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Snow Leopard and Classic Mac OS

All excellent sentiments I enjoyed reading because I for one share them. It's not about time (it probably took longer to axe features than retain them), money (you don't make or lose on something that's been there for years) or progress (as if retaining AFP and HFS compatibility for older Macs would have somehow held back OS X from moving forward). No, it's about engineering foolishness. Nevertheless, Steve Jobs has the power to be as big a fool as he sees fit.
Steve Jobs is not a fool, and was not involved in this technical kind of a decision. I've already dispelled your argument earlier in this thread.

 
Steve also didn't like Amleio, but our Finder icon is still from his era too. :)
Actually the Finder icon is from the Spindler era, first being used with the release of System 7.5 in 1994.
I believe it first showed up in 7.5.3 splash screen, which was released around the time Amelio took over. I wasn't implying that Amelio personally designed the icon, just that it is most closely associated with his tenure at Apple.

 
I've already dispelled your argument earlier in this thread.
You have not dispelled any such thing in my mind, as evidenced by my continued posting on the subject. Your previous post contained your own speculation about Mr. Jobs and the fish he prefers to fry (and perhaps even the oil he uses for the frying).

You and I simply have a difference of opinion on the matter.

 
Well, hold your horses on my resource problem. I re-downloaded some of them from the internet, and they seem to be fine. It's quite possible I screwed something up along the way. My disk image thing would be the safest, but it may not be necessary. I'd like some more input on this from other Snow Leopard users. Have you seen resource forks go bad after upgrading?

 
I've already dispelled your argument earlier in this thread.
You have not dispelled any such thing in my mind, as evidenced by my continued posting on the subject. Your previous post contained your own speculation about Mr. Jobs and the fish he prefers to fry (and perhaps even the oil he uses for the frying).

You and I simply have a difference of opinion on the matter.

So you really believe he was on his death bed waiting for a liver transplant, and he PERSONALLY made sure legacy support was dropped????

 
So you really believe he was...
First of all, you underestimate Steve Jobs.

Second, our "difference of opinion" is largely irrelevant to how I (and perhaps a few others here) personally feel about the loss of AFP (prior to ver.3) and HFS compatibility as discussed in this thread. As my earlier post clearly stated, I merely felt the same remorse that Mac128 did. I posted that without having any desire to inflame your passions or debate you about Steve Jobs.

I come back to this thread in hopes of seeing how others are finding solutions for the unfortunate decision Apple engineers made (with or without the prodding of Mr. Jobs himself). And I wish to thank Mac128 for partly answering my question about OS 10.6 compatible emulators possibly being a solution for my connectivity aims.

 
So you really believe he was...
First of all, you underestimate Steve Jobs.

Second, our "difference of opinion" is largely irrelevant to how I (and perhaps a few others here) personally feel about the loss of AFP (prior to ver.3) and HFS compatibility as discussed in this thread. As my earlier post clearly stated, I merely felt the same remorse that Mac128 did. I posted that without having any desire to inflame your passions or debate you about Steve Jobs.

I come back to this thread in hopes of seeing how others are finding solutions for the unfortunate decision Apple engineers made (with or without the prodding of Mr. Jobs himself). And I wish to thank Mac128 for partly answering my question about OS 10.6 compatible emulators possibly being a solution for my connectivity aims.
I started this thread. My discussion was technical in nature. This argument only started when you brought up personal insults to Steve Jobs, which has no place in this forum. I would be glad to getting back to a technical discussion. I consider this debate between us closed.

 
All right, scratch my 10.6 resource fork worry. I went into my Time Machine backup, and they were screwed up long before I upgraded to Snow Leopard. Whew!!!!!

 
Far be it from me to offend the reigning author of a 68kMLA thread over my inadequate reverence of a mere mortal, Steve Jobs. Although some may choose to differ, my personal belief is that he is flesh and blood. None of my words concerning the man in this thread could in any way be construed as libelous, although they would not be in line with the tremendous reverence an Apple worshiper may demand. And since my words were speculation over why certain features of 10.6 were removed, it cannot properly be said that such comments (however personal they may have been) were "excessively off-topic." My words merely excited the emotions of at least one here, which is a bit surprising to me.

I love Apple Macs, both new and vintage. And I have paid my "respect" to Mr. Jobs and company in cold hard cash through many years of purchases, and my respect for his genius continues to this day. I never had a formal "debate" with the author of this thread to begin with, nor do I or any other 68kMLA member owe excessive respect to anyone for their merely having started a particular thread. This is an open forum for members to discuss issues pertaining to a given topic, which I and others have done even if the author or a select few others personally feel otherwise. Even so, the author of this thread has participated in it very well, offering insight into his own personal testing, for the good of the community. I have great respect and thanks for that.

I once again offer thanks to those who so kindly reply with great wisdom and knowledge in this thread and others, concerning the things which I and the author of this thread write about. We are a community united by our love for old Macs. But that doesn't mean we must agree in all cases. If we did agree on most things, we would probably all be Windows users, for goodness sake.

Mac128, had I copy of 10.6 myself I would give the emulator a try. But for now I look forward to hearing your findings. Thank you also for speaking to Paul Pratt concerning Mini vMac on that issue.

Sincere thanks to all for the information in this thread (even the comments that are not 100% of a technical nature).

 
Darn, I was just getting ready to set up a network with my SE/30, Orange iMac, and Macbook...Guess I'll have to stick to the old floppies and zip disks then. $1 to anybody who can guess what my avatar is!! :(
SneakerNet, with a pass-thru a Mac that handles floppies or Zips and USB thumbdrives, - I use my Pismo, less high tech than a network, but at least I get to run the machines for another good reason.

I'll PM you about your avatar, but you can keep your $1...

 
SneakerNet, with a pass-thru a Mac that handles floppies or Zips
Nope. That won't be happening either.

Since Snow Leopard only reads HFS, there will be no writing to disks, external 1.44MB floppy, ZIP or otherwise for use with any Mac which cannot run System 8.1. That rules out all the Compacts (with the possible exception of the 8.1 hack for the SE/30 and possibly CC/CC II & Classic II), which is where this topic is posted.

So no, Apple has effectively eliminated Snow Leopard as a practical platform from which to maintain a vintage Compact Mac. A suitable emulator like Mini vMac should allow disk images to be manipulated and then read directly into ZTerm for serial modem transfer, however, there is no way to write those files to a physical HFS disk in order to use the "SneakerNet" (that is sooooo 1984). In fact those files under Mini vMac will already have to exist on HFS images in order to even get them into Mini vMac (which does not yet support OS 8.1). In the interim, SheepShaver can be used (the latest 2006 build still mostly works under SL) to read HFS+ disks and transfer them to HFS. However, anything that can run 8.1 will also not be able to work with MFS disks, so keep Mini vMac handy (much more stable under SL anyway).

FTP works from the Mac Plus forward, thought not as elegant as AFP. Just out of curiosity, we know for sure they have dropped support for AFP 2.x and earlier? I know AFP 3.0 corresponds with OS X, but it had roots in OS 8 & 9, right? So did they essentially remove AFP support prior to the introduction of HFS+ with 8.1? If so there's an interesting parallel with dropping AFP on any System which did not support HFS (i.e. 128K/512K & MFS). Perhaps AFP 3.0 requires HFS+ files structures only to be optimized?

Here's an interesting articleabout losing legacy support under SL.

 
SneakerNet, with a pass-thru a Mac that handles floppies or Zips
Nope. That won't be happening either.

Since Snow Leopard only reads HFS, there will be no writing to disks, external 1.44MB floppy, ZIP or otherwise for use with any Mac which cannot run System 8.1. That rules out all the Compacts (with the possible exception of the 8.1 hack for the SE/30 and possibly CC/CC II & Classic II), which is where this topic is posted.

So no, Apple has effectively eliminated Snow Leopard as a practical platform from which to maintain a vintage Compact Mac. A suitable emulator like Mini vMac should allow disk images to be manipulated and then read directly into ZTerm for serial modem transfer, however, there is no way to write those files to a physical HFS disk in order to use the "SneakerNet" (that is sooooo 1984). In fact those files under Mini vMac will already have to exist on HFS images in order to even get them into Mini vMac (which does not yet support OS 8.1). In the interim, SheepShaver can be used (the latest 2006 build still mostly works under SL) to read HFS+ disks and transfer them to HFS. However, anything that can run 8.1 will also not be able to work with MFS disks, so keep Mini vMac handy (much more stable under SL anyway).

FTP works from the Mac Plus forward, thought not as elegant as AFP. Just out of curiosity, we know for sure they have dropped support for AFP 2.x and earlier? I know AFP 3.0 corresponds with OS X, but it had roots in OS 8 & 9, right? So did they essentially remove AFP support prior to the introduction of HFS+ with 8.1? If so there's an interesting parallel with dropping AFP on any System which did not support HFS (i.e. 128K/512K & MFS). Perhaps AFP 3.0 requires HFS+ files structures only to be optimized?

Here's an interesting articleabout losing legacy support under SL.
I'm confused by what you mean about dropping AFP. AFP has never been dropped. AFP is just another name for AppleShare. AppleTalk has been dropped as a low level protocol, and replaced with IP, but AFP (AppleShare) is still with us. Nevertheless, 10.6 seems to require AFP 3.0, and dropped support for AFP 2.1 and 2.2 (Which could use IP instead of AppleTalk).

Mac128, have you gotten the new build of SheepShaver from 2008? It's at this link.

http://www.emaculation.com/doku.php/sheepshaver

Random notes:

Mac OS X will let you format a USB floppy with HFS+. Classic Mac OS would never let you do this. HFS+ floppies can be read by System 8.1 and up.

Classic Mac OS let's you share USB floppies over AppleShare, but won't share internal floppies. Mac OS X won't share USB floppies.

What's happened to HFS disks mirrors what happened to MFS disks. Starting with 7.6, MFS floppies were read only. 6 months laster, by System 8, they were unreadable and ejected upon insertion.

My gut feeling, Mac OS 10.7 will require a 64-bit Intel processor, will not support Rosetta (optional already in 10.6), and not read HFS disks.

10.8 drops Carbon apps. The transition Apple is trying to make will be compete! :lol:

Just my two cents. Thoughts everyone?

 
I have to disagree with you on this being Apple's desire to force us to upgrade.
You are correct of course, but the net effect is that anyone still using HFS must upgrade. And anyone who does not need a more advanced system or features might opt out because they do want to maintain backwards compatibility. Is that going to be a large number of users? No. But there are still plenty of people running G4s & G5s with Leopard (or Tiger with Intels) because they want Classic compatibility for use with old software (some of it custom for which there is no OS X counterpart) that continues to work. But imagine if you will that you have a number of drives which you have carried forward since 1995 (think ZIP disks and removable drives for which there are USB counterparts now) and continued to use in their originally Mac formatted HFS. No harm no foul. They continued to work normally as OS X happily reads and writes those files. Now, a user might be faced will converting all of those drives needlessly, because Apple felt like eliminating a perfectly useable file system which wasn't harming anybody.

I'm confused by what you mean about dropping AFP. ... 10.6 seems to require AFP 3.0, and dropped support for AFP 2.1 and 2.2 (Which could use IP instead of AppleTalk).
That's what I meant. I went on a search for dates the various versions were released and came up dry. So when did AFP 2.1 appear? OS 7.5? What version appeared with OS 8.1, and 9?

Mac128, have you gotten the new build of SheepShaver from 2008?
Thanks for that link. I had been going to Gwenole Beauchesne's site.

My gut feeling, Mac OS 10.7 will require a 64-bit Intel processor, will not support Rosetta (optional already in 10.6), and not read HFS disks. 10.8 drops Carbon apps
Yeah I think that's about right.

However, with any luck, Paul Pratt will finish his Mac II emulator before that happens and all the built-in vintage Mac support anyone needs will be in it and it will play nice with OS X 10.6 and up. The problem of course will be that there will still be no way to write to physical media like ZIP disks and floppy disks. Theoretically couldn't a disk copy program write the correct data to a disk from an image made in an emulator like Disk Copy does for MFS under 8.1+? That would solve at least part of the problem of transferring files out, but not necessarily transferring them in. I wonder if it's possible for Mini vMac to tap into the USB ports and control external drives directly? Probably need some custom drivers. The best thing would be for Mini vMac to access the serial drivers directly and use good old fashioned AppleTalk, slow but functional.

Yup. Dropping HFS has pretty much made a requirement an intermediary OS X Mac running Leopard or less to work with any vintage Macs running a 68030 or less. The only positive is that there are numerous Macs available that can likely run 10.7 & 10.8 as well as 10.5 and serve this function. Once the next generation of Macs requiring Snow Leopard hits the streets, the writing will truly be in the snow.

 
That's what I meant. I went on a search for dates the various versions were released and came up dry. So when did AFP 2.1 appear? OS 7.5? What version appeared with OS 8.1, and 9?
Mac128, check out your email. I sent something you might find useful about AFP......

 
Apple felt like eliminating a perfectly useable file system which wasn't harming anybody.
Which causes one to recall what OpenStep developers did when they took over at Apple and released the OS X Beta: the Apple menu was gone and a new Finder (from OpenStep) came on the scene. However, due to a user outcry, a more traditional Mac OS Finder and something similar to the traditional Apple menu were restored in OS 10.0. (Even so, Apple never did put the Trash back where it belongs.)

Such a glorious turnabout unfortunately won't happen now with respect to the loss of AFP 2.x and full HFS disk support due to an insufficient number of us crying out about it, but the loss is nevertheless something to openly mourn. For truly AFP and HFS were not harming any users, but it so very clearly was harming the agenda (and "not invented here" mentality) of those who gave birth to OS X.

 
I haven't seen anybody mention the fact that Snow Leopard is a from-scratch 64-bit Intel rewrite of most of MacOS. Now given that your job is to write the network stack for OS 10.6, you're going to write a modern TCP/IP stack and test and debug it. Would you take on the additional task of writing a new AppleTalk stack? This isn't a case of some old feud resulting in code getting ripped out, it's new code not being developed. Same for file system support. And the brand new Finder looks just like the old Finder except has different bugs. If you don't like 10.6, don't upgrade. Or at least wait till 10.6.5 or so when things have settled down.

It just means that same as 10.4 and 10.5, you need an intermediate machine or two to get stuff from the early OSes to your shiny new Mac. A G3 or G4 which can boot either OS9 or OSX is your friend. I keep intending to look into XModem file software for OSX for file transfers to Apple][s and early Macs. I hope there's a good thread or two on this forum to help. (Noob here.)

 
If you don't like 10.6, don't upgrade.
If new Macs come on the scene that will only run 10.6 and higher, then the suggestion of "don't upgrade" would apply to the purchase of an entire computer as well.

 
If new Macs come on the scene that will only run 10.6 and higher, then the suggestion of "don't upgrade" would apply to the purchase of an entire computer as well.
Hang on to that Cube! It's a good bridge machine as well as being "the most beautiful computer ever" in most polls.

 
Hang on to that Cube! It's a good bridge machine as well as being "the most beautiful computer ever" in most polls.
Exactly! That's what I plan on doing! There's no reason Classics Macs can't be maintained by......a Classic Mac!

I want to get a Cube and install an SSD drive into it. That would make for totally silent computing. And a Mac 512k can connect to it over AppleShare.

 
I haven't seen anybody mention the fact that Snow Leopard is a from-scratch 64-bit Intel rewrite of most of MacOS. Now given that your job is to write the network stack for OS 10.6, you're going to write a modern TCP/IP stack and test and debug it. Would you take on the additional task of writing a new AppleTalk stack? This isn't a case of some old feud resulting in code getting ripped out, it's new code not being developed. Same for file system support. And the brand new Finder looks just like the old Finder except has different bugs. If you don't like 10.6, don't upgrade. Or at least wait till 10.6.5 or so when things have settled down.
It just means that same as 10.4 and 10.5, you need an intermediate machine or two to get stuff from the early OSes to your shiny new Mac. A G3 or G4 which can boot either OS9 or OSX is your friend. I keep intending to look into XModem file software for OSX for file transfers to Apple][s and early Macs. I hope there's a good thread or two on this forum to help. (Noob here.)

Is it really such a substantial re-write?

Why would they discard a perfectly good network stack? Does a network stack really need to be 64-bit? There are no frames or packets I know of larger than 4 GB.

You must also remember than Snow Leopard is not a "64-bit" rewrite, if it is a true rewrite at all. The very first Intel Macs, based on the Core Duo and Core Solo, are 32-bit Macs.

 
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