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The Death Of OS X Classic Mode - OS X Odyssey 894

By Charles W. Moore Monday, November 12, 2007.
Filed under: Blogs � OSX Odyssey � Hot Topics �

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Ever since Steve Jobs declared OS 9 to be officially "dead" at the Worldwide Developer's Conference back in 2002, complete with a mock coffin onstage at the San Jose Convention Center stage and accompanied by the strains of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, Apple has treated the Classic Mac OS like an embarrassingly eccentric elderly relative that it wished would pas quietly on to the hereafter. However, as it has played out, it reminds me a bit of the Monty Python sketch "The Death of Mary Queen of Scots," a typically Pythonesque over-the-top mock BBC radio dramatization in which you hear the eponymous queen repeatedly taking a horrendous beating to the sound of violent blows being dealt, things smashing, awful crunching noises, a saw cutting, bones being broken, and other grievous bodily harm being inflicted, accompanied by screaming from the queen., followed by a pause and a man's voice saying "I think she's dead.", and the battered queen piping up: "No I'm not." More violent sounds, etc....

Up until the latest version of OS 10.4 Tiger for Power PC, OS 9 has been kept on life support thanks to Apple's continued, if somewhat grudging support of OS X Classic Mode, but Classic Mode was not included in the Intel versions of Tiger, and Apple has now finally dispatched "the queen" and finally nailed down the coffin lid on Classic by leaving Classic Mode out of OS 10.5 Leopard entirely.

Which constitutes my greatest reluctance to upgrade to Leopard. For example, I still use Classic Mode daily for production work, including the text-only browser WannaBe for which there is no OS X native substitute that even comes close (sorry folks, command line browsers like Lynx are a sorry replacement for slick and elegant WannaBe), and I also still use the Classic version of Tex Edit Plus extensively for editing and markup, not because the OS X versions of TE+ are not better - they are in a whole passel of ways - but due to the fact that no OS X native auto-scrolling utility works anywhere near as slickly and conveniently as Classic-only scrollability. It's a matter of productivity. Those two factors alone make my work flow significantly more efficient.

In anticipation of what I will be up against with Leopard, I've experimented lately with working exclusively in OS X, using Opera with the images disabled instead of WannaBe and the latest version of Tex Edit Plus, and I am slowed down significantly. I'm stuck with dialup Internet access, and even with the images turned off and dialup acceleration at full compression, Opera is still a LOT slower than WannaBe, and having to manually scroll is a pain.

I'm wondering how many other potential Leopard upgraders are experiencing similar withdrawal issues. One reader noted to be yesterday that he will not be upgrading to Leopard because his daughter has a bunch of old Classic-only games that she loves. I'll bet there are plenty of other users who have long since switched to OS X native for most things, but still use Classic Mode to support software and functions that just don't exist in OS X.

Yeah, I know. The world moves on and you have to move with it or get left behind. Lots of avant garde minded folks are celebrating the removal of "dead code" like Classic Mode support from Leopard. But it wasn't dead yet to me and a lot of others by a long shot.

Charles W. Moore

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Reader Comments

�Posted By goldenthal On� Monday, November 12, 2007 �at� 03:26 PM

I have many many historically important files created on various OS 9 programs. A considerable number are not translatable into OS X equivalents—e.g., Global Village fax files. That fact will preclude my moving to Leopard.

I have difficulty imagining that you and I are alone. I’d even be prepared to pay an additional charge to Apple were they to offer Classic as an add-on to Leopard.

�Posted By jscottk On� Monday, November 12, 2007 �at� 04:57 PM

And yet they ADDED legacy support for Windows. Go figure.

One area that Apple seems ignore is Engineering software. (And no, I don’t mean UNIX X11 based molecular modeling programs.) The Classic OS support quite a number of software packages (CNC, CAM, dynamic modeling, etc.) that simply doesn’t exist in OS X. All were left with is “art” based 3D modeling and one (very expensive) CAD program that does machine design elements as a side line to architectural CAD.

The lack of Classic support means, for me and my small, family run business, is that I’ll be skipping Leopard altogether. I’ll have to wait a couple of years until I can afford another small business loan to replace office’s macs with Intel macs. And then I’ll have to put Windows on them to run Windows versions of the software I need. yuk. (And yes, we are all being “forced” to upgrade eventually. Not even Mac hardware lasts forever.)

I wish someone would smack Jobs upside his head and let him know there’s more to computing life than iLife. I’ve been waiting for SEVEN years for the promise of OS X to bring any engineering software to the Mac, with nothing to show for it.

�Posted By goldenthal On� Monday, November 12, 2007 �at� 05:06 PM

Ironically, the more “deeply” one has used one’s Mac, the bigger the hit from Apple’s recent changes. Casual users can upgrade to Intel-based Macs and to Leopard with no trouble at all.

I wonder how carefully Apple thought through their recent strategy.

�Posted By Charles W. Moore On� Monday, November 12, 2007 �at� 06:28 PM

Hi goldenthal;

Hmmm. I actually hadn’t thought of my GlobalFax files. I don’t (obviously) access them very often, but I don’t want to lose the facility to do so.

I don’t imagine there’s any realistic hope for a restoration of Classic Mode in OS X, but SheepShaver may be a usable workaround.

Sheepshaver is an Open Source third-party Classic runtime environment. The downside is that it It only supports up to Mac OS 9.0.4, but that should be suffucuent for you to run GlobalFax.

For more information and to download, visit:
http://gwenole.beauchesne.info/projects/sheepshaver/

Charles

�Posted By Charles W. Moore On� Monday, November 12, 2007 �at� 06:36 PM

Hi jscottk;

I hear you, and I love your comment about there being more to computing life than iLife. Personally, the only iLife application I use with any frequency is iTunes.

Charles

�Posted By Charles W. Moore On� Monday, November 12, 2007 �at� 06:41 PM

Hi goldenthal;

Too true.

There’s now a sizable new generation of Mac users who have no experience of the Classic Mac OS at all.

Mac360’s Bambi Brannan thinks Apple is dumbing down the Mac OS to cater to them. I think she’s on to something.

http://mac360.com/index.php/mac360/comments/

Charles

�Posted By kiil On� Wednesday, November 14, 2007 �at� 03:14 AM

Hi Charles!

First just for info.

Global Village Fax Center can “save as”
TIFF (200 dpi), Pict, Macpaint. It also exports to some word processor formats
after OCRing. Perhaps it is applescript capable. Or for those who have it, the old printer driver PDFWriter could be used to create PDFs of all those faxes. Its time consuming. But sooner or later its going to be need to be done.

And your text browser solution is just going to have to wait till broadband reaches your area. I am an american who lives in Germany and my exwife lives on top of a mountain. Affordable Satellite connections now exist and she is finally online with a decent transfer rate. Which is good because she will never live anywhere else.

About engineering software, it’s engineering software companies who are ignoring OS X not Apple. It is better to direct complaints to them.

That is what is ironic, as more and more people “switch” to Macs, more and more software is being developed for OS X. Its just that the old System 7-9 developers have seem to have given up.

As far as iLife goes or the “dumbing down of OS X” Apple is a hardware company that happens to deliver basic functionality with its products. Where are they suppose to draw the line. I as an advance user buy and use third party products (some of which are even free). That is the way it should be. Third party developers have an incentive to build a better mousetrap. But as mentioned above, the same applies here. Complain to Apple - feedback @ apple.com - At every Apple event Steve Jobs claims that they listen to their costumers who get in touch with them and use that feedback to make product decisions.

What worries me is the appearance that Apple is stretching its resources. A lot of the incidents that have come to light since the release of 10.5 should not have happen. I was affected with the log-in/key chain bug and there is only an after the fact solution and not a preventive method for those who in the future want to update. In any case why did this not come to light during the development of Leopard. Other cases such as install disks not working with some Superdrives indicates lack of quality control with its manufacturing processes and hardware. (Hardware defects have plagued Apple history over and over again)

�Posted By Charles W. Moore On� Thursday, November 15, 2007 �at� 11:56 AM

Hi Kevin;

Thanks for your comment.

Yes; I’m aware of the 200 DPI TIFF save function in GlobalFax. Used to use it a lot for OCR-ing FAX messages back in the day. Your suggested workaround would work - if only one could find the time.....

“And your text browser solution is just going to have to wait till broadband reaches your area”

So easy to say....

We have been promised by the Nova Scotia government that broadband coverage will be universal by the end of 2009, but that means it could be still more than two years away even if the promise holds up.

I need a text browser for production work. I’ll see how things go when I finlly get Leopard (my US-sourced copy is still apparently caught in the massive backlog at customs due to the tsunami of cross-border shopping by Canadians taking advantage of the newly-mighty Canadian dollar) I’ll have to see how things go. The text browser issue my keep me in Tiger for production work for some time yet, and I have no plans at this point to try upgrading my two Pismo PowerBooks to Leopard anyway.

As for satellite Internet, I suppose “affordable” is a relative concept. The bottom line here is that based on my most recent pricing research, the least expensive satellite option in this neck of the woods would run me three to twioce what I’m paying for dialup monthly on top of an up front capital outlay of about $1,000 for the dish, modem, system access fee, and installation, and that’s more than I can justify,

The hardware is Can$400, plus about Can$269 for installation - plus extra for mileage to outlying areas like where I live - guesstimate another hundred bucks or so. Then there’s a “system access fee” that appears to be somewhat elastic depending upon how long a contract you sign up for, but is nominally $Can$199.00. The monthly fee on top of all that starts at Can$59.95 for 150Kbps (which is not that great) and of course 14% Harmonized Sales Tax on the whole kit and caboodle. That’s substantially bette than the last time I priced it, but still....

Wikipedia also lists the following disadvantages of satellite Internet:

* Very high latency compared to other broadband services, especially 2-way satellite service

* Unreliable: drop-outs are common during travel, inclement weather, and during sunspot activity

* The narrow-beam highly directional antenna must be accurately pointed to the satellite orbiting overhead

* The Fair Access Policy limits heavy usage

* VPN use is discouraged, problematic, and/or restricted with satellite broadband, although available at a price

* One-way satellite service requires the use of a modem or other data uplink connection

* VoIP is not supported.

* Satellite dishes are huge. Although most of them employ plastic to reduce weight, they are typically between 80 and 120 cm (30 to 48 inches) in diameter.

The unreliability issue is a biggie for me, because I have to be online daily for my job. If I had to maintain a dialup account for backup as well as the satellite account, it sours the economics even more.

Charles

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