install to. The installer checks your hardware for the boardID. If your particular Mac isn't on the list, the installer simply won't allow the installation to proceed.
 
orionquest

orionquest

Suspended
Mar 16, 2022
871
788
The Great White North
Still on Mojave have no plans to "upgrade" the OS. Everything works for me, all my software runs. I've played around in Big Sur and Monterey and I don't like the updated interface. They both seems designed for higher rez displays (4k) where it might work better, but on standard displays like I have it's just a waste of space. As long as it fulfills my needs I am good. Always curious what Apple will do next, but don't get caught up in the new shiny.
 
nickdalzell1

nickdalzell1

macrumors 68030
Dec 8, 2019
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Since Catalina, and still a problem in Monterey, Safari won't even load the Youtube SITE. It tries, and it's a bunch of animated blank squares known as a 'skeleton load'. I've tried resetting that browser and deleting every extension and it still does that on YouTube. At work, the boss's daughter's MBP (running High Sierra) has a problem with many sites declaring Safari an 'unsupported browser' and only work on Chrome.

My Mac will load YouTube and every other sites just fine on Chrome or Firefox. Safari is starting to feel like I.E. did a few years ago when it started to break.
 
Matty_TypeR

Matty_TypeR

macrumors 6502a
Oct 1, 2016
638
548
UK
nickdalzell1 said:
Since Catalina, and still a problem in Monterey, Safari won't even load the Youtube SITE. It tries, and it's a bunch of animated blank squares known as a 'skeleton load'. I've tried resetting that browser and deleting every extension and it still does that on YouTube. At work, the boss's daughter's MBP (running High Sierra) has a problem with many sites declaring Safari an 'unsupported browser' and only work on Chrome.

My Mac will load YouTube and every other sites just fine on Chrome or Firefox. Safari is starting to feel like I.E. did a few years ago when it started to break.
Click to expand...
Give the brave browser a try in OSX Mojave, i have been useing brave the last few days and its fast and secure, even better than MS edge i have found. Makes safari look old and out dated.
 
E

exoticSpice

Suspended
Jan 9, 2022
1,242
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nickdalzell1 said:
Most 'upgrades' are more 'downgrades' IMO.
Click to expand...
Not really cause Monterey had pretty useful features for me. Metal support on Blender, Low power mode and AirPlay to Mac. I would say Metal support for Blender on 12.3 is not a 'downgrade' and is very important for people who use Blender on Mac
nickdalzell1 said:
Since Catalina, and still a problem in Monterey, Safari won't even load the Youtube SITE
Click to expand...
Not a problem for me to load YT but I never use Safari as my main on Mac. Chrome will always will be my main.
nickdalzell1 said:
Ever since Yosemite it's been ugly and uglier.
Click to expand...
For you. Beauty is the eye of the beholder. I like Monterey more than Yosemite. I didn't like Yosemite it didn't feel cohesive to me.
 
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