11 Jun
2012
11 Jun
'12
10:53 a.m.
Marklar was, of course, the Intel version of OS X which existed in Apple's
skunkworks after the apparent demise of Star Trek (classic OS on x86). I say
apparent, because this post, allegedly written by the wife of the chief
engineer, implies that Marklar rose from the ashes of Star Trek due to this
guy's efforts.
http://www.quora.com/Apple-Inc-2/How-does-Apple-keep-secrets-so-well/answer…
Not sure how true it is; perhaps Al Kossow knows.
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------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
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-- Experience only makes you more interesting and marketable. -- Judy Blackburn
11 Jun
11 Jun
11:05 a.m.
On Mon, Jun 11, 2012 at 10:53 AM, Cameron Kaiser <spectre at floodgap.com>wrote:
Marklar was, of course, the Intel version of OS X
which existed in Apple's
skunkworks after the apparent demise of Star Trek (classic OS on x86). I
say
apparent, because this post, allegedly written by the wife of the chief
engineer, implies that Marklar rose from the ashes of Star Trek due to this
guy's efforts.
http://www.quora.com/Apple-Inc-2/How-does-Apple-keep-secrets-so-well/answer…
Not sure how true it is; perhaps Al Kossow knows.
I love the South Park reference, but I'm wondering why they kept NetInfo
around for so many years and only recently ditched it.
11:53 a.m.
On 11 Jun 2012, at 16:13, Jonathan Katz <jon at jonworld.com> wrote:
I love the South Park reference, but I'm wondering
why they kept NetInfo
around for so many years and only recently ditched it.
That was inheritance from NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP and you're right, it
didn't really disappear until 10.4 or 10.5 IIRC. It was ugly, it was
even worse in OPENSTEP!
--
Mark Benson
http://markbenson.org/blog
http://twitter.com/MDBenson
12:35 p.m.
On Jun 11, 2012, at 11:53, Mark Benson <md.benson at gmail.com> wrote:
On 11 Jun 2012, at 16:13, Jonathan Katz <jon at
jonworld.com> wrote:
As has been discussed somewhat recently on this list, I recall that the end of NetInfo
coincided with the departure of Tevanian. Draw your own conclusions.
The only way I could ever think to describe NetInfo to outsiders was, "Think of
Windows' registry, but worse."
- Dave
I love the South Park reference, but I'm
wondering why they kept NetInfo
around for so many years and only recently ditched it.
That was inheritance from NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP and you're right, it
didn't really disappear until 10.4 or 10.5 IIRC. It was ugly, it was
even worse in OPENSTEP! 
8:42 p.m.
On 06/11/2012 12:35 PM, David Riley wrote:
As has been discussed somewhat recently on this list, I recall that the end of NetInfo
coincided with the departure of Tevanian. Draw your own conclusions.
He was always its most outspoken proponent, in everything I ever saw
in the technical media.
Actually, I think he was its ONLY proponent. I hated it from the
NeXTSTEP days; it was a terrible idea then too.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
I love the South Park reference, but I'm wondering
why they kept NetInfo
around for so many years and only recently ditched it.
That was inheritance from NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP and you're right, it
didn't really disappear until 10.4 or 10.5 IIRC. It was ugly, it was
even worse in OPENSTEP! 
11:38 a.m.
On 6/11/12 7:53 AM, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
http://www.quora.com/Apple-Inc-2/How-does-Apple-keep-secrets-so-well/answer…
Not sure how true it is; perhaps Al Kossow knows.
It's real. Could someone make this up? Though it really was not that important for
another
couple of years until there was no portable roadmap for G5 from IBM. Nice to see some
oldtimers
posting some comments there.
What it doesn't go into is all the bad blood between the NeXT, A/UX, and Classic OS
groups (JK and
Sokol were long time Apple Unix guys).
When things got bad in the late 90's, a lot of good people lost their jobs because
they couldn't
find a place to go when their groups were disbanded. The thing you figured out at Apple
early is
if you were going to survive, you had to be looking for your next gig inside the company.
Some
times groups got to stay together to do the next generation of product, sometimes not. The
thing
that was destroyed when Steve came back was the ability to network to do this because of
all the
secrecy. It has gotten a LOT worse since I left. Franky, I pity the people there now. It
is not
a nice place to work and is not somewhere I would ever consider going back to.
12:26 p.m.
What it doesn't go into is all the bad blood
between the NeXT, A/UX, and
Classic OS groups (JK and Sokol were long time Apple Unix guys).
I shudder to ask the history. I know A/UX didn't make it into the PPC era,
but was an internecine dispute to blame, or just unwillingness to invest the
engineering time?
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-- The world is not enough. ---------------------------------------------------
5:12 p.m.
On 11 June 2012 17:26, Cameron Kaiser <spectre at floodgap.com> wrote:
I thought it was the latter.
My understanding, in brief, was that A/UX was only ever created to
tick the POSIX box on the US military procurement form. I thought it
was a bit of a surprise to Apple that it did as well as it did, and I
suspect it never made a profit.
What is odd to me is that, looking back from the OS X era, A/UX would
have been a really obvious successor to classic MacOS, if only it had
been ported to from 68K to PPC. But I never spotted it at the time,
and nor did Apple. Given all the expensive protracted
commercially-suicidal flailing around with Pink, Taligent, Copland and
all that, this seems really strange.
But there Apple was: it needed a new OS with a degree of MacOS
compatibility but with the features its rivals were developing and
out-competing it with: pre-emptive multitasking, good fast virtual
memory, memory protection, better security, better networking,
especially support for industry-standard stuff like TCP/IP.
And yet it owned an OS like this, internally-developed, based on Unix
but with a MacOS GUI and the ability to run MacOS apps. It just ran on
the old chip, not the new one.
Instead, there was years of trying to develop something new, or
something with IBM, or both, or buying in Be, or buying in NeXT...
Now, in the end, no argument, buying NeXT was the right thing to do
and a very good move... but looking back it seems really odd that they
didn't try A/UX. They even licenced in AIX for some machines but not
their own in-house Unix.
So, yes, perhaps there was some kind of company politics that made it
unacceptable...
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What it
doesn't go into is all the bad blood between the NeXT, A/UX, and
Classic OS groups (JK and Sokol were long time Apple Unix guys).
I shudder to ask the history. I know A/UX didn't make it into the PPC era,
but was an internecine dispute to blame, or just unwillingness to invest the
engineering time?
6:30 p.m.
On 6/11/12 2:12 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
What is odd to me is that, looking back from the OS X
era, A/UX would
have been a really obvious successor to classic MacOS, if only it had
been ported to from 68K to PPC. But I never spotted it at the time,
and nor did Apple. Given all the expensive protracted
commercially-suicidal flailing around with Pink, Taligent, Copland and
all that, this seems really strange.
The switch from Carbon to Cocoa was much more significant than the change
to the underlying OS. Pink, et. al. never got any traction because of the
demand to keep old apps and APIs working. OS X accelerated the rate at
which old software was abandoned for something new and shiny. This was not
even considered acceptable before Jobs came back. A ported A/UX would have
essentially looked like Classic, with a lot of hardware driver incompatibilities
and not a whole lot of perceivable end-user improvements. Making the OS
switch with a substantially different GUI offered something to users in
return for a lot of backwards incompatibilities.
The complete disinterest inside of Apple for anything having to do with
Mach or Unix was something I witnessed through all my time there before
1997. There were two versions of Mach (68K done in by ATG Cambridge and
later Morin's MacMach) that were around. These was considered as pretty
insignificant distractions from the work of getting the next set of features
or a new CPU supported into OS(7,8,9). Pink isolated themselves from the
rest of Apple software and put the nails solidly into their own coffins.
The A/UX group were always outsiders. They lived off on
Bubb Road, and eventually moved to DeAnza 3 as part of the Workgroup Server
(ie. Shiner) folks in the mid-90's.
8:21 p.m.
On 11 June 2012 23:30, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
The switch from Carbon to Cocoa was much more significant than the change
to the underlying OS. Pink, et. al. never got any traction because of the
demand to keep old apps and APIs working. OS X accelerated the rate at
which old software was abandoned for something new and shiny. This was not
even considered acceptable before Jobs came back. A ported A/UX would have
essentially looked like Classic, with a lot of hardware driver
incompatibilities
and not a whole lot of perceivable end-user improvements. Making the OS
switch with a substantially different GUI offered something to users in
return for a lot of backwards incompatibilities.
The complete disinterest inside of Apple for anything having to do with
Mach or Unix was something I witnessed through all my time there before
1997. There were two versions of Mach (68K done in by ATG Cambridge and
later Morin's MacMach) that were around. These was considered as pretty
insignificant distractions from the work of getting the next set of features
or a new CPU supported into OS(7,8,9). Pink isolated themselves from the
rest of Apple software and put the nails solidly into their own coffins.
The A/UX group were always outsiders. They lived off on
Bubb Road, and eventually moved to DeAnza 3 as part of the Workgroup Server
(ie. Shiner) folks in the mid-90's.
TFTI - interesting stuff.
But, not wishing to disagree, merely seeking clarification here...
I have never run A/UX. If I can find the money to pay Tony D to fix my
SE/30 and upgrade it, I want to try it, but I don't think that's
likely in the near future. So I am speaking from no practical
experience here, but...
AIUI, it /did/ offer some compatibility with mainstream Mac apps. I
think I have seen screenshots of it running MS Word, for instance. How
good that compatibility was, I don't know.
But surely, the same reasons that made it feasible to develop and
maintain for 7 years and 3 major versions would have still applied on
PowerPC, no?
It seems to me that there must be some reason why it didn't happen, as
with hindsight, it just seems a very obvious move. Apple knew it
needed a more modern, real multitasking OS to rival Win9x and NT, and
it needed to be to some degree MacOS-compatible - and yet, it had one,
sitting there.
It just seems incomprehensibly strange.
I mean, I think that what eventually happened was right and good. The
NeXT deal got Jobs back, OS X had a fresh new look, it is for all its
sins a very advanced Unix, and it has some of the best dev tools there
were. All these were important. Perhaps it would never have happened
if Apple had made A/UX 4 for PPC its new OS, and as a result, Apple
would be a fading memory now.
So in a way, it's a good thing it /didn't/ happen. But the reason sure
as hell was not foresight!
--
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Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
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Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
10:12 p.m.
On 6/11/12 5:21 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
But surely, the same reasons that made it feasible to
develop and
maintain for 7 years and 3 major versions would have still applied on
PowerPC, no?
Well, there was the problem of no toolchain for PowerPC. That wasn't
a problem if they switched to AIX. A/UX was also based on Unisoft System
V, which may have had licensing problems in volume, but I have no real
knowledge of that. The only compiler people Apple had at the time were in
the MPW group, and they would have had their hands full with MacOS tools
which used a completely different object format (PEF).
It seems to me that there must be some reason why it
didn't happen, as
with hindsight, it just seems a very obvious move. Apple knew it
needed a more modern, real multitasking OS to rival Win9x and NT, and
it needed to be to some degree MacOS-compatible - and yet, it had one,
sitting there.
It just seems incomprehensibly strange.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_%28operating_system%29
It is very difficult to explain what was going on if you weren't in the
middle of it, but that Wikipedia article gives you a pretty good idea of
how dysfunctional and out of control Apple was in the 90's. Remember,
this is the same company that let someone develop "Graphing Calculator"
and let them keep their office when they didn't even WORK for Apple any
more.
Note that there is NO mention of A/UX or Unix anywhere in there. As far
as anyone was concerned, Unix didn't exist. If it was brought up as an
alternative, it was immediately dismissed as not useful as a basis for
the Mac OS, either because of size, or perceived performance.
12 Jun
12 Jun
12:19 a.m.
At 7:12 PM -0700 6/11/12, Al Kossow wrote:
Note that there is NO mention of A/UX or Unix anywhere
in there. As far
as anyone was concerned, Unix didn't exist. If it was brought up as an
alternative, it was immediately dismissed as not useful as a basis for
the Mac OS, either because of size, or perceived performance.
If size and performance could have been a consideration, I have to
wonder if they were influenced by the B2 compliant version of A/UX.
It's a miracle that it didn't make me hate UNIX as it was the first
UNIX variant I used (it did make me hate ACL's). It's probably a
good thing that a couple days later I downloaded Linux 0.12 to try on
my 486/33.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
11:05 a.m.
On 12 June 2012 03:12, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
On 6/11/12 5:21 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
Ah, good point. I didn't know that.
Would GCC have been an option back then?
But surely, the same reasons that made it
feasible to develop and
maintain for 7 years and 3 major versions would have still applied on
PowerPC, no?
Well, there was the problem of no toolchain for PowerPC. That wasn't
a problem if they switched to AIX. A/UX was also based on Unisoft System
V, which may have had licensing problems in volume, but I have no real
knowledge of that. The only compiler people Apple had at the time were in
the MPW group, and they would have had their hands full with MacOS tools
which used a completely different object format (PEF).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copland_%28operating_system%29
It is very difficult to explain what was going on if you weren't in the
middle of it, but that Wikipedia article gives you a pretty good idea of
how dysfunctional and out of control Apple was in the 90's. Remember,
this is the same company that let someone develop "Graphing Calculator"
and let them keep their office when they didn't even WORK for Apple any
more.
Oddly, I just stumbled across & reread the history of that last night!
Note that there is NO mention of A/UX or Unix anywhere
in there. As far
as anyone was concerned, Unix didn't exist. If it was brought up as an
alternative, it was immediately dismissed as not useful as a basis for
the Mac OS, either because of size, or perceived performance.
Yes indeed. I remember watching all this going on closely at the time.
And yet, there it was, still alive in another department at Apple.
Very very odd.
It's a shame how many Apple projects came to nothing and died. The
list is long...
* Newton
* OpenDoc
* OpenTransport
* GameSprockets
* Pippin
* CyberDog
* Sherlock
* Copland, Gershwin, etc.
* A/UX
A lot of these were killed by the NeXT deal.
And yet, what has resulted is really astonishingly good... So I guess
in the end it was all worth it. Even if the new Apple Inc doesn't have
much to do with the old Apple Computer Inc.
--
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Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
11:20 a.m.
On 06/12/2012 11:05 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
It's a shame how many Apple projects came to
nothing and died. The
list is long...
* Newton
* OpenTransport
I don't know all of their cutesy little project names, but these two
at least didn't exactly fizzle. Yes, they were discontinued eventually,
but not before being in pretty popular use.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
9:13 a.m.
On Tue, 12 Jun 2012, Dave McGuire wrote:
On 06/12/2012 11:05 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
Apple is the Fox Television of the computer industry. If it's actually
interesting, it must be cancelled immediately.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Buying desktop hardware and installing a server OS doesn't make a
server-class system any more than sitting in a puddle makes you a duck.
[Cipher in a.s.r]
It's a shame how many Apple projects came to
nothing and died. The
list is long...
* Newton
* OpenTransport
I don't know all of their cutesy little project names, but these two
at least didn't exactly fizzle. Yes, they were discontinued eventually,
but not before being in pretty popular use.
2:36 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gene Buckle" <geneb at deltasoft.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2012 9:13 AM
Subject: Re: interesting Quora post on Marklar
On Tue, 12 Jun 2012, Dave McGuire wrote:
Apple is the Fox Television of the computer industry. If it's actually
interesting, it must be cancelled immediately.
Never heard of Fringe?
11:29 a.m.
On Tue, 12 Jun 2012, TeoZ wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Gene Buckle" <geneb at
deltasoft.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2012 9:13 AM
Subject: Re: interesting Quora post on Marklar
I'll see your Fringe and raise you a Firefly. :)
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://www.scarletdme.org - Get it _today_!
Buying desktop hardware and installing a server OS doesn't make a
server-class system any more than sitting in a puddle makes you a duck.
[Cipher in a.s.r]
On Tue, 12 Jun 2012, Dave McGuire wrote:
Apple is the Fox Television of the computer industry. If it's actually
interesting, it must be cancelled immediately.
Never heard of Fringe?
13 Jun
13 Jun
1:15 a.m.
New subject: Fox TV shows (was: interesting Quora post on Marklar)
In article <alpine.LFD.2.00.1206120828580.27438 at grumble.deltasoft.com>,
Gene Buckle <geneb at deltasoft.com> writes:
Firefly + Fringe = Fringe,
i.e. Firely is noise compared to Fringe's signal
Firefly is *WAY* overrated for what it was.
--
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<http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
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The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org>
Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
Never heard of
Fringe?
I'll see your Fringe and raise you a Firefly. :) 
9:29 a.m.
New subject: Fox TV shows (was: interesting Quora post on Marklar)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard" <legalize at xmission.com>
To: "cctalk" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 1:15:42 AM
Subject: Fox TV shows (was: interesting Quora post on Marklar)
In article <alpine.LFD.2.00.1206120828580.27438 at grumble.deltasoft.com>,
Gene Buckle <geneb at deltasoft.com> writes:
> > Never heard of Fringe?
> >
> I'll see your Fringe and raise you a Firefly. :)
Firefly + Fringe = Fringe,
i.e. Firely is noise compared to Fringe's signal
Firefly is *WAY* overrated for what it was.
Heresy! You obviously are a purple belly.
Cheers,
Bryan
12 Jun
12 Jun
11:37 a.m.
On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 11:20 AM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On 06/12/2012 11:05 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
The Newton was certainly big after Gary Trudeau made fun of his in
"Doonesbury" for its sometimes-quirky handwriting recognition.
Apple may have killed the product, but tens of millions, at least,
knew something about it through the comics.
(cf. http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2002/08/54580 )
-ethan
It's a shame how many Apple projects came to
nothing and died. The
list is long...
* Newton
* OpenTransport
?I don't know all of their cutesy little project names, but these two
at least didn't exactly fizzle. ?Yes, they were discontinued eventually,
but not before being in pretty popular use.
11:51 a.m.
On 6/12/12 8:37 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
The Newton was certainly big after Gary Trudeau made
fun of his in
"Doonesbury" for its sometimes-quirky handwriting recognition.
Apple may have killed the product, but tens of millions, at least,
knew something about it through the comics.
few people know that Apple kept working on handwriting recongition into the 21st century
http://www.beanblossom.in.us/larryy/anhr.html
1:19 p.m.
On 12 June 2012 16:51, Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> wrote:
On 6/12/12 8:37 AM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Fascinating! Thanks!
--
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Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
The Newton was certainly big after Gary Trudeau
made fun of his in
"Doonesbury" for its sometimes-quirky handwriting recognition.
Apple may have killed the product, but tens of millions, at least,
knew something about it through the comics.
few people know that Apple kept working on handwriting recongition into the
21st century
http://www.beanblossom.in.us/larryy/anhr.html
11:37 a.m.
On 12 June 2012 16:20, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On 06/12/2012 11:05 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
True. Ultimately killed off, though.
Indeed about the only Apple technologies that persist in Mac OS X are
QuickTime and HFS+. I think it's fair to say /everything/ else is gone
now; a few backwards-compatibility traces remain.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
It's a shame how many Apple projects came to
nothing and died. The
list is long...
* Newton
* OpenTransport
?I don't know all of their cutesy little project names, but these two
at least didn't exactly fizzle. ?Yes, they were discontinued eventually,
but not before being in pretty popular use.
11:54 a.m.
At 4:37 PM +0100 6/12/12, Liam Proven wrote:
True. Ultimately killed off, though.
Indeed about the only Apple technologies that persist in Mac OS X are
QuickTime and HFS+. I think it's fair to say /everything/ else is gone
now; a few backwards-compatibility traces remain.
I rather wish they'd kill of HFS+, weren't there rumors of moving to
ZFS a few years back?
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
11:57 a.m.
On 06/12/2012 11:37 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
On 12 June 2012 16:20, Dave McGuire <mcguire at
neurotica.com> wrote:
Sure, like everything else, though. How long does something have to
last as a product to be considered "successful"?
On 06/12/2012 11:05 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
True. Ultimately killed off, though. It's a shame how many Apple projects came to
nothing and died. The
list is long...
* Newton
* OpenTransport
I don't know all of their cutesy little project names, but these two
at least didn't exactly fizzle. Yes, they were discontinued eventually,
but not before being in pretty popular use. Indeed about the only Apple technologies that persist
in Mac OS X are
QuickTime and HFS+. I think it's fair to say /everything/ else is gone
now; a few backwards-compatibility traces remain.
Now I have to admit that it's been a long time since I've slept, but
this is confusing to me. There's TONS of Apple code in OS X and iOS
that could arguably be termed "Apple technologies". What, exactly, are
you talking about here? Do you mean "old" "Apple technologies", like
pre-OS X stuff?
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
1:23 p.m.
On 12 June 2012 16:57, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
On 06/12/2012 11:37 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
Yes, exactly that.
Apple had a whole OS ecosystem before Mac OS X: its own OS, binary
format, disk metadata system, printing system, network protocol,
network filesystem, object model, web browser, search subsystem and
front-end, sound, image and video formats, etc. etc.
OS X brought over some elements and some bits stuck around for a while
- Classic mode, for instance.
Almost all of it is gone now.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's just remarkable how radical the
transition has been. Many have said it before me, but it's as if NeXT
took over Apple rather than the other way round.
--
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Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
On 12 June 2012 16:20, Dave McGuire <mcguire
at neurotica.com> wrote:
?Sure, like everything else, though. ?How long does something have to
last as a product to be considered "successful"?
On 06/12/2012 11:05 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
True. Ultimately killed off, though. It's a shame how many Apple projects came to
nothing and died. The
list is long...
* Newton
* OpenTransport
?I don't know all of their cutesy little project names, but these two
at least didn't exactly fizzle. ?Yes, they were discontinued eventually,
but not before being in pretty popular use. Indeed about the only Apple technologies that
persist in Mac OS X are
QuickTime and HFS+. I think it's fair to say /everything/ else is gone
now; a few backwards-compatibility traces remain.
?Now I have to admit that it's been a long time since I've slept, but
this is confusing to me. ?There's TONS of Apple code in OS X and iOS
that could arguably be termed "Apple technologies". ?What, exactly, are
you talking about here? ?Do you mean "old" "Apple technologies",
like
pre-OS X stuff?
2:41 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Liam Proven" <lproven at gmail.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2012 1:23 PM
Subject: Re: interesting Quora post on Marklar
I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's just
remarkable how radical the
transition has been. Many have said it before me, but it's as if NeXT
took over Apple rather than the other way round.
Isn't that just Jobs bringing his own people in because he didn't trust the
people at Apple when he arrived?
Most of the Apple software tech he found was from after he got the boot so I
don't see him caring about any of it.
I must be one of the few that liked classic Mac OS and not OSX (why remake
a decade old user interface?).
8:19 p.m.
On 12 June 2012 19:41, TeoZ <teoz at neo.rr.com> wrote:
Isn't that just Jobs bringing his own people in because he didn't trust the
people at Apple when he arrived?
I am sure at least part of that is true, but at first, the NeXTites
were far outnumbered.
Most of the Apple software tech he found was from
after he got the boot so I
don't see him caring about any of it.
Arguably true, yes.
I must be one of the few that liked classic Mac OS and
not OSX (why remake a
decade old user interface?).
I like both, myself. There are many elements of classic MacOS that I
miss in OS X, though, from the elegance of the System Folder and the
simplicity of the customisable Apple menu, to the convenience of
drawers.
--
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13 Jun
13 Jun
1:03 a.m.
On 06/12/2012 02:41 PM, TeoZ wrote:
I must be one of the few that liked classic Mac OS and
not OSX (why
remake a decade old user interface?).
Because it worked well and everyone liked it? It's not automatically
"bad" because it's not "new", even though that seems to be The
American
Way now.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
1:13 a.m.
I must be one
of the few that liked classic Mac OS and not OSX (why
remake a decade old user interface?).
Because it worked well and everyone liked it? It's not automatically
"bad" because it's not "new", even though that seems to be The
American
Way now.
12 Jun
12 Jun
2:49 p.m.
On 06/12/2012 01:23 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
Yes, exactly that.
Apple had a whole OS ecosystem before Mac OS X: its own OS, binary
format, disk metadata system, printing system, network protocol,
network filesystem, object model, web browser, search subsystem and
front-end, sound, image and video formats, etc. etc.
OS X brought over some elements and some bits stuck around for a while
- Classic mode, for instance.
Almost all of it is gone now.
I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's just remarkable how radical the
transition has been. Many have said it before me, but it's as if NeXT
took over Apple rather than the other way round.
Ahh ok, I see what you mean. And yes I have to agree!
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
Indeed about the only Apple technologies that persist
in Mac OS X are
QuickTime and HFS+. I think it's fair to say /everything/ else is gone
now; a few backwards-compatibility traces remain.
Now I have to admit that it's been a long time since I've slept, but
this is confusing to me. There's TONS of Apple code in OS X and iOS
that could arguably be termed "Apple technologies". What, exactly, are
you talking about here? Do you mean "old" "Apple technologies",
like
pre-OS X stuff?
12:29 p.m.
On 6/12/12 8:37 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
Indeed about the only Apple technologies that persist
in Mac OS X are
QuickTime and HFS+.
There is still a lot buried under the hood.
Ken Turkowski's code for icon zoom in the dock comes to mind.
They keychain is another one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keychain_%28Mac_OS%29
which is the only thing that survived from the titanic Apple Mail/PowerTalk project.
12:33 p.m.
On Jun 12, 2012, at 11:05 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
It's a shame how many Apple projects came to
nothing and died. The
list is long...
* Newton
Wouldn't say "came to nothing". It had a fairly long run as abortive
products go. It died before its time, certainly.
* OpenDoc
...was a nice idea, but ultimately impractical. Microsoft essentially
does it with OLE, which makes a handy mess out of document formats.
* OpenTransport
I wouldn't even say it "came to nothing"; it was the primary communications
facility right up until the end of "classic" Mac OS. It wouldn't have made
a lot of sense to use on a Unix platform.
* GameSprockets
Didn't quite die, but essentially got re-absorbed as OS X components.
* Pippin
* CyberDog
I barely remember these two.
* Sherlock
Was terrible. It deserved to perish in flames. So does Spotlight, IMHO,
but it's an Important Part Of The Operating System (tm) now, especially
given Apple's apparent intent to make it increasingly difficult to find
where your documents are stored with every new OS X iteration.
- Dave
11 Jun
11 Jun
9:33 p.m.
The A/UX group were always outsiders. They lived off
on
Bubb Road, and eventually moved to DeAnza 3 as part of the Workgroup Server
(ie. Shiner) folks in the mid-90's.
I didn't realize the Shiner guys came from the A/UX group, though it makes
sense a little. Still, I assume AIX was basically handed to them and it was
just a matter of doing the port for the hardware -- or was this part of the
earlier NetWare incarnation?
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
-- require "std_disclaimer.pl"; -----------------------------------------------
11:52 a.m.
At 7:53 AM -0700 6/11/12, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
Marklar was, of course, the Intel version of OS X which
existed in Apple's
skunkworks after the apparent demise of Star Trek (classic OS on x86). I say
apparent, because this post, allegedly written by the wife of the chief
engineer, implies that Marklar rose from the ashes of Star Trek due to this
guy's efforts.
http://www.quora.com/Apple-Inc-2/How-does-Apple-keep-secrets-so-well/answer…
Not sure how true it is; perhaps Al Kossow knows.
One thing that I find suspicious about this is that the first few
Developers releases for Mac OS X ran on Intel-based systems. Apple
had to port it to PPC, they didn't have to port to Intel, as it
already ran on Intel. I'd be more inclined to believe that the PPC
processor was never intended to be the long term target for Mac OS X,
than I am to believe that at some point it didn't run on Intel.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
12:23 p.m.
On 11 Jun 2012, at 17:00, "Zane H. Healy" <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
One thing that I find suspicious about this is that
the first few Developers releases for Mac OS X ran on Intel-based systems. Apple had to
port it to PPC, they didn't have to port to Intel, as it already ran on Intel.
I'd be more inclined to believe that the PPC processor was never intended to be the
long term target for Mac OS X, than I am to believe that at some point it didn't run
on Intel.
Apple did have to port the original Mach Kernel-based OS to PPC
because it was originally OPENSTEP which ran on PA-RISC, SPARC, 680x0
and Intel.
I *don't* recall developers releases OS X that ran on Intel, but I
wasn't a registered student developer at the time, I joined ADC in
2000. I have OS X Rhapsody PR1 & 2 and those are both Mac PPC. I don't
have anything earlier but it probably isn't 'in the wild' anywhere I
could have obtained it.
I think, given it's origins, the Intel card was always in Apple's back
pocket as a contingency. What that story more likely refers to is
having a full-blooded working Intel version of OS X proper on an Intel
PC.
--
Mark Benson
http://markbenson.org/blog
http://twitter.com/MDBenson
8:30 p.m.
At 5:23 PM +0100 6/11/12, Mark Benson wrote:
On 11 Jun 2012, at 17:00, "Zane H. Healy"
<healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
The had to port more than just the Mach Microkernel. I forget at
which point they changed the UNIX layer to be based on FreeBSD. As
has been pointed out, the unfortunately chose to port the Net Info
abomination.
One thing that I find suspicious about this is
that the first few
Developers releases for Mac OS X ran on Intel-based systems. Apple
had to port it to PPC, they didn't have to port to Intel, as it
already ran on Intel. I'd be more inclined to believe that the PPC
processor was never intended to be the long term target for Mac OS
X, than I am to believe that at some point it didn't run on Intel.
Apple did have to port the original Mach Kernel-based OS to PPC
because it was originally OPENSTEP which ran on PA-RISC, SPARC, 680x0
and Intel. I *don't* recall developers releases OS X that ran
on Intel, but I
wasn't a registered student developer at the time, I joined ADC in
2000. I have OS X Rhapsody PR1 & 2 and those are both Mac PPC. I don't
have anything earlier but it probably isn't 'in the wild' anywhere I
could have obtained it.
I ceased to be a registered developer around 2001/2002 time frame (I
joined in '95), as I'd gotten married and had more important things
to spend my money on. :-)
Rather than trying to cast my mind back too far, here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_%28operating_system%29
The article seems to fail to mention "Prelude to Rhapsody", which was
sent out to developers, and was basically OPENSTEP 4.2. Many of the
Mac developers of that time, also got ahold of NeXT hardware. I used
a Pentium 133Mhz system I built specifically to run Prelude.
IIRC, while I've owned a copy of every version of Mac OS X except
10.7, I didn't actually start using it until just before 10.3 was
released. At that time I was on an original G4/450AGP (2nd one sold
in this area, and it came with a special version of System 8.6 rather
than Mac OS 9). I had to replace the video card to get Mac OS X to
be usable on that system.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Photographer |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| My flickr Photostream |
| http://www.flickr.com/photos/33848088 at N03/ |
12:54 p.m.
On 6/11/12 8:52 AM, Zane H. Healy wrote:
I'd be more inclined to believe that the PPC
processor was never intended to be the long term target for Mac OS X, than I am to believe
that at some point it didn't run on Intel.
http://www.paulbeard.org/wordpress/2002/08/31/think-different-and-keep-your…
The point of Marklar was to KEEP it working on Intel. It was a small group, since Intel
was not in the
product roadmap for several more years. How early Intel based Mac hardware existed still
hasn't been
made generally known. I suspect it existed in the portable world before desktops. As far
as desktops
were concerened, all of the product groups I worked with through the end of 2004 were
building only
with PPC.
5:37 p.m.
In article <4FD622B2.20007 at bitsavers.org>,
Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> writes:
ptions-open/
This URL seems to be unreachable...
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book
<http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
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5:52 p.m.
On 6/11/12 2:37 PM, Richard wrote:
In article<4FD622B2.20007 at bitsavers.org>,
Al Kossow<aek at bitsavers.org> writes:
ptions-open/
This URL seems to be unreachable...
here is the entire entry, from August 31, 2002
think different, and keep your options open
Apple Keeps x86 Torch Lit with ?Marklar?
Sources said more than a dozen software engineers are tasked to Marklar, and the company?s
mainstream Mac OS X team is regularly asked to modify code to address bugs that crop up
when compiling the OS
for x86. Build numbers keep pace with those of their pre-release PowerPC counterparts; for
example, Apple is internally running a complete, x86-compatible version of Jaguar, a k a
Mac OS X 10.2, which
shipped last week.
Wade spotted this one.
6:01 p.m.
On 11 June 2012 22:37, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote:
ptions-open/
This URL seems to be unreachable...
Works for me. It's short and says:
?
A CRANK?S PROGRESS
?THE ART OF WRITING IS THE ART OF DISCOVERING WHAT YOU BELIEVE.??
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Homeband names I would like to see - ideas, various - 25, more or less
- A True Story of hubris and revenge, unlike the HOPA with the white
board - When two extremes bump into each other - zeitgeist: what?s on
your collective mind - greatest hits
think different, and keep your options open
Apple Keeps x86 Torch Lit with ?Marklar?
[http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,496270,00.asp]
Sources said more than a dozen software engineers are tasked to
Marklar, and the company?s mainstream Mac OS X team is regularly asked
to modify code to address bugs that crop up when compiling the OS for
x86. Build numbers keep pace with those of their pre-release PowerPC
counterparts; for example, Apple is internally running a complete,
x86-compatible version of Jaguar, a.k.a. Mac OS X 10.2, which shipped
last week.
Wade [http://naveja.net/] spotted this one.
Share this: Share
This was written by paul. Posted on Saturday, August 31, 2002, at
10:38 AM. Filed under the value of X. Bookmark the permalink. Follow
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? keeping them honest RedHat == Redmond? ?
? 2012 ADMIN ADMIN ? THANKS, WORDPRESS. ? VERYPLAINTXT THEME BY SCOTT.
? IT'S NICE XHTML & CSS.
?
Sadly the link from the title now points to a different story:
HP TouchPad Needs 6 to 8 Weeks for Additional Shipments
[http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/HP-TouchPad-Needs-68-Weeks-for…]
--
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6:02 p.m.
On 11 June 2012 23:01, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
Sadly the link from the title now points to a different story:
Nix that. Found the original:
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Apple/Apple-Keeps-x86-Torch-Lit-with-Marklar/
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884
6:20 p.m.
On 11 Jun 2012 at 23:01, Liam Proven wrote:
Sadly the link from the title now points to a
different story:
HP TouchPad Needs 6 to 8 Weeks for Additional Shipments
[http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/HP-TouchPad-Needs-68-Wee
ks-for-Additional-Shipments-142584/]
Comes up for me on:
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Apple/Apple-Keeps-x86-Torch-Lit-with-
Marklar/
Looks like they just moved it.
--Chuck
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