Boy that is really unMaclike.
That's exactly what I was thinking, John
The funny thing that I now reflect on is in the amount of ways in which OS X is so non-Mac.
I agree with you Larry. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. If Apple manages to make something better than the Classic OS, I will happily switch. But it has taken me some time to adjust to the new organisation and user interface. I find myself going to the wrong control panels repeatedly or wondering which one to open. It's not always so logically spread out.
But no, I don't want to go back to OS9. Ever since System 5 the concept itself - "cooperative multitasking" was unstable. It is a godsend to finally have the applications separated into individually crashable memory partiotions, without the whole system going down. Forced quit DOES work in OSX, but before you could never really trust your Mac to still be sane and dare continue your work. How many hours of our lives have we spent Restarting?
That said, Larry is still right. The original Mac-concept was - and still is - superior to any other computer system. And the reason is that they had a simple, coherent concept to build it on, very carefully thought out (mostly by Xerox Palo Alto Research Center...). Then they designed everything from scratch to be best - not compatible or practical or really likely to succeed commercially (but it still did, largely thanx to enthusiasts like us!).
Take the file system, where every file can have a recource-part ("fork"). The System and the progs store their user interface elements, fonts, sounds, whatever in there. So tidy and elegant, no hidden files or directories - it's all in one file. And can be extended to datafiles too; a Word-document could have the fonts it used stored in its resource fork - an early PDF! OSX still prefer to run on classic' HFS system, but the resource forks are no longer used.
The Extension-system was brilliant, so easy to extend/remove single functions from the System. Windows-people still "Oohh!" when you show them the Extensions Manager. And every file with a comprehensible name and a proper icon; take a look inside Windows' or OSX' forest of sub-directories and their files to see the the difference. "NO USER SERVICABLE PARTS INSIDE"
And contrary to other PC OSs, lots of information was stored with the file (long file names, type, creator, last modified etc), which had to be emulated in easily-lost hidden desktops files on other machines. Instead of the desktop beeing cosmetic on top of some old ugly file system, the Mac was designed both software and hardware to really be what it was. Don't forget it was the prototype of all the other systems!
It's a tribute to the power of the Mac-concept that it could be extended so long and far in complexity, and still be one thing, coherent, easily understood. We didn't end up with OSX for technological reasons. Apple could very well have continued pushing their superior concept, and rewritten the Classic environment to be truly multitasking and multi-threaded.
As they were in fact doing when Steve Jobs marched on to the scene again. Still with a broken pride from being ousted years earlier, intent on showing everyone that he was still the best, still the most visionary. As was his intentions when creating the Next company and its computer (that never made it in the market). If I remember right he made Apple buy Next, killed development on the new Classic concept, and then based the Mac OS on it's NextStep system. Tata! OSX was born.
I would say that OSX is good. But it could have beeen better. On the other hand, Apple was sagging and getting obesely bureaucratic, with a bewildering array of Mac-models and no clear vison. Maybe a manic, starry eyed brute like Steve was needed to get them focused again. And he succeeded hugely - the first iMac saved Apple from bankruptcy. An his insistence on design and attention to details has brought us extremely slick and well-integrated systems ever since. There is no fan in my iBook disturbing this writing...
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