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How is mac osx the powerful OS that everyone says it is?
- Thread starter sevag1
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Re: There's some wierd info about the Apple lisa's multitasking...
The Lisa did have pre-emptive multitasking, but the Macintosh OS was written separately, not based on the Lisa (the kernel) -- so it sadly did not get pre-emption. Not sure what the logic was here, but it would've put Apple WAY ahead had pre-emptive multitasking been there in 84 when the Mac came out. It was the Amiga in 85 that brought the first consumer, pre-emptive multitasking OS w/ a GUI to the masses. But not one cared.
blakespot
NEXTSTEP obviously took the Mac into ac**** as far as user interface (though NEXTSTEP's interface is nicer than the original Mac's interface, I would argue) becuase it was the most prominent GUI around, but NEXTSTEP took nothing from Mac Finder/System as far as the kernel was concerned. There NEXTSTEP happily did its own thing with the union of Mach + BSD UNIX.
The Lisa did have pre-emptive multitasking, but the Macintosh OS was written separately, not based on the Lisa (the kernel) -- so it sadly did not get pre-emption. Not sure what the logic was here, but it would've put Apple WAY ahead had pre-emptive multitasking been there in 84 when the Mac came out. It was the Amiga in 85 that brought the first consumer, pre-emptive multitasking OS w/ a GUI to the masses. But not one cared.
blakespot
not to drift to off topic...
Maybe apple had the code lying around for years and it was too much hassle to port to PowerPC native code when CPUs got fast enough to really benefit from it.
I've spent quite a while looking at the history of OS versions on both PC and Mac, It seems almost laughable that windows took till 1990 to come up with something that was barely on a par with GEM, let alone the Mac OS. Almost every unique feature windows has over the classic mac os is ripped off from NeXTSTEP.
Maybe apple had the code lying around for years and it was too much hassle to port to PowerPC native code when CPUs got fast enough to really benefit from it.
I've spent quite a while looking at the history of OS versions on both PC and Mac, It seems almost laughable that windows took till 1990 to come up with something that was barely on a par with GEM, let alone the Mac OS. Almost every unique feature windows has over the classic mac os is ripped off from NeXTSTEP.
Re: not to drift to off topic...
blakespot
I was a beta tester of Win95 before it was released. I was running it 10 months prior to release. The first thing I noticed was the heavy influence that NEXTSTEP's interface had on the Windows 95 interface. I guess there's not much better place for MS to have ripped from though. But I definitely agree.
blakespot
UNIX
Im an enterprise UNIX admin and I can tell you ... its very powerfull. I have seen some projects/gov contracts that are currently revewing OS X as their choice OS. OS X is elegant eunuph for my home and powerfull enuph to sit in a 65F Degree, UPS controlled, genterator backedup server farm, turning out reall numbers and proformance for enterprise level work. Its secure and stable. Last time I was at a millitary site, it was refreshing to see some G4's racked in the server farm.
-evildead
Im an enterprise UNIX admin and I can tell you ... its very powerfull. I have seen some projects/gov contracts that are currently revewing OS X as their choice OS. OS X is elegant eunuph for my home and powerfull enuph to sit in a 65F Degree, UPS controlled, genterator backedup server farm, turning out reall numbers and proformance for enterprise level work. Its secure and stable. Last time I was at a millitary site, it was refreshing to see some G4's racked in the server farm.
-evildead
Looking back to 1997 to see why NeXT had a lot to offer:
http://www.macworld.com/1997/05/features/3682.html
Grafting an Apple GUI and bringing Apple's wealth of software to the OS added quite a bit.
But it was Carbon that made the transition painless.
There's not too much that really died compared to what we were told would die when we booted Copland or Rhapsody. Lucky for us Carbon was born.
http://www.macworld.com/1997/05/features/3682.html
Grafting an Apple GUI and bringing Apple's wealth of software to the OS added quite a bit.
But it was Carbon that made the transition painless.
There's not too much that really died compared to what we were told would die when we booted Copland or Rhapsody. Lucky for us Carbon was born.
Damn, I hate the fact at I dumped the pic I wanted to post! I ahd a screen shot, (just before I had to restart for the new Logitech support dealie) where my uptime was displayed as " 42 Days, 13:05" Try doing that with OS 9 
BTW - I've been using the comptuer daily, it isn't just sitting their hosting or something, (Although doing SETI is more like it )
BTW - I've been using the comptuer daily, it isn't just sitting their hosting or something, (Although doing SETI is more like it
)
Photoshop 7 is WAY WAY WAY faster in OS X than PS6 or PS7 in 9.2.2. at least on my dual Gig machine. Also its the same way on the dual 450 i have.
Stability is the biggie for me. Stability and protected memory. And REAL multi-tasking.
And the 3d blue apple logo makes it great. Glad they moved it from the center (anyone remember that???)
-m-
Glad to hear about the good experience, MoxieMike - sounds like you're getting the benefit of SMP support.
I agree that stability is important - there's more to performance than a bunch of bunchmark tests - I'm convinced that Mac users on OS X are substantially more productive than OS 9 users (and way,way ahead of most Windows users).
I agree that stability is important - there's more to performance than a bunch of bunchmark tests - I'm convinced that Mac users on OS X are substantially more productive than OS 9 users (and way,way ahead of most Windows users).
I think you may be right on that. I work in the same office with my dad, who's an architect and who works on AutoCad all day.
He'll come over watch my workflow and is amazed that I am sometimes printing, editing in PS7, arranging items in InDesign and doing type design in Illustrator, all while having IE open, Mail in the background, Adium on and iTunes playing mp3s. He's just amazed--- he can BARELY open two autocad drawings without choking his machine.
I'm on a Dual Gig, 768mb of RAM, he's on a Sony 1.3 gig Athlon (i think) with 512mb of ram.... he's just amazed.
So yea, I think that the amount of stuff you can do on a Mac makes it a infinitely more productive platform.
m
