Tuesday
Sep082009
The End of the Mac As We Know It (Reflections Upon Snow Leopard)
Tuesday, September 8, 2009 at 5:38PM
This blog entry was originally posted on September 8, 2009, on the original This Lamp website and has been moved to this location.
You realize, of course, that with the advent of Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6), the Mac is dead.
Bear with me.
I left Windows for good in 1998. I was promised by other Mac users that I was entering a computing nirvana. I was told that Macs never crashed and life would be so much more productive once I made the switch. Well, there was mixed truth in that. I do believe I was more productive--not because Macs never crashed, though. Rather they simply crashed less than Windows machines did.
But Macs had problems of their own. Memory management on the Mac was a mess, in my opinion, in 1998. The Mac OS at that time still used cooperative multitasking, something that Windows had already graduated from by then. And programs on the old Mac OS had set limits from RAM. So, if a program regularly crashed or ran out of memory, you could go into the properties for that program and set the memory to a higher limit. The problem, however, was that once that higher limit was set, the program would use that much memory even when it didn't need it. I heard longtime Mac users talk about this ability to control a program's upper limit of memory as a feature of the Mac OS. You couldn't do that in Windows, after all! But really, in Windows, you didn't need to. I wondered why the Mac OS wasn't smart enough to adjust its own memory.
Nevertheless, I stuck with the Mac, and I've never looked back. I don't stay simply because I'm heavily invested in Mac software (and hardware) at this point. I was heavily invested in Windows software (and hardware) in 1998. I really do believe I'm more productive on a Mac. In fact, I have this little daydream that if I could go back in time, knowing what I know now, and do things over with, I'd have simply used Macs from the beginning. At what point could this have become a reality?
During my freshman year in college, I had a professor warn us during orientation not to use computers for our papers. He said that he and a number of other instructors simply would not accept computer typed papers because they were too hard to read. Those nine-pin dot matrix printers really were too light, you know. So in spite of the fact that I'd been using a computer (a TRS-80 Color Computer) at home since I was 14, and in spite of the fact that I had taken the first computer class my high school ever offered, when I had completed my first quarter in college, I asked my folks to get me a typewriter for Christmas. Sounds pretty lame now.
But hey, it was a great typewriter. A Smith-Corona with spellcheck. Whenever I misspelled a word, the computer beeped alerting me to my error. Then I was able to back up, slip a piece of white correction film between the keys and the paper, retype the misspelled word and then type the correct one. How convenient! Not really.
So, what if for Christmas, 1986, instead of asking for a typewriter, I had simply asked for a Mac Plus? Our campus bookstore carried them at the time. And back then Apple gave significant student discounts. That would have definitely been a game changer.
Or what about 1991? I was about to go off to seminary, and my stepfather informed me that a friend of his said every seminary student needed a good computer. He asked me what kind of computer I wanted. I settled on a 20 MHz CompuAdd 386sx running DOS and Windows 3.0. We bought a copy ofWordPerfect 5.1 for DOS so that I'd be ready for school.
But what if I'd asked for a Macintosh II or a Macintosh LC? Again, it would have been a game changer. To this day, I still have files nearly two decades old that I have to go through all kinds of hoops if I need to open them. Most of them, I don't really need to open, but I'd like to be able just in case. Or occasionally, I become determined to try to update them, but really, who has the time?
Yet, as I entertain my little daydream now and then, I realized one day that there's very little continuity between the Macs of the eighties and nineties and the computers called Macs today. You see, none of use running current computers called MacBooks, MacBook Pros, iMacs and Mac Pros are really using Macs in the original sense of the word. Actually, we using NeXT machines with the label "Mac" on them.
Consider the following quick timeline:
1984: Apple releases the first Macintosh computer using the Motorola 68000 microprocessor.
1985: John Sculley removes Steve Jobs from the Macintosh division which prompts Jobs to leave Apple and form NeXT, Inc.
1989: NeXT releases its first workstation using the NeXTSTEP operating system and a Motorola 68030 processor.
1993: NeXT gets out of the hardware business and NeXTSTEP is ported to Intel's 486 processor as well as RISC and SPARC platforms.
1994: Apple transitions to the RISC PowerPC architecture.
1996: Apple buys NeXT and with it the NeXT OS, now called OpenSTEP.
1997: Steve Jobs regains control of Apple.
2000: OpenSTEP, now renamed "Mac OS X" is released to Mac users as a public beta.
2001: Mac OS X 1.0 is released. Older "Classic" Mac applications can be converted to run on OS X's Carbon layer.
2002: Apple official declares end of development for Mac OS 9 ("Classic").
2006: Apple discontinues use of PowerPC architecture in favor of Intel processors.
2007: Apple releases Mac OS X 10.5 ("Leopard") which does not allow any older Mac software to run in "Classic" mode, even on computers on which it previously ran.
2009: Apple releases Mac OS X 10.6 ("Snow Leopard"), the first version of OS X which will only run on Intel architecture, thus ending any upgrade path for PowerPC architecture.
What this means, my friends, is that none of us using current "Mac" (quotation marks on purpose) computers and software are actually using Macs at all. Actually, we're running NeXTSTEP machines that have simply been labeled as Macs. The transition didn't come all at once. It started with the move from OS 9 to OS X. Then we saw a transition away from PowerPC processors (which Apple claimed for years were superior to Intel processors). And now we see NeXTSTEP, I mean OS X, running only on Intel processors.
So, let's go back to my little daydream. If I had it to do over, what is actually the actual straight path to current Macs? Is it the actual Macintosh line beginning in 1984 or is it actually the NeXT platform launched in 1989? From the perspective of the current OS and perhaps even the processor architecture, and if one considers the evolution of NeXT itself, it's the latter.
This isn't a recent revelation for me. Rather, I first pondered it while watching the documentary Macheads. As I watched people obsess over "Mac culture" and old Mac computers, I thought to myself, that entire platform exists no longer. We're all running NeXT machines.
However, I don't really wish I'd bought a NeXT machine back in the late eighties or early nineties (not that I could have afforded it!). If you look at something as basic as a word processing application, I don't know of any word processors written for NeXT that are still around. There was a version of WordPerfect available for NeXT, but WordPerfect doesn't even exist on the Mac anymore as it once did. No, in my daydream, If I had it to do over with, I'd still get a Mac instead of the Windows machine that I actually began with. Ultimately because Apple (under Jobs' guidance) transitioned Mac users so efficiently from the classic Mac platform to what was once called NeXT OpenSTEP and now OS X, most of us were never even overly aware it was happening.
Ultimately, I don't care if it's a Mac or a NeXT machine that's being called a Mac. I'd rather be here than stuck in Windows (no offense to those of you still there).
And there's some irony here as well. In the end Jobs got the ultimate revenge. He got ousted from his company, so he started a new one. His old company buys the new one and then his new one takes over, ridding itself of all vestiges of the original buyer. And with the release of Snow Leopard, all of what was once the original Mac is now gone--Classic OS, PowerPC architecture and the rest.
Thus, it's the end of the Mac as we know it.
...and I feel fine.
You realize, of course, that with the advent of Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6), the Mac is dead.Bear with me.
I left Windows for good in 1998. I was promised by other Mac users that I was entering a computing nirvana. I was told that Macs never crashed and life would be so much more productive once I made the switch. Well, there was mixed truth in that. I do believe I was more productive--not because Macs never crashed, though. Rather they simply crashed less than Windows machines did.
But Macs had problems of their own. Memory management on the Mac was a mess, in my opinion, in 1998. The Mac OS at that time still used cooperative multitasking, something that Windows had already graduated from by then. And programs on the old Mac OS had set limits from RAM. So, if a program regularly crashed or ran out of memory, you could go into the properties for that program and set the memory to a higher limit. The problem, however, was that once that higher limit was set, the program would use that much memory even when it didn't need it. I heard longtime Mac users talk about this ability to control a program's upper limit of memory as a feature of the Mac OS. You couldn't do that in Windows, after all! But really, in Windows, you didn't need to. I wondered why the Mac OS wasn't smart enough to adjust its own memory.
Nevertheless, I stuck with the Mac, and I've never looked back. I don't stay simply because I'm heavily invested in Mac software (and hardware) at this point. I was heavily invested in Windows software (and hardware) in 1998. I really do believe I'm more productive on a Mac. In fact, I have this little daydream that if I could go back in time, knowing what I know now, and do things over with, I'd have simply used Macs from the beginning. At what point could this have become a reality?
During my freshman year in college, I had a professor warn us during orientation not to use computers for our papers. He said that he and a number of other instructors simply would not accept computer typed papers because they were too hard to read. Those nine-pin dot matrix printers really were too light, you know. So in spite of the fact that I'd been using a computer (a TRS-80 Color Computer) at home since I was 14, and in spite of the fact that I had taken the first computer class my high school ever offered, when I had completed my first quarter in college, I asked my folks to get me a typewriter for Christmas. Sounds pretty lame now.
But hey, it was a great typewriter. A Smith-Corona with spellcheck. Whenever I misspelled a word, the computer beeped alerting me to my error. Then I was able to back up, slip a piece of white correction film between the keys and the paper, retype the misspelled word and then type the correct one. How convenient! Not really.
So, what if for Christmas, 1986, instead of asking for a typewriter, I had simply asked for a Mac Plus? Our campus bookstore carried them at the time. And back then Apple gave significant student discounts. That would have definitely been a game changer.
Or what about 1991? I was about to go off to seminary, and my stepfather informed me that a friend of his said every seminary student needed a good computer. He asked me what kind of computer I wanted. I settled on a 20 MHz CompuAdd 386sx running DOS and Windows 3.0. We bought a copy ofWordPerfect 5.1 for DOS so that I'd be ready for school.
But what if I'd asked for a Macintosh II or a Macintosh LC? Again, it would have been a game changer. To this day, I still have files nearly two decades old that I have to go through all kinds of hoops if I need to open them. Most of them, I don't really need to open, but I'd like to be able just in case. Or occasionally, I become determined to try to update them, but really, who has the time?
Yet, as I entertain my little daydream now and then, I realized one day that there's very little continuity between the Macs of the eighties and nineties and the computers called Macs today. You see, none of use running current computers called MacBooks, MacBook Pros, iMacs and Mac Pros are really using Macs in the original sense of the word. Actually, we using NeXT machines with the label "Mac" on them.
Consider the following quick timeline:
1984: Apple releases the first Macintosh computer using the Motorola 68000 microprocessor.
1985: John Sculley removes Steve Jobs from the Macintosh division which prompts Jobs to leave Apple and form NeXT, Inc.
1989: NeXT releases its first workstation using the NeXTSTEP operating system and a Motorola 68030 processor.
1993: NeXT gets out of the hardware business and NeXTSTEP is ported to Intel's 486 processor as well as RISC and SPARC platforms.
1994: Apple transitions to the RISC PowerPC architecture.
1996: Apple buys NeXT and with it the NeXT OS, now called OpenSTEP.
1997: Steve Jobs regains control of Apple.
2000: OpenSTEP, now renamed "Mac OS X" is released to Mac users as a public beta.
2001: Mac OS X 1.0 is released. Older "Classic" Mac applications can be converted to run on OS X's Carbon layer.
2002: Apple official declares end of development for Mac OS 9 ("Classic").
2006: Apple discontinues use of PowerPC architecture in favor of Intel processors.
2007: Apple releases Mac OS X 10.5 ("Leopard") which does not allow any older Mac software to run in "Classic" mode, even on computers on which it previously ran.
2009: Apple releases Mac OS X 10.6 ("Snow Leopard"), the first version of OS X which will only run on Intel architecture, thus ending any upgrade path for PowerPC architecture.
What this means, my friends, is that none of us using current "Mac" (quotation marks on purpose) computers and software are actually using Macs at all. Actually, we're running NeXTSTEP machines that have simply been labeled as Macs. The transition didn't come all at once. It started with the move from OS 9 to OS X. Then we saw a transition away from PowerPC processors (which Apple claimed for years were superior to Intel processors). And now we see NeXTSTEP, I mean OS X, running only on Intel processors.
So, let's go back to my little daydream. If I had it to do over, what is actually the actual straight path to current Macs? Is it the actual Macintosh line beginning in 1984 or is it actually the NeXT platform launched in 1989? From the perspective of the current OS and perhaps even the processor architecture, and if one considers the evolution of NeXT itself, it's the latter.
This isn't a recent revelation for me. Rather, I first pondered it while watching the documentary Macheads. As I watched people obsess over "Mac culture" and old Mac computers, I thought to myself, that entire platform exists no longer. We're all running NeXT machines.
However, I don't really wish I'd bought a NeXT machine back in the late eighties or early nineties (not that I could have afforded it!). If you look at something as basic as a word processing application, I don't know of any word processors written for NeXT that are still around. There was a version of WordPerfect available for NeXT, but WordPerfect doesn't even exist on the Mac anymore as it once did. No, in my daydream, If I had it to do over with, I'd still get a Mac instead of the Windows machine that I actually began with. Ultimately because Apple (under Jobs' guidance) transitioned Mac users so efficiently from the classic Mac platform to what was once called NeXT OpenSTEP and now OS X, most of us were never even overly aware it was happening.
Ultimately, I don't care if it's a Mac or a NeXT machine that's being called a Mac. I'd rather be here than stuck in Windows (no offense to those of you still there).
And there's some irony here as well. In the end Jobs got the ultimate revenge. He got ousted from his company, so he started a new one. His old company buys the new one and then his new one takes over, ridding itself of all vestiges of the original buyer. And with the release of Snow Leopard, all of what was once the original Mac is now gone--Classic OS, PowerPC architecture and the rest.
Thus, it's the end of the Mac as we know it.
...and I feel fine.
Reader Comments (1)
Below are the comments from the original post on the earlier This Lamp website. Please continue any further discussion here.
Guest
crap
November 24, 2009, 8:12:52 PM EST – Like – Reply
R. Mansfield
Brian, all I can tell you is that from my experience, the Mac OS previous to OS X was still more stable than the contemporary version of Windows at the the time. Nevertheless, I'm very glad the change was made to OS X.
September 23, 2009, 10:46:09 AM EDT – Like – Reply
Brian
this may make some mac lovers mad, but mac was garbage before they started using a *nix core (freebsd actually)
however, now that we have OS X, that is the very thing I love about it, we have a nice gui on top of a *nix core which = solid and stable
using a mac allows me to feel at home on the CLI and still use some well designed gui apps
I still have to run quite a few windows apps, but I just run them in vmware
September 23, 2009, 3:27:45 AM EDT – Like – Reply
R. Mansfield
Well, fortunately, I don't want to be a purist. I was merely writing the post in fun, pointing out that the "Macs" of today are very different than the ones in the past. A lot of people have responded here with much more seriousness than I had when I wrote the post.
September 11, 2009, 1:34:06 PM EDT – Like – Reply
Ed H
As others have said, it all depends on what your definition of "Mac" is.
One could argue that the moment Apple switched to Intel (or to Leopard, for PPCs,) "The Mac" died, because the last vestiges of Classic died at that time.
The fact that Snow Leopard only runs on Intel doesn't mean squat as far as Classic is concerned. And if your definition of "The Mac" is something that can run classic apps, then it died in 2007. (Note: I'm running Tiger on a high-end PPC, and it can still run MacWrite 1.1 via Classic.)
But, my definition of "Mac" is a little more flexible. The current NeXT-derived OS on Intel hardware is very much a "Mac".
If you *REALLY* want to be a purist, then the Mac died at one of two points:
When the PowerBook 190 was discontinued, marking the last of the 68k-series processors.
When System 7 was released, as it was the first from-the-ground-up rewrite of the Mac OS. System 7 was different enough from System 6 and earlier that it is a perfectly valid cutoff for saying "The Mac died."
By 1998, when you switched, "The Mac" was completely different than when I started using them in 1986. 1998 marked the year that Mac OS 8.1 was released, the last version to run on a 68k-series processor. 1998 marked the release of the iMac, which did away with all of Apple's custom and unusual connectors (ADB, mini-DIN RS-422 serial, SCSI, etc.) 1998 was a major turning point, involving many decisions that inexorably lead to your "The End of the Mac As We Know It".
September 11, 2009, 12:44:46 PM EDT – Like – Reply
Ken Steele
I just realized that as I think back, the first computers I remember in school were Apple II's or IIe's and we did graphic programming on them in 7th and 8th grade (1981-82).
Went to High school and it was on to IBM's but a friend had a Mac 128K. It was "cool" I thought.
Drank the Kool aid though and got a PC for Seminary, but Rick and Jason kept trying to get me to jump ship.
I even remember their excitement over OS X at a reunion in 2001.
My church bought our first intel iMac in March 06 and i've been hooked ever since.
September 9, 2009, 10:45:15 AM EDT – Like – Reply
Jerry of Norway
Thanks for an interesting article! Even though most of this is well known for the regular machead, you do a great job of putting it all in perspective.
However, I have to agree with George (who has actually managed to post his comment at exactly 09:09 09.09.09 - congrats!).
The things you point out - that the Mac is not running PPC anymore, OS X is built on NextStep, and so on - do not eventually matter for the user, the way I see it. Regular users do not care which processor their computer is running, as long as it works well enough to suit their needs. And after all, isn't it the user the Mac, or any computer or product, for that matter, is created for?
And if the Mac we are using today acts if, and feels like, it is the Mac as we have known it for the last twenty years - only evolved, of course - then isn't that exactly what it is - the Mac as we know it?
Don't know if I managed to quite explain myself well enough here, but the point is that I think it's a fascinating question: What is it that makes the definition of any given thing: the way it is perceived and the experience it provides or the way its inner workings are structured?
Sorry to get all philosophical here!
September 9, 2009, 10:18:20 AM EDT – Like – Reply
STL
Whatever we're using I love it
September 9, 2009, 9:42:25 AM EDT – Like – Reply
Jay Davis
I watched this movie via Netflix and thought it was interesting:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1247703/
Also: I switched to Macs and have only one real problem - and that is on the software side - I can't get inotes or Accesswebmail (lotus notes) to work well. It is my work email. Sometimes I need to go to windows or my blackberry to email via Lotus.
But besides that - I like Mac.
Jay
September 9, 2009, 9:24:08 AM EDT – Like – Reply
sclough
Just to play the devil's advocate, I would ask, what exactly is a Mac? It's an elegant, easy to use interface combined with a custom, integrated hardware design. Sure Apple has switched to Intel chips, which was a good move, and the underpinnings are now Next/UNIX, also a good move as Apple desperately needed a new foundation for their OS at the time.
We still have Apple designed and integrated hardware and a fabulous UI on top of all of it. To boot, it's all delivered by one of Apple's original leaders. I'd argue it's not less than a Mac, but the Mac has become something more than it was with advanced UNIX underpinnings and first access to what is arguably the latest chips for personal computing. In the end though we're both content, so it's all good.
September 9, 2009, 9:11:32 AM EDT – Like – Reply
George
This is really well known history that's been repeated many times. I think you miss the point. A Mac is about interaction with the computer - the user experience. Apple has also borrowed heavily from (and contributed to) open source. Should we call a Mac an open source machine? The Mac user experience has always evolved, generally for the better. To say that it's the end of being a Mac as it isn't "pure" or has other roots than the original OS is silly.
September 9, 2009, 9:04:48 AM EDT – Like – Reply
Wiley
It's actually more accurate to say that today we are using a sort of Frankenstein-monster mix of UNIX, Mac and NeXT.
To be sure, for some of the die-hard-heads of yore, there isn't enough classic Mac OS (Really, all versions of System 7 with all those extensions) in Mac OS X. But one can't ignore all that *is* there. Many of the keyboard commands, for example, owe their legacy to the Mac. (Snow Leopard even re-introduces the old cmd-y "put away" command.) Applescript is another example, and really, there are many others.
But there is another point to made, and it's philosophical one. A Mac is really what you think it is. The original Macintosh envisioned by Jef Raskin wasn't what Apple eventually shipped.
Many ideas were considered, but one remained: the Mac is supposed to be an easy-to-use computer. Something you can just turn on and work with.
September 9, 2009, 9:02:00 AM EDT – Like – Reply
Jon
PowerPC chips were better. The only reason Apple changed was because IBM got slack and Intel produced a vastly better "Pentium" chip.
This was actually Pentium by name only as it was a complete redesign using a new chip process.
September 9, 2009, 8:25:15 AM EDT – Like – Reply
pmcd
Interesting article. I migrated to the NeXT after the Mac IIci and System 7 made it clear that the Mac was hobbled by its operating system. AUX was nice but The NeXT Cube had everything academic users needed. It was a dream come true for those of us fortunate enough to get one. I only returned to the Mac after NeXT took over Apple, ( ) so to speak. Of course there are word processing apps still around from the NeXT. TextEdit is a simple example but for a more sophisticated page layout program there is Create from Stone Design (available for OSX of course).
Anyway, great article. The Mac culture was able to transform NeXTSTep into the wonderful environment which is OSX in which both Mac and NeXT users feel at home. I still feel I've gone through a nature evolution Mac OS--> NeXTSTep-->OpenStep(Intel/PPC)--->OSX (PPC)-->OSX (Intel) and you seem to be equally comfortable with that transition. This says a lot about what the Apple and NeXT developers have accomplished.
September 9, 2009, 3:01:57 AM EDT – Like – Reply
ibobunot
Halfway through this I was afraid you were gonna start waxing nostalgic about moof the dogcow.
September 9, 2009, 12:04:14 AM EDT – Like – Reply
R. Mansfield
Dave, this is true. With Rosetta, I suppose you could say that the Mac as we knew it is on life support with a terminal condition. I suspect that Rosetta will not be a part of OS X forever. Apple allows these technologies for transitions but not as permanent abilities. Otherwise, we'd still be able to run Classic apps, too.
September 8, 2009, 10:51:01 PM EDT – Like – Reply
Dave
Or you can do the optional install of Rosetta and stretch it out a wee bit more.
September 8, 2009, 9:59:24 PM EDT – Like – Reply
Mike Aubrey
wow, that is absolutely fascinating. Thanks for this bit of history, Rick!
September 8, 2009, 8:52:33 PM EDT – Like – Reply