512 Pixels

In October 1999, Apple released OS 9.0, heralding it as “The Best Internet Operating System Ever.”

With Sherlock 2, Internet Explorer 5 for the Mac, iTools, improved TCP/IP, and more, OS 9 connected Mac users to the Web in a way that no OS had ever done before.

With all these features, OS 9 was still very closely tied to the previous revisions of the Mac OS, and thus, was riddled with bugs and legacy code. The dreaded bomb error, for example, endeared users to the OS for years. With no memory protection, application crashes would very often bring down the entire system. Fun stuff.

With OS X’s rocky release in 2001, many people clung to OS 9 machines until the release of 10.2 in August 2002. Apple recognized this, and offered “ Classic,” which allowed OS 9 apps to run in OS X. As applications were re-written for OS X, users slowly migrated

Six years later, OS X has evolved into a stable, mature OS with more and more users each year switching from the PC. Three things have forced the Macintosh community away from OS 9 in recent years:

1. Boot Sequences on Macs: At first, Macs shipping with OS X and OS 9 booted into 9, but gradually, OS X came as default. Eventually Macs would not boot into 9 at all. The 867Mhz/1Ghz Titanium PowerBooks and 867Mhz/1Ghz “Mirror Drive Door” PowerMac G4s were the last machines that could boot into 9. Classic, however, was powerful enough for most users to get by with their remaining OS 9 apps.

2. The Move to Intel: When Apple announced they were moving from the PowerPC architecture to the Intel, it meant many things: Faster Macs that ran cooler, the ability to run other x86 OS’s, and the death of Classic.

3. Leopard: With the release of OS X Leopard, Apple removed support for the Classic environment for PowerPC users, sealing OS 9’s tomb.

The only way ¹ to run OS 9 these days is on older hardware. I have it up and running on my 400Mhz/512MB RAM PowerBook “Pismo” G3. While it’s fast, it’s hard to use in 2008. The best two browsers, iCab and Mozilla Suite 1.x can barely keep up with modern websites (another problem is that older hardware can’t render JavaScript as quickly as most sites need). iDisk access can be found with Goliath. Office runs well, as does AppleWorks.

OS 9 is pretty much only useful for two groups of people: hobbyists and people with few computing needs. Other than that, OS 9 is dead. Steve even buried it.

Remember the woman on Ted Steven’s jury who was dismissed because her father died?

A juror who vanished during Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens’ corruption trial told the judge Monday she lied about her father dying and flew to California to see horse races.

She apologized for lying, and then started a long rambling story about horses, which included references to horse breeding, the Breeders’ Cup, drugs, President Ford’s son Steven and her condo in Florida being bugged.

Damn. ( Source.)

FakeSarahPalin is calling it quits after Obama’s victory:

It has been fun making you laugh through this election. If you’ve laughed at us and found us funny, do us (and America) a favor: spend the next four years working to make America better. Heed Obama’s call for service. We rarely have opportunities like this, so– let’s take advantage of it.

Check out this 16 page thread over at Apple’s Discussion Boards. This is the longest thread I’ve ever seen there. Seems that people do miss it. Who knew?

MobileFiles ( iTunes link) is the first application (that I’ve seen) that allows MobileMe users access their iDisk from their iPhone/iPod Touch.

After briefly testing it tonight over EDGE (hey, we have a kid now), I have to say, I’m impressed. And it’s free, but that MobileMe membership is still $99/year.

Engadget posted a story today about Circuit City possibly closing 155 stores. From seeing ours, that would not be a bad idea. In their post, they quote an employee who sent in a tip:

“I’m an employee @ Circuit City and today there was a mandatory store meeting for the holiday season and to welcome all the seasonal employees. There was also some tension as rumors were rampant the days before that we were all going to find out we were out of a job today. Luckily, but still somehow unfortunately, I’m still an employee of Circuit City. The same can’t be said for the employees of the 155 stores that are closing, possibly even before black Friday…”

That bold sentence cracked me up.

Be forewarned, the Retro-Mac-Geek factor on these links is high:

Macintosh: System Software Version History The Early Mac OS

Just a reminder for everyone to vote on Tuesday. If you live in Shelby County, be sure to look at the Election Comission’s Web site for information on where to vote and what you need to bring.

I’ve never been a fan of e-books or electronic readers. But with the launch of the Amazon Kindle last year, the electronic book has never been more popular.

With the advent of the App Store for iPhone (and iPod Touch) users, I figured it would only be a matter of time before an e-book reader application was available. Today on Ars Technica, the applicaion Classic ( iTunes Link) was discussed:

“…as if Classics literally stuffed a paperback just below the iPhone’s 3.5-inch glass display, and its pages were somehow responding to the capacitive feedback from my finger… they (the program’s customer interface elements) come the closest to recreating the familiar analog experience of flipping through a real book in a digital age, and the simple act of swiping a finger to turn a page feels comforting and natural in both new and old contexts.”

I fear for my almost-born child.

CNET has posted some comments on their MacBook/MacBook Pro reviews:

“No FireWire – No Thanks.” “The loss of FireWire is a deal killer for anyone wanting to edit video or audio or anyone needing to use Target Disk mode.” “Even glossier display than before.” “No FireWire. Bad move. Bottom line.” “Due to the glass reflections it has to be at maximum brightness all the time to over-power the glare.” “The new glassy screen is a glare nightmare.” “Like everything, except lack of FireWire and glossy screen.” “Glossy screen with sometimes annoying glare.” “The highly reflective glass screen is a deal breaker.” “They look and feel great…except for the glossy screen”

I concur.

The Times’ John Markoff:

That would seem to confirm findings that a search engine company shared with me on condition that I not reveal its name: The company spotted Web visits from an unannounced Apple product with a display somewhere between an iPhone and a MacBook. Is it the iPhone 3.0 or the NetMac 1.0?

You can surf the web with a Newton. But still.

I love Macs. I make my living working on, around, and with them. I use a late-model iMac at home as my main machine, and even though I have a MacBook from work, my main laptop is the Asus Eee PC. It’s portable (8.9 inches across), runs Ubuntu, and is very handy to take places, especially if I ride my bike.

But I would drop it in a heartbeat if Apple released a netbook.

There are two things required of netbooks:

- Cheap. We’re talking $400-$600.

• Small. Under 10 inches across. (9 inches is about perfect… no “that’s what she said” comments, please)

Apple has yet to hit that first target. Twice has Apple offered a laptop for $999- the iBook G4, and the current white plastic MacBook.

They almost hit the first target with the PowerBook Duo, a tiny (expensive) laptop the company offered in the early 1990s. The machine, while underpowered, could be used in conjunction with the “Duo Dock,” that took the little laptop that could and morphed it into a full-blown desktop machine complete with a CRT, additional power and storage space.

Just about perfect, you say? Many thought so, but the company discontinued the line in 1997.

With the explosion of netbooks on the market now, many have asked if Apple would join Asus, HP, and others in the realm of little laptops. During a recent event where he released updated notebooks, Steve Jobs was asked “ Are we going to see a netbook?”

The answer: “In terms of netbooks, that’s a nascent market… that’s just getting started.”

That’s like your parents telling you “may” get a pony at Christmas. It ain’t happening.

But people are still asking. On today’s Q4 call (where they announced $1.14 Billion profit), the question came again.

“Can you comment about the pricing of the Mac line? And thoughts about netbooks?”

Steve Jobs replied:

“This particular downturn is not creating a market of cheaper computers. That market has existed. There are parts of that market we choose not to play in. We choose to be in certain segments of the market, and choose not to be in certain segments. Will the downturn drive customers to different cheaper products? I’d be surprised if that happened in large numbers. I think there are a tremendous number of customers that we don’t have that… can afford to buy Apple products. We’ll see what the ratio of those two are, but we’re not tremendously worried. The netbook: not a lot of them getting sold, one of our entrants into that category is the iPhone. Browsing, connectivity, etc… the iPhone is a pretty good solution to that. We’ll see how the netbook evolves, and we have some pretty interesting ideas if it does evolve.

Apple views the iPhone as an ”entrant" into the netbook realm. I can’t argue with that, as I use my Eee and my iPhone for very similar tasks.

So maybe Apple already has a netbook. It just makes calls, too. But I bet we see another little Apple laptop before the end of the decade.

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**And no, the MacBook Air is not an ultra-portable. It’s really thin, but has the same footprint as the MacBook. And it is $1799.