What were OS1-9 like?
 

Yeah, I'm one of those 'new generation' guys who didn't start using Macs until X was out (I started on 10.3.4 if I recall correctly.) And I hear a lot of people talking about how the older versions of the OS were significantly different. I know about the whole UNIX vs. older Macs thing, but what I really want to know is what functionality was different with the older Macs. I assume there was no dock, and that there was no spotlight counterpart. What else was different?

Before Mac OS X, the Mac had rather extreme difficulty multitasking, managing memory, and it was much easier to crash. If Apple had not gone with OS X, they would be dead by now.

Mac systems were called System X.X until after System 7. The next version was called Mac OS 8.

Googling found these two links you might want to check out.
http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/oshistory/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS

Mac used "Cooperative Multitasking" in System software from System 7 and up. Prior to System 6, no-one used multitasking outside of industrial machines. Systems 3 through 5 used a utility called Switch that held more than one program in memory, allowing the user to move from one program to another. System 6 introduced Multi-Finder that introduced multitasking to the desktop computer. The PC world didn't have multitasking until 1995.

Before multitasking, there was no need for memory management. The program you were running used it all! I believe Virtual Memory didn't come along until System 7.

Crashes have been a problem since the first computer. They all do it! Yea. OS X seems to do it less, but it still happens. I do miss the fun crash sounds from the first PPC computers though. :)

I doubt that since without OS X, MS would have never come up with XP's look. There are still very many people using OS 9 and prior. Of course, one could say if Apple hadn't added color in the Mac II, they would be dead now. Without innovation, they might as well be... (Hear that MS? ;))

Actually, the first "Mac OS" was 7.6.

The oldest Mac System Software found is System 0.9 found on a Introduction to the Mouse disk for the Macintosh 128. The origins come from the Lisa's SOS System. If you're interested is experiencing older Mac System software, all versions up to 7.5.3 can be downloaded from Apple and run through the vMac program that simulates a Mac 512+ (Fat Mac).

Well, it's inappropriate to compare the nature of the crashes then to now. Back before OS X, one app's crash could take out the entire system. Once an app crashed, it was a really good idea to restart the Mac, or the side effects of the crash could spread to other apps and could bring them down. If that bomb box went up, you were done. That doesn't happen in OS X. Apps can still crash, but they won't take down the OS. And Mac OS X itself simply will not crash/kernel panic, if your hardware, RAM, and drivers are solid.

As far as the pre-OS X multitasking. What I noticed and remembered from using pre-OS X for 10+ years was that one app could just take over the machine if it was programmed to multitask without being very "cooperative." Too many times I saw a progress bar go up, and it became slow to or impossible to do anything else with the machine. If you clicked on a background app, it could take a long time for it to respond...if ever. Maybe you'd get lucky and the apps you were running allowed more interruption, then you could sort of multitask like you can in OS X. In those bad old days, running multiple apps on the Mac was as dodgy it was on the Windows of the time. OS X doesn't have those problems.

We're not talking about looks here. XP kills OS 9 in terms of what it can do and how well it can do it. That's why Apple would have died if OS X had not come.

I'm not putting down OS 9. It's just that OS X is so many light years ahead, it's such a relief that we don't have to deal with the hassles of OS 9 or Windows XP.

That sounds amazing! If curiosity gets the best of me (as it often does), or I have trouble filling my workday (happened back in the 1990s), then I know exactly what to do.

Thanks for a fine, brief historical summary, LasVegas.


With best regards,
– ArcticStones

I've seen almost every system except 5.x, did it even exist? I thought 5.x was never public. I thought Apple jumped from 3 or 4 to 6 publicly.

There was no System 5.

Before System 6, the System file got its own version number and the Finder got its own, not necessarily identical/corresponding, version number.

At some point in the fairly short System 4 era, Apple began calling the combination of System (file) 4.x and Finder x.x which went with it "System TOOLS X.x" (or something like that. Maybe System SUITE. I don't remember for sure) and it was this, the System Tools (or Suite) versioning, that briefly hit 5. (The System FILE within it was 4.1, I think, or possibly 4.2)

With the dawn of System 6.0, Apple ditched that briefly-used "System TOOLS" naming convention (no one I ever met paid it a bit of attention anyhow, we still called it System 4) and instead coordinated the version numbers of System file and Finder file. (i.e., even if the Finder file didn't change at all when the System file went to 6.0.1, the Finder would be version 6.0.1 as well).

Here are some good sites describing Systems 1-6, outlining the changes and advances:

http://www.macos.utah.edu/Documentat...macintosh.html

http://www.nd.edu/~jvanderk/sysone/

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Systems 1-3 were explicitly for booting from a floppy disk. No mortal people had hard disks in their computers back then. System 1 didn't even have a Shut Down command, you'd just eject the floppy and turn off the computer. Systems 2 and 3 did, but it was really a restart command. If you did install them to a hard drive and boot them, when you tried to use the Shut Down command it would eject any floppies and restart (and reboot from your unanticipated hard disk). System 4 was the first MacOS that would truly shut down and display a message "You can now safely power off your computer".

Apple raced through systems 1.0 through 6.0 pretty quickly. System 6 was the first one that stuck around for awhile.

Yeah, I remember seeing a menu somewhere along the line that would allow us to choose between Finder and Multi-Finder. What a riot! :D

Before OS X, the Apple Menu was editable, which meant that users could put aliases of applications or folders into the "Apple Menu Items" folder and have them appear in the Apple Menu. Even though the Dock has become a large part of my workflow, I still haven't let go of that habit to reach for the Apple Menu when I want a list of Apps. (I use Fruit Menu so that I can keep encouraging old habits. :) )

There was a Control Strip that rested on the bottom of the screen, but it wasn't like the Dock where you could have Apps and Docs. It was mainly a place for "Controls" like the ones found in the old "Control Panels" (the predecessor of System Preferences). You could change the volume, screen resolution, screen colors, activate file sharing, connect to the internet, etc. It was more like the menu widgets than the Dock.

Then there was the Chooser. That alone was reason enough to switch to OS X! ;)

The Chooser was an interface to select the printer or networked computer you wished to connect to. You could only connect to one printer at a time, but the real bane was the way it handled networking computers. Both machines had to have several settings set correctly for the remote machine to appear in the Chooser. Restarting was a commonplace for the simple task of networking. I remember consistently having to restart several times hoping that each time the other computer would "show up".

Actually, the old AppleTalk was less hassle than modern AT networking. You didn't need an IP address. Two Macs connected via crossover cable would make a network with no settings changes needed. "Hi" "Hi" - network! Back in the days when we all had dialup for TCP/IP, it was easy to network several home Macs via AppleTalk on a local network.

And long after you could switch networking configurations on a Mac without restarting, doing so still required a restart on a PC. Back when Macs did, so did everything non-Mac.

Printing, though...yeah, ugh. Go to File, Print, realize the last printer chosen is the LaserWriter down the hall when you want to print to the DeskJet at your side, you had to cancel, go to Apple Menu, go to Chooser, change printers, and start over again. PITA.

And it was not easy to figure out why the Chooser was the place to go to: select a printer; access network shares; hook up to a scanner to scan in an image; WTF??? (The Chooser was actually a primitive GUI inteface for a low-level function called the "Communications Toolbox", which explains this weird multi-function selection screen for programmers, but it still remains counterintuitive to end users)

The OLD Apple Menu, from System1 to System 6, was differerent from either System 7 through OS9 or OSX. You didn't have "Apple Menu Items" in the System Folder; instead, you had, buried as a set of resources deep within the System file itself, some little items called "Disk Accessories". Fonts were stored in the System file back then, too, rather than being in the Fonts folder. To move or remove either Fonts or Disk Accessories, you used a program called Font/DA Mover. You could not manage either Fonts or Disk Accessories from the Finder, only from the screen of this tool.

In the days when many machines would only go up to 4 MB maximum physical RAM and didn't support virtual memory (and some even older ones still in use maxed out at 512 K), being able to not run MultiFinder was a very good thing. With MultiFinder turned off, the Finder itself quit whenever you launched an application, so only that application had dibs on your small pool of memory. With MultiFinder, the Finder was always running alongside any other app you launched. Folks who had '030 boxes could have 8 MB under System 6 (and a jaw-dropping 128 MB or more under System 7, plus virtual memory) but for owners of SE's, Plusses, original Mac II's, and the old boxes like the 512Ke and earlier, multitasking was nowhere near as nice a thing as one might tend to assume. Kind of like having four times as many electrical outlets in your apartment if you still have them all hooked to the same 15 amp fuse.

OH yeah! I remember the Disk Accessories! :D :D I had forgotten about so much of this stuff! I guess I was really young when I was getting into it all. My first Mac was an LC III with System 6 - in the 6th grade! I dove right in though. I remember carrying around my "modified" System Folder on a diskette! Of course by modified I mean simply a custom set of INITs (extensions). I'm trying to remember where I got all those shareware apps and Disk Accessories - without the internet and all. I must have come across some collections on disk. Remember Talking Moose? :D

In the following link you can try a "System 7.0 Simulation" on a Macintosh SE or MacPlus natural 1 Bit display. Just click on "Test Drive a Macintosh".

In the same website you can also download a "MacSystem 6" Screensaver for Mac OS X.

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One of the things that made the early versions of the Mac OS so much better than its contemporary Windoze versions was the fact that it was never 16-Bit, which limited the Windoze OS to 64KB.

In Win 3.x there was a lot of memory swapping that got you upt to 640KB, and there was a memory management program (I can't remember what is was called) that let you go over 1 MB. The Mac on the other hand, started out with 24-Bit addressing, which allowed access to 16 MB, half of which was set aside for the ROMs. Early Macs could theoretically have 8 MB of RAM.

More memory allowed Macs to do things that PCs of the time just couldn't do. Things like Fax-modems, Photoshop, and page layout programs were first developed on Macs primarily because they could handle the data and PCs couldn't, at least not without a lot of extra work on the programmers and the computers part.

Getting to 32-Bit addressing was a lot easier on the Mac too, since from the beginning Apple advised developers to write code to be 32-Bit compatible. I know my IIci in 1989 had 32-bit addressing, but I think they had it on earlier machines. In any case, Macs were at least 6 years ahead of PCs (Win 95) on that score.

http://www.amacgenius.com/archives/1...ory-of-mac-os/

A history of Mac OS through the years

Thnx, Panthermaman, that was one fine and informative article!

:)

Interesting, but I'm not so sure about the 32-bit starting with OS 7. The Macintosh II, introduced in 1987, was expandable to 68 MB of RAM and shipped with OS 4 through OS 6.0.x
That's according to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_II
I'm assuming that one of the OS versions it shipped with was able to handle more than 16 MB of memory.

The main reason I think 32-bit came before OS 7 is that I remember buying the IIci in 1989 with 8 MB and wondering if I should spend money on more. It sticks out because PC users at the time would ask "What do you do with all that memory?" when they found out how much I had! :eek:

Some of the first Macs didn't ship with 32-bit "clean" ROMs. The Mac II was advertised as a 32-bit computer, but the ROMs were "dirty". If you had a Mac II, IIx, IIcx, or SE/30 running System 7 and wanted to run it in 32-bit addressing mode, you had to use the help of Mode32 (Connectix).

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There's a difference between 32-bit computers and "32-bit Clean." All Macs, including the Mac 128 were 32-bit computers. The address bus, though, only used 24 bits, since the computer only used a 16MB memory map to access all memory & hardware. Because those additional 8 address bits were unused, many programmers took advantage of the free "register" to hold the odd byte from time to time. Even the ROM writers did it. This is what made those programs and ROMs "32-bit dirty" If a routine tried to use those bits when they were enabled for memory access, the program would find itself in never-never land. The Mac IIci was the first Mac with 32-bit clean ROMs.

On a modern OS X system, if an application freezes you can usually switch to a different app (running in a different memory space and therefore generally not affected by the condition of the hosed app) and go Command-Option-Esc and nuke the frozen app from there.

In the old days of System 9 and before, Command-Option-Escape would attempt to bring up a force-quit dialog that would apply only to the frontmost application, and, well...

a) It wouldn't always invoke. Often enough, you would not get the dialog at all.

b) It wouldn't always work. As often as not, you'd get a system crash error instead of the vaporization of the misbehaving app.

c) Sometimes it would work, but would leave your environment so FUBARed you could not navigate to your other open apps to rescue anything, and could not shut down or reboot, so would end up hard-restarting anyhow


On 68K Macs, you could invoke a low-level "mini-debugger" environment — I believe the later hardware would pop up the window when you hit Command plus the Powerkey on your ADB keyboard (not Command-Control-Powerkey, which force-restarted the frozen computer). On older hardware, you had to have installed an extra piece of plastic called the programmer's key, which gave you two external buttons on the outside of your computer that did the same thing.

The window was a very plain white rectangle with a prompt >

and for more effective recovery from a badly hosed application that's got you frozen, you could type this:

SMFA700A9F4 <return>
PCFA700 <return>
G <return>

And that would terminate the frozen application and return you to the address space corresponding to the Finder.

Even that was nowhere near as reliable as the protected-memory and process-killilng controls available under OSX of course.

You could also install a more comprehensive debugger, called MacsBug, which would give you more information about the current status of your memory heaps and whatnot.

FUNNY ANECDOTE: I once went to one of my older machines, mucked around with it for awhile, then went to install the debugger; did a Find and found I had it on the HD, but not installed, had it in a folder in my Utilities folder. Moved it to where the system would find and install it on reboot, rebooted, no debugger. Looked at the file more closely and discovered I'd just "installed" an old, long-forgotten arcade game called MacBugs instead of MacsBug!

OMG...that gave me a flash back. The only thing I'd ever type into the programming window was "g finder" that once in every two thousand times it's get me back to a functional finder.

I hated how pre-OS X you had to download a 3rd party application just to ping.

I wish I knew what pre-OS X was like...I got my iBook G4 in the days of 10.3.3, the first few weeks of August last year, If I remember.

I was actually turned onto Macs by OS 9.2, so it couldn't have been that bad.

I still want to get an older Mac ( PowerMac G4? ) just so I can boot into OS 9, to see what it was like. :)

I have an intense dislike for Fruit Menu. It just feels so....unclean

Though limited, OS6-9 were very elegant. I personally miss some of its look and features. I am using OS6 on a laptop and it boots in a jiffy. I also miss simple apps like MacroMaker.

As useless as it was, I miss the button icons feature.

I know the feeling... but a soon as Unsanity replaced that awful cyborg-ape icon with something a little more professional, and as soon as I realized that I had been using this software for over 3 years and two major OS releases without a single problem or performance drop, I let go of that "unclean" feeling. Now it just feels like home. ;)

Old OS on my Duo
 

On my office shelf, tucked between the art books, is a dark grey Duo laptop. Never had the heart to chuck it out, despite the damaged support foot on one side. Can’t remember what OS it runs, but it was really reliable. I did a lot of work on that computer, monochrome screen and all, earning my way when business was still very much touch-and-go, competing against suits in fancy offices.
Ah, fond memories...

:)