As the Ars team convenes for two days of meetings in Chicago, we're reaching back into the past to bring you some of our favorite articles from years gone by. Real rc flight simulator mac os. This story originally ran in January 2010.
The latter half of the 1990s was a dark time for the company then known as Apple Computer, Inc. Windows 95 had dashed any remaining hopes of mass-market desktop dominance for Apple. The big profits of the earlier part of the decade had given way to some huge annual losses. The future of the entire company was in doubt.
This flashing white light is the Mac telling you BAD RAM. Your complete guide to Apple software, and apps designed for Apple users. Learn about the best Mac apps, iOS apps, Watch apps, and utilities. This timeline of Macintosh models lists all major types of Macintosh computers produced by Apple Inc. In order of introduction date. Macintosh Performa models were often physically identical to other models, in which case they are omitted in favor of the identical twin. Layers of Fear is a first-person psychedelic horror game with a heavy focus on story and exploration. Delve deep into the mind of an insane painter and discover the secret of his madness. Layers of Fear: Inheritance expands the plot from Layers of Fear and tells the story of the painter's daughter, who comes back to her childhood home to face her past. Relive her experiences and witness the.
Like injured animals, corporations are adept at hiding the true magnitude of their injuries. As grim as things appeared from the outside, few Apple enthusiasts knew at the time just how close the company came to fiscal ruin. But the software picture was always crystal-clear—clear, and terrifying.
The Mac operating system lacked two important features essential to remaining competitive past the end of the decade: memory protection and preemptive multitasking. Over the course of many years, Apple made severalabortiveattempts to create a modern successor to the classic Mac operating system, all of which crashed and burned before the horrified eyes of Mac fans everywhere. Regardless of its financial issues, it was clear to the geeks that Apple was on the road to technological ruin.
Apple made its final play for salvation in 1997 when it purchased NeXT and, after one more false start, announced at WWDC 1998 what would be, blessedly, its last next-generation operating system strategy: Mac OS X.
By all rights, the Mac faithful should have been, if not ecstatic, then at the very least relieved at this turn of events. Finally, a modern operating system for the Mac. But there was another, equally common reaction: fear. As a body of code, Mac OS X was not an evolution or enhancement of the Mac operating system that we knew and loved. It was an entirely different—albeit not exactly new—operating system to which the Mac name and, presumably, user experience were to be retroactively applied.
Fear of just how badly this undertaking could turn out is a big part of what motivated me to not only learn as much as I could about the future of Mac OS, but also to write about it. As a freshly-minted Unix nerd, I couldn't help but be somewhat excited at the marriage of my two favorite operating systems. But laid over that optimism was a blanket of mild hysteria regarding every part of the project above the core OS.
Now here we are, a decade later, and Mac OS X has matured into a fine product. This ten-year marker presents an opportunity to do something technology writers usually avoid. I'm going to look back at some of my hopes and fears from the early days of Mac OS X's development and compare them to the reality of today. Was I right on the money, shrewdly warning of future disasters that did, in fact, come to pass? Or do my predictions now read more like the ravings of a gray-bearded lunatic? It's judgment day.
Advertisement
1999: Mac OS X DP2
The path to the Mac OS X project was littered with broken technological promises and missed ship dates. As it turns out, Apple was about to turn the corner and start actually hitting its dates and keeping its promises. But in 1999, I still had my doubts.
The current party line has Mac OS X on store shelves some time in 2000. I fearlessly predict that it will not appear until 2001 at the earliest.
('Nailed it'…though predicting that a software product will be late isn't exactly a tough call.)
It wasn't really fair to make any sort of judgement about Mac OS X based on the second 'developer preview' release, which Apple acknowledged upfront existed only to help developers begin their work and did not represent the final user interface. That's a good thing, because my evaluation of DP2 was not kind.
Actually using DP2 is akin to logging into a demented Xterm running a poorly designed window manager theme meant to look something like Mac OS. Launch a Cocoa application and you feel like you've been warped into NEXTSTEP, again running that funny window manager. Run a classic applications and it's like being in a slightly odd version of Mac OS 9, with that alternate NeXT universe still visible in the background. Pull up the command line and you start to think that all of this is one big facade running on top of good old Unix.
Given how far the final Mac OS X user interface diverged from the one in DP2, this harsh criticism hardly seems relevant. But none of us knew what 10.0 would look like back then. Something called Mac OS X Server 1.0 did exist as a shipping product in 1999, and it and looked a hell of a lot like Mac OS X DP2. It was not beyond the bounds of reason to imagine that the final Mac OS X user interface might be a cleaned up, refined version of this very same interface—and that would have been a bad thing.
Ever looking for the silver lining, I went on to opine that 'I'd much rather be stuck using Mac OS X DP2 on a daily basis than Mac OS X Server. They both completely fail the 'Mac-like' litmus test, but DP2 is closer to that goal.' Reading that now, it's clear to me just how desperate I was to find something good to say about the UI of this new OS.
The image below is a good distillation of my already slightly desperate attitude towards the Mac OS X user experience. Practically speaking, it compares the mouse movement allowed by Mac OS (green) when selecting an item from a sub-menu to the movement required by Mac OS X DP2 (orange). (Following the green path in DP2 caused the sub-menu to immediately disappear.)
AdvertisementSocial media remote mac os. The subtext was this: 'Hey, NeXT guys. This is just one example of the kinds of things we Mac users appreciate—nay, expect—in an operating system that bears the Mac name. Slapping a Platinum coat of pixels on your existing NeXT code base is obviously not going to cut it. User interface design is not just what it looks like; design is how it works.'
Internals intrigue
The technical underpinnings of Mac OS X were considerably more interesting. Even ten years ago, I couldn't help but dwell on the possibility of an x86 future.
The OpenStep APIs are cross platform. Mach is cross-platform. WebObjects is cross-platform. x86 builds of Rhapsody, Mac OS X Server, and Mac OS X inside Apple have been all but confirmed. Rumor has it that Apple routinely synchronizes all changes to Mac OS X across both PowerPC and x86 builds of the OS. Clearly, Apple's choice of where to deploy its new operating system is not limited by the technology. If they decided to try releasing a version Mac OS X for x86 processors, it would be technologically within their means.
Before you congratulate me for my amazing prescience, consider the next two sentences I wrote: 'But will they do it? I seriously doubt it.' If you'd asked me to place money on the question, I'd have bet heavily against Apple moving to x86. But I now realize I would have been betting with my heart, not my mind. My brain did get in the final word, however:
The cross-platform card is something to watch for. For the first time, the only thing keeping Apple off of the 'PC' platform will be its business plan. And hey, with Steve Jobs calling the shots, anything is possible.
It's interesting to note that only two short years after his return to Apple, Jobs had already (re)cemented his reputation as a fearless and often unpredictable leader. Age had not slowed him down one bit.
File system metadata (which I was then calling 'meta-information,' for some reason) was also tickling my brain, though mostly in a positive way, believe it or not. I was intrigued by the concept of bundles, especially their use of this shiny new 'XML' data format. But while storing metadata in separate flat files within bundles could work for applications, the future of plain file metadata was still in doubt.
How will Mac OS X identify the file type and creator of 'regular' files? By file name extension, that concept so alien to traditional Mac OS? Or will HFS/HFS+-dependent type/creator meta-information soldier on into the future? Time will tell.
Note the blithe dismissal, the seemingly complete lack of concern. 'Oh well, time will tell.' Indeed it would.
Fear Of The White Mac Os Catalina
2008: There's been a huge buzz in the past week about an Apple patent application for 'Run-Time Code Injection To Perform Checks', which many liken to Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage program and speculate could result in Mac OS X and Apple apps including the kind of serialization and headaches that Windows users are familiar with.
Reading about this technology, it appears that this patent covers a mechanism whereby the operating system polls the computer's firmware every so often to verify that it is running on authorized hardware.
The Unlocked Mac OS
Throughout the history of the Mac – and unlike the highly protected Lisa – the Mac operating system has never been copy protected. From System 1.0 through 7.0.1, Apple even allowed stores and users to freely copy their Mac OS system floppies for others. There was no cost for operating system updates unless you wanted to buy a shrink wrapped package.
That changed with Macintosh System 7.1, which included some licensed third-party applications. Because of them, System 7.1 could not be distributed for free, and to this date Apple has never made it a free download, unlike System 6.0.x, 7.0.x, and 7.5.x. (Those with ancient Macs can find download links for these on our Classic Mac OS Downloads and Updates page.)
No version of the Mac OS since then has come to market without a price tag, although Apple did eventually make the System 7.5.3 download and the 7.5.5 update free. [This was published long before Apple released Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks in Late 2013, which returned to the Mac's roots by making the Mac OS available as a free download to those who already had OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or newer running on their Macs.]
Unlike Microsoft Windows and many applications, the consumer version of the Mac OS has never required the user to type in a serial number or register with Apple. (Mac OS X Server requires a serial number so it knows how many users it's licensed for, and when you boot into a clean OS X install, it does ask you to register with Apple, although you're not required to do so.)
Every copy of the Mac OS allows unlimited installs, although the OS license generally limits you to a single user and/or computer or, in the case of the family pack, up to five computers in the same household.
Another Reason for DRM in the OS
Apple is in a touch spot right now. After switching the entire Macintosh line from PowerPC to Intel CPUs in 2006, it's become possible to install Mac OS X on non-Apple x86 computers. Read that as 'Windows computers'.
Just as it's possible to run Windows on Intel-based Macs using Boot Camp or virtualization, it's possible to hack OS X and run it on a lot of Windows computers, although all of the PC's hardware may not be supported. There's also speculation that we'll see virtualization software for Windows and Linux that will allow users to run a virtualized Mac OS alongside those operating systems. It should be every bit as doable as running Windows or Linux virtualized on the Mac.
Apple doesn't support the Mac OS on non-Apple hardware, and it makes a lot of money selling Macintosh computers. While it definitely makes some money from each copy of OS X sold, it makes more money from each computer sold. So while every 'Hackintosh' helps Apple's bottom line a bit, it doesn't help nearly as much as selling a Macintosh. [We launched the Low End Hackintosh group on Facebook in January 2018 so users can help each other find the hardware they want to meet their needs.]
The Mac OS license covers Apple hardware – and only Apple hardware. Hacked installers and virtualization let users violate the terms of that license, which most of us don't consider a bad thing from a user's perspective. After all, if Apple won't build the tablet, subnotebook, or modular desktop Mac we want, why shouldn't we be allowed to buy a copy of OS X and install it on the hardware we want?
After all, Mac OS X can run on non-Apple hardware. All you have to do is hack it a bit.
Gotcha!
All Versions Of Mac Os
Integrating DRM throughout the Mac OS needn't be anything as insidious as Windows Genuine Advantage. It could be Apple's way of enforcing its license terms. By checking the computer's firmware every few minutes, it could determine whether it's running on genuine Macintosh hardware or not.
As we've discovered with OS X 10.5 Leopard, it's not that difficult to fool the installer so that Mac OS X 10.5 will install on most sub-867 MHz G4 Macs. And once you have Leopard installed on a hard drive, it can be cloned or moved to an 'unsupported' Mac, where it can work with less than the 512 MB Apple suggests and the installer enforces.
With DRM inside OS X, Apple has the potential to have the operating system enforce the fact that the license is only for Apple hardware without adding all the headaches of serial numbers, registration, connecting to apple.com for license verification, etc. that helps make Windows such a nuisance. Gnomeball mac os. (Has anyone at Microsoft tried to type in one of those loooooong serial numbers? It's not easy to do that without one or two mistakes sneaking in.)
I don't think DRM in OS X need be anything we Mac users fear. If it's nothing more than a way of making sure that it's running on Apple hardware, we'll still have an operating system that can be copied, cloned, moved between Macs, and so forth while refusing to run on non-Apple hardware or in virtualized environments.
Fear Of The White Mac Os Update
Time will tell if and how Apple decided to implement this, but based on the company's history, I don't see this as insidious.
keywords: #drm
1999: Mac OS X DP2
The path to the Mac OS X project was littered with broken technological promises and missed ship dates. As it turns out, Apple was about to turn the corner and start actually hitting its dates and keeping its promises. But in 1999, I still had my doubts.
The current party line has Mac OS X on store shelves some time in 2000. I fearlessly predict that it will not appear until 2001 at the earliest.
('Nailed it'…though predicting that a software product will be late isn't exactly a tough call.)
It wasn't really fair to make any sort of judgement about Mac OS X based on the second 'developer preview' release, which Apple acknowledged upfront existed only to help developers begin their work and did not represent the final user interface. That's a good thing, because my evaluation of DP2 was not kind.
Actually using DP2 is akin to logging into a demented Xterm running a poorly designed window manager theme meant to look something like Mac OS. Launch a Cocoa application and you feel like you've been warped into NEXTSTEP, again running that funny window manager. Run a classic applications and it's like being in a slightly odd version of Mac OS 9, with that alternate NeXT universe still visible in the background. Pull up the command line and you start to think that all of this is one big facade running on top of good old Unix.
Given how far the final Mac OS X user interface diverged from the one in DP2, this harsh criticism hardly seems relevant. But none of us knew what 10.0 would look like back then. Something called Mac OS X Server 1.0 did exist as a shipping product in 1999, and it and looked a hell of a lot like Mac OS X DP2. It was not beyond the bounds of reason to imagine that the final Mac OS X user interface might be a cleaned up, refined version of this very same interface—and that would have been a bad thing.
Ever looking for the silver lining, I went on to opine that 'I'd much rather be stuck using Mac OS X DP2 on a daily basis than Mac OS X Server. They both completely fail the 'Mac-like' litmus test, but DP2 is closer to that goal.' Reading that now, it's clear to me just how desperate I was to find something good to say about the UI of this new OS.
The image below is a good distillation of my already slightly desperate attitude towards the Mac OS X user experience. Practically speaking, it compares the mouse movement allowed by Mac OS (green) when selecting an item from a sub-menu to the movement required by Mac OS X DP2 (orange). (Following the green path in DP2 caused the sub-menu to immediately disappear.)
AdvertisementSocial media remote mac os. The subtext was this: 'Hey, NeXT guys. This is just one example of the kinds of things we Mac users appreciate—nay, expect—in an operating system that bears the Mac name. Slapping a Platinum coat of pixels on your existing NeXT code base is obviously not going to cut it. User interface design is not just what it looks like; design is how it works.'
Internals intrigue
The technical underpinnings of Mac OS X were considerably more interesting. Even ten years ago, I couldn't help but dwell on the possibility of an x86 future.
The OpenStep APIs are cross platform. Mach is cross-platform. WebObjects is cross-platform. x86 builds of Rhapsody, Mac OS X Server, and Mac OS X inside Apple have been all but confirmed. Rumor has it that Apple routinely synchronizes all changes to Mac OS X across both PowerPC and x86 builds of the OS. Clearly, Apple's choice of where to deploy its new operating system is not limited by the technology. If they decided to try releasing a version Mac OS X for x86 processors, it would be technologically within their means.
Before you congratulate me for my amazing prescience, consider the next two sentences I wrote: 'But will they do it? I seriously doubt it.' If you'd asked me to place money on the question, I'd have bet heavily against Apple moving to x86. But I now realize I would have been betting with my heart, not my mind. My brain did get in the final word, however:
The cross-platform card is something to watch for. For the first time, the only thing keeping Apple off of the 'PC' platform will be its business plan. And hey, with Steve Jobs calling the shots, anything is possible.
It's interesting to note that only two short years after his return to Apple, Jobs had already (re)cemented his reputation as a fearless and often unpredictable leader. Age had not slowed him down one bit.
File system metadata (which I was then calling 'meta-information,' for some reason) was also tickling my brain, though mostly in a positive way, believe it or not. I was intrigued by the concept of bundles, especially their use of this shiny new 'XML' data format. But while storing metadata in separate flat files within bundles could work for applications, the future of plain file metadata was still in doubt.
How will Mac OS X identify the file type and creator of 'regular' files? By file name extension, that concept so alien to traditional Mac OS? Or will HFS/HFS+-dependent type/creator meta-information soldier on into the future? Time will tell.
Note the blithe dismissal, the seemingly complete lack of concern. 'Oh well, time will tell.' Indeed it would.
Fear Of The White Mac Os Catalina
2008: There's been a huge buzz in the past week about an Apple patent application for 'Run-Time Code Injection To Perform Checks', which many liken to Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage program and speculate could result in Mac OS X and Apple apps including the kind of serialization and headaches that Windows users are familiar with.
Reading about this technology, it appears that this patent covers a mechanism whereby the operating system polls the computer's firmware every so often to verify that it is running on authorized hardware.
The Unlocked Mac OS
Throughout the history of the Mac – and unlike the highly protected Lisa – the Mac operating system has never been copy protected. From System 1.0 through 7.0.1, Apple even allowed stores and users to freely copy their Mac OS system floppies for others. There was no cost for operating system updates unless you wanted to buy a shrink wrapped package.
That changed with Macintosh System 7.1, which included some licensed third-party applications. Because of them, System 7.1 could not be distributed for free, and to this date Apple has never made it a free download, unlike System 6.0.x, 7.0.x, and 7.5.x. (Those with ancient Macs can find download links for these on our Classic Mac OS Downloads and Updates page.)
No version of the Mac OS since then has come to market without a price tag, although Apple did eventually make the System 7.5.3 download and the 7.5.5 update free. [This was published long before Apple released Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks in Late 2013, which returned to the Mac's roots by making the Mac OS available as a free download to those who already had OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or newer running on their Macs.]
Unlike Microsoft Windows and many applications, the consumer version of the Mac OS has never required the user to type in a serial number or register with Apple. (Mac OS X Server requires a serial number so it knows how many users it's licensed for, and when you boot into a clean OS X install, it does ask you to register with Apple, although you're not required to do so.)
Every copy of the Mac OS allows unlimited installs, although the OS license generally limits you to a single user and/or computer or, in the case of the family pack, up to five computers in the same household.
Another Reason for DRM in the OS
Apple is in a touch spot right now. After switching the entire Macintosh line from PowerPC to Intel CPUs in 2006, it's become possible to install Mac OS X on non-Apple x86 computers. Read that as 'Windows computers'.
Just as it's possible to run Windows on Intel-based Macs using Boot Camp or virtualization, it's possible to hack OS X and run it on a lot of Windows computers, although all of the PC's hardware may not be supported. There's also speculation that we'll see virtualization software for Windows and Linux that will allow users to run a virtualized Mac OS alongside those operating systems. It should be every bit as doable as running Windows or Linux virtualized on the Mac.
Apple doesn't support the Mac OS on non-Apple hardware, and it makes a lot of money selling Macintosh computers. While it definitely makes some money from each copy of OS X sold, it makes more money from each computer sold. So while every 'Hackintosh' helps Apple's bottom line a bit, it doesn't help nearly as much as selling a Macintosh. [We launched the Low End Hackintosh group on Facebook in January 2018 so users can help each other find the hardware they want to meet their needs.]
The Mac OS license covers Apple hardware – and only Apple hardware. Hacked installers and virtualization let users violate the terms of that license, which most of us don't consider a bad thing from a user's perspective. After all, if Apple won't build the tablet, subnotebook, or modular desktop Mac we want, why shouldn't we be allowed to buy a copy of OS X and install it on the hardware we want?
After all, Mac OS X can run on non-Apple hardware. All you have to do is hack it a bit.
Gotcha!
All Versions Of Mac Os
Integrating DRM throughout the Mac OS needn't be anything as insidious as Windows Genuine Advantage. It could be Apple's way of enforcing its license terms. By checking the computer's firmware every few minutes, it could determine whether it's running on genuine Macintosh hardware or not.
As we've discovered with OS X 10.5 Leopard, it's not that difficult to fool the installer so that Mac OS X 10.5 will install on most sub-867 MHz G4 Macs. And once you have Leopard installed on a hard drive, it can be cloned or moved to an 'unsupported' Mac, where it can work with less than the 512 MB Apple suggests and the installer enforces.
With DRM inside OS X, Apple has the potential to have the operating system enforce the fact that the license is only for Apple hardware without adding all the headaches of serial numbers, registration, connecting to apple.com for license verification, etc. that helps make Windows such a nuisance. Gnomeball mac os. (Has anyone at Microsoft tried to type in one of those loooooong serial numbers? It's not easy to do that without one or two mistakes sneaking in.)
I don't think DRM in OS X need be anything we Mac users fear. If it's nothing more than a way of making sure that it's running on Apple hardware, we'll still have an operating system that can be copied, cloned, moved between Macs, and so forth while refusing to run on non-Apple hardware or in virtualized environments.
Fear Of The White Mac Os Update
Time will tell if and how Apple decided to implement this, but based on the company's history, I don't see this as insidious.
keywords: #drm
Related
