Cool Mac Gear

I guess I can say that I’m pretty much switched to OS X now. Over the past three weeks, I’ve spent a cumulative two days in OS 9 on my production machines. I still love the speed and better pointing device accuracy/responsiveness in the Classic MacOS, and I find it useful to boot into OS 9 for certain disk maintenance and housekeeping chores from time to time, but by and large, I now prefer working in OS X.

That said, I wouldn’t want to be locked out of OS 9 for the foreseeable future, for reasons I just mentioned, and for occasional program compatibility issues. I had been under the impression that Apple was gradually phasing out dual-booting as it introduced new models. Their Knowledge Base article (86209 ) on the topic seems to indicate that, stating:

Nary a mention of the iBook in that list.

However, a Road Warrior MailBag reader informed me over the weekend that he had purchased a new 800 MHz, 14-inch iBook on the assumption that it would still boot into OS 9, but it wouldn’t. He contacted Apple and was told that the firmware was changed on all iBooks on 05JAN03 and they will no longer boot natively from OS 9.

Inability to boot into OS 9 was unsatisfactory to the reader, and he persuaded PC Connection to take the iBook back and refund his money. He will now purchase a refurbished pre-January, 2003, iBook instead.

If dual-booting has indeed been terminated on the iBooks, and it appears that it has, Apple should at least notify prospective purchasers by including the iBook in its list of non dual-boot supporting models.

The reason I bought my 700 MHz iBook when I did, between Christmas and year-end 2002, was largely anticipation of a firmware block. I continue to maintain an arbitrarily terminating dual-booting on models that heretofore supported it is a stupid and counterproductive policy -- deliberately downgrading functionality to no one’s benefit.

Charles W. Moore