Did Apple continue (quietly) releasing small updates to Mac OS 9 for a period of time after publicly killing it in 2002

[sailingdarter]

So officially the last release for Mac OS 9 was 9.2.2 which was released in December 2001. Jobs then publically killed Mac OS 9 at WWDC 2002. But I was poking around at some of the versions of OS 9 that were distributed in some "Classic Support" CDs with the later PPC macs and I noticed that some of the version numbers of extensions for things like AppleShare and OpenTransport were higher than the ones that came with 9.2.2.

One of them had a 3.9.4 version number on its AppleShare extension which got me poking around at some of the custom OS 9 install images that have been created by the vintage Mac Community and there are a few Extensions and Control Panels that have higher version #s than what came with 9.2.2

Did Apple (very quietly) keep OS 9 on a small bit of life support for a couple more years after publically killing it?

I am just curious if anyone knows the inside story on that one.

Thanks in advance.

 

[trag]

No inside story.    However, I did notice that the 17" 800GHz G4 iMac has its own Sound Control Panel and extensions, IIRC.   I know some of the sound components are newer than the standard 9.2.2 install, I just can't remember if it was extensions of CPs or both.

There are a number of newer components for the G4 iMac and the MDD that are required to make them work just right when booting into 9.2.2.

 

[uyjulian]

Mac OS 10.4 includes some updated components for Classic.

 

[Cory5412]

Kind of. As mentioned, various bits got updated for use in Classic Mode. Updates to components like OpenTransport or AppleShare were probably released in public with an eye toward things like making connections to servers out through 10.4 or 10.5 work better. 10.4/10.5's datasheets and manuals specify 9 compatibility, but I haven't seen anything about needing a patch, at least so far, so I don't know how "public" that was.

Apple was running an automatic update server for OS 9 for several years, so whatever came out was probably delivered to systems automatically with that tool.

The other thing is each successive system that could boot OS 9 or run it in classic mode had certain drivers or patches to make things go better. An eMac introduced in 2003 is, as far as I can remember off hand, the very newest shipping Mac OS 9.2.2 machine, and so for a long time I was using an image of its install CD to install on things like my TiBook/1.0, mostly without incident.

I've also seen references to some files I've never individually investigated, like CPU support and similar things.

Despite killing it, the real reality of the situation was that several of Apple's big and loud customer bases still needed support for stuff. Apple typically issues a couple years (or two major releases, at this point) of security patches for an outgoing version once a new version comes in, of security and functionality support. 

The reality here was the new systems with OS 9 Apple sold in 2003 wasn't just for fun and smiles - it's jokingly called the XPress Edition because among a couple others Quark was way behind at that moment, and seemed to, in public, outright believe that this whole "Mac OS X" thing would blow over as a fad and their time porting to it would have been a waste. Between that and old edutainment titles is enough, but I bet there are other industries where this is the case or where ports were still in progress. (Notably, audio.) (XPress went on to lose almost all of their entrenched market leadership in printing/publishing/page layout to inDesign.)

 

[NJRoadfan]

When launching a fresh install of OS 9 in Classic under OS X, you will be prompted to update components in the System Folder.

 

[Franklinstein]

It seems that the answer basically boils down to:

Were there updates? Yes, to the Mac OS ROM, various extensions and control panels, and things Classic needed; essentially any changes were to add support for new hardware and OS X compatibility to the existing Mac OS 9 base. These items were generally not distributed individually (aside from QuickTime and similar updates); they were included on original installer media for updated Mac models. No updates were made to Finder and System and most of the rest of the core components of Mac OS 9.2.2, at least not anything large enough to constitute a version dot increment. 

If the question is, more specifically, was there an update package to improve OS 9.2.2 on a basic PowerBook G3 or Sawtooth G4 without OS X? The answer is: no. It's possible there's a later version of Mac OS ROM or a specific individual update (for Ethernet or Airport or FireWire, etc) that may provide some benefit but you'd have to search those out yourself with the details of your specific hardware configuration.