Mar 24
Today we celebrate 4 years of Mac OS X
2005 at 12.28 am posted by Veerle Pieters
Today will go down in history as Mac OS X’s official 4th birthday. Let’s take a drive down memory lane. It was 1996 and Apple was rotten to the core. I even remember that I explored switching to Windows because of the thought that Apple really could disappear. At that time it was also clear that Copland was vapor ware and Apple was really desperate for a new operating system. Everybody thought it would be BeOS but in a surprise move the CEO at that Gill Amelio announced that Apple had bought NEXT.
That’s when Steve Jobs came back to Apple as a consultant and Avie Tevanian took over OS development, leading the Rhapsody project to transform the NeXT operating system into the next generation Mac OS. Things weren’t still going in the right direction (Apple still deep in the red) and Jobs persuaded the board to fire Gill Amelio and was actually given carte blanche in returning the company back to profitability and in the hunt for a new CEO. He’s title was interim CEO.
Forward now to 1997 when Apple released the final version of OpenStep 4.2 and the first baby-steps in what would become Mac OS X. This developer’s preview showed the increasing potential of what could become the OS Mac users where waiting for. The interesting part is that at that time it didn’t run on Mac but on PC. The system engineers were able to graft a Mac OS looking interface onto Rhapsody. Rhapsody Developer Preview 1 was also the first version to feature the Darwin project, a project created to take advantage of the Mach kernel. Darwin is the Open Source project of Apple and the Unix foundation of Mac OS X.
After releasing Rhapsody DR3 Apple decided it to rename it to Mac OS X. The moment where the Aqua interface came to life. Say hello to various special effects like translucent windows, title bars and menus. Also included from that time on was Classic, the emulation part of Mac OS 9. All the basic elements that make Mac OS X great came to life like Quartz, the PDF based graphics layer of the Operating System. That’s also when Apple dumped Display PostScript in favor of Quartz.
3 years had past and much ink was used to write about Mac OS X. I remember when I found out that Apple would release the first public beta of Mac OS X at the Apple Expo in Paris my excitement reached super high levels. Never had I seen such a line of people waiting to get their hands on a beta of a Operating System. The Public Beta became the best selling beta software ever.
It convinced Apple to reinstate the Apple menu and restore the mounted disks to the desktop. Some picts of the package on my Flickr account.
So it is since then that I have been running Mac OS X and never regretted it for one moment. Mac OS X 10.0 was released on March 24th 2001, the anniversary of Apple’s shift from the Motorola 68000 processors to the Power Macs. It also became a best seller. A bit of disappointment was that at that time all major software houses like Microsoft, Adobe, Macromedia and Quark still had to develop a native version of their software. My working days where mostly spend in Classic. My opinion was that everything was better then Mac OS 9. Mac OS 9 was a dead horse and had to be restarted at least once a day. That’s also why I had such a hard time in understanding people that where saying that Mac OS 9 was so much better then OS X. Sorry but I always thought about them as idiots.
It’s safe to say that Panther marked the point that Mac OS X became mature. So if rumors are true we’ll see April as the month when Tiger gets on the scene. A sign that Tiger is ready could be this page that Apple quietly launched this week. Most of you know that Safari will have RSS in Tiger and a lot of other promising features. I’m looking forward to get my hands on copy real soon. Exciting times to be a Mac user
16served
1
Thank you Veerle for this interesting story of Mac OS X!! I’ve just bought my Mac one year ago so I didn’t know the whole “history”. I’m confident that Tiger will hit the shelves on April 15th and my credit card is already ready to order it… can’t wait for it! ;-)
2
I think one of the smartest things Apple has ever done is move to a unix like OS. Mac OS 9 was a laughing stock and I still have to use it occasionally at one of my client’s offices. It makes me weep. With OS X, Apple has reassured the public that they’re serious about speed, reliability, and development. Kudos to Steve Jobs for having the vision to bring Apple back to the limelight.
3
Freedom means the possibility to make a choice. This is also valid in the world of computers. As long as I have that freedom, I choose MacOSX over any other OS. The past 10 years in which I have used Apple hardware at home have been very exciting and the culmination was indeed the birth of OSX and more recently the new G5.
Spread the word !
4
I had an Apple LCII years ago, and haven’t looked back since! It had a 40mb hard drive and 10mb memory. I kept the brochure as a momento! It cost me the same as a single processor G5 costs now; about £1100. (That included the 12in monitor)
I’m saving my hard earned cash for a G5 and I won’t have a PC in the house!
People ask me why I have a mac, and I just smile!
Keep at it, Apple, we love you!
5
Great story. But have you tried out the different OS X variations shortly after each other. It is extremely strange in its changes. In the beta you had this strange one window mode and the icon for top level computer changed all the time. No evolution but continuous revolution.
6
Quite frankly, it was OS X that make me turn from Windows completely. Up until then, I was pretty much a “use what’s in front of me” type of guy. I would use Linux, Windows and Mac. When my boss gave me his old G3 Powerbook to use, it had the first version of OS X on it, and I was entralled and in love.
I haven’t looked back since. I still use Windows and Linux, but 98% of my time is spent here, on my lovely G4 PowerBook.
7
i had just arrived in paris for the semester at the time of that expo, and nothing could have stopped me from being there—i managed to find my way to the conference, snuck inside and immediately found an OS X demo station and hogged it as long as i could… until i tried to open Terminal.app and got my hand slapped by a booth monkey.
i had been raised a mac kid, but i had backslidden to NT for a few dark years in college. on that day, though, i returned to the fold and have been faithful ever since.
8
Yeah. I bought the public beta, and forced myself to not use OS 9 (not like I enjoyed it anyway). The best thing for me was having the terminal be based on BSD, as all our servers were FreeBSD. I was trying any and every piece of software that came down the pike. But yeah. We haven’t looked back. We have been removing OS 9 (classic mode) from our new systems and re-installs for 2 years now. And I love it.
i don’t know if I have pictures of the packaging when I got it, but i still have the packaging. And the CD. I know that much :)
9
I switched from the PC world to the Mac because of OS X. At the time I was learning about this thing called ‘LINUX’ and hated Red Hat v3. I played with different versions of LINUX and settled on FreeBSD. Once I heard that some of OS X’s core was based on FreeBSD, I switched. I purchased the first version of OS X Server without the Aqua interface and was somewhat happy with the results. Open source applications along side Adobe, M$ and others. Jackpot! Now if Tiger runs GNU stuff a bit better than I’m a happy guy.
10
Nice trip down memory lane! i was loath to leave Mac OS 9 at first, as it was my “home” environment for many years and it had served me well. But I did make the leap to OS X with the second release. By the third release I had removed os 9… (only to have to re-install it to do my taxes. quicktax runs only on classic), But once I saw the power of OS X. I _loved_ it. and it was unix at it’s core… my second favorite OS. I, like the others, am looking forward to Tiger. I hope it lives up to all the hype I have heard. I plan on upgrading to a dual G5 once it’s announced….that way i get it “free” ;-0 (ps my first was a mac 128)
11
PS forgot to mention this… MAMP!
a little birthday gift: via Apple Blog
12
I can’t wait for Tiger to be released. I hope to buy my first Mac first. I don’t have much money to spend, so it’ll be a Mac Mini for me. Nice and simple
13
Nice trip down memory lane.
Lately I was thinking to do a multiple install on my old/retired iMacG3, OS X Beta, OS X 10.1, OS X 10.2 and OS X 10.3, I might even install OS 9. Kind of a little museum of OS :-)
14
Wow, so many Mac Owners. I wonder if transition is hard from pc to mac. Perhaps, it wouldnt be but I am considering it. Especially after dell has done me very very bad with their customer service, and left me with more than disapointment - they left me with undescribably discontent. Of course, all that adds to other microsoft problems and bugs. I wonder, does Mac has windows support platform, like “Wine” for linux since Mac OS is unix based. Programs I use daily is Macromedia Fireworks (love it), Flash (love it too…). Pretty happy withh Mozilla and Firefox, and I cannot stand explorer. Other ones, like adobe photoshop and image ready. Microsoft visual studio (VB Apps. Dev).
Program I will miss the most is the novalogics Black Hawk Down wich I play to
wind down after i get home for an hour. Any input, suggestions or guidance?
Thanks in advance.
15
I so want to jump in and be a mac user. BUt unfortunately, the major thing holding me back is the lack of video games. I don’t play that much or many games. But sometimes I want to just play some Counter-Strike…. but alas can’t do that on a Mac. It’s a shame really. I guess I’m just silly. Plus I’m not a web designer (not professionally anyway) so the only real reason I’d want a Mac is because it just looks so cool.
16
Verlee,
I am seriously consedering Mac. I have visited local stores, read apple website and some web logs. Besides routine stuff people do on the pc, I use my pc for making web pages, graphic manupulation and video making. From what I understand, your uses of you mac are very similar. What are the specs of your hardware? I would appretiate the info. Thanks.