VisorCentral.com - Days of Future Passed

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VisorCentral.com (http://discussion.visorcentral.com/vcforum/index.php)
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Posted by sowens on 07-08-2001 02:54 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by JHromadka
OS X is backwards-compatible. That's what Classic mode is for. Classic apps don't take advantage of all the good stuff though.

Hmm, isn't that kinda like saying Linux is "backward-compatible" with Windows because you can run Windows apps in Wine?

As far as the price $130 isn't bad for what you're getting: a great new GUI, a protected memory architecture, reliable Unix underpinnings, gcc, perl, bash, emacs, ... (in other words, all the GNU tools), and all kinds of available commercial apps. And if you actually pay $130, your paying way too much. I think you can get it at Staples for $100 to $110 with coupons. Check out DealCatcher.

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Posted by JHromadka on 07-08-2001 05:29 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by sowens

Hmm, isn't that kinda like saying Linux is "backward-compatible" with Windows because you can run Windows apps in Wine?

As far as the price $130 isn't bad for what you're getting: a great new GUI, a protected memory architecture, reliable Unix underpinnings, gcc, perl, bash, emacs, ... (in other words, all the GNU tools), and all kinds of available commercial apps. And if you actually pay $130, your paying way too much. I think you can get it at Staples for $100 to $110 with coupons. Check out DealCatcher.

No, WINE has problems because MS hasn't documented all the API calls for Windows. I'm sure Apple shared its code with itself.

Any OS9 app that doesn't make hardware calls should work in OS X. The classic apps that I ran worked fine after OS9 loaded.

I got OS X for $99. I still see deals for it everywhere, and yes it is worth the money.

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Posted by homer on 07-08-2001 06:55 PM:

quote:
Hmm, isn't that kinda like saying Linux is "backward-compatible" with Windows because you can run Windows apps in Wine?

Not entirely. OS9 is emulated on OSX, but it is done at a very low level, so it works pretty much seamlessly.

At least in theory.

There are some OS9 apps that just don't get along with my OSX, namely Macromedia products.

Of course, they'll eventually get their apps upgraded to OSX, and then I'll be happy.

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Posted by sowens on 07-08-2001 07:49 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by homer

Not entirely. OS9 is emulated on OSX, but it is done at a very low level, so it works pretty much seamlessly.

This was my point: it's emulated. This is different from backward-compatible where the new OS continues to support the same API as the previous release.

Most *nix systems are backward compatible (with the API's remaining essentially the same since the early 80's). Windows attempts to be backward compatible, but it only seems to work if the application only uses the published API's (which, of course, apps rarely do for functionality and performance reasons).

OSX supports classic apps by running a complete OS9 system within it's own memory segment. It then maps the OS9 low level calls into those of OSX (at least this is the way that Apple has always described it. If that wasn't the case, why require a complete installation of OS9 in order to get Classic mode to work?)

WINE is emulation via a set of libraries. They try to recreate the Window's API's by doing whatever is needed to map to the appropriate Linux and X11 calls.

Obviously this is a major oversimplification of what's going on, and I don't want to put too fine an edge on this, but I think we need to be careful of the terminology so that others don't get the wrong idea.

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Posted by JHromadka on 07-09-2001 01:30 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by homer
Not entirely. OS9 is emulated on OSX, but it is done at a very low level, so it works pretty much seamlessly.

I wouldn't say it's emulation. If you don't install OS9 before installing OS X, you get no classic mode. There are still separate System and Applications folders for OS9. When running a Classic app, OS9 completely boots (extensions and all) then the app starts.

It's not completely seamless yet it's not emulation. More of a mish-mash of the two.

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